Re: Hard disk becomes floppy


On Fri, 25 Nov 2005, David H. Lipman wrote:

> From: "Rob v. Albada" <tisme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> |
> | The last few days, the folowing happened:
> |
>
> < snip >
>
> |
> | In English:
> |
> | Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
> | Data or files are possibly lost.
> | Press a key to continue.
> |
> | Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
> | For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
> | is a diskette station.
> |
> | When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
> | wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
> | next crash.
> |
> | What may be the cause and how can I cure it?
> |
> | My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
> | and 2 hard drives.
> | The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
> | not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
> | DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
> | my work.)
> |
> | Kind regards,
> |
> | Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
> |
>
> Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
> respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
> not..
>
> Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
> http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm
>
> Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
> http://support.wdc.com/download/
>
> Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
> http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
>
> Seagate - SeaTools
> http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
>
> Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
> http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/
>
> Samsung - Disk manager
> http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm

Thanks for those. I'm going to bookmark them and possibly pass them on to
the other members of a computer club I belong to.

Another possibility comes to mind. Could the problem also be memory
related? If a RAM chip or module was intermittant, a cache of the disk
contents could be read back from the RAM as garbage.

A Google search for: free software "memory test"
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=free+software+%22memory+test%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

finds these on the first page of results:

"Free memory test - ZDNet UK Insight"
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/servers/0,39020445,2132568,00.htm
"Memtest86 - Memory Diagnostic Page"
http://www.memtest86.com/
"Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool"
http://www.memtest.org/
"DocMemory - Info"
http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp
"PCWorld.com - DocMemory RAM Diagnostic Software v1.45a"
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,20541,00.asp

--
Norman De Forest http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~af380/Profile.html
"> Is there anything Spamazon DOESN'T sell?
Clues. The market's too small to justify the effort."
-- Stuart Lamble in the scary devil monastery, Fri, 13 May 2005


.

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