Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[Lomi]

Hello,

yesterday I bought a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (ST3250410AS) SATA II HDD.
I installed the Barracuda immediately because my previous HDD(Maxtor 160M0 6L)
had a crash... after 7000h(!)...

The Barracuda is shown in the Bios(it seems correctly) and I copied my Backup
to the HDD. Also  the backup seems ok, because the partitions are shown in
the correct size.

After starting the PC I can see the boot-menue

for example:

IDE Channel 0 Master:   (ST3250410AS)
IDE Channel 0 Slave:     None
IDE Channel 1 Master:    My DVD RAM Drive

........
.......

later I see the PCI device listings and the last line is "Boot from CD/DVD"
and a cursor is blinking... This is all ok and Windows should begin
to start... but unfortunately it doesn't!

So I try to find out the cause for this behaviour.

One point could be the jumper settings on the Barracuda.

In the Barracuda Manual on page 42 there is shown the jumper setting. If I
compare the drawing with my Barracuda their ist fixed a grey block.

Is this the jumper?!... How can I remove it?! It looks very difficult to pull it
off, because it is set very deep and I don't want use a screw-driver or
something else because of the risk of electrostatical damage or damage of a pin.

Is this the normal factory delivery condition(the set of the grey block)?! ...
so the transfer rate is limited to 1,5Gbit/sec.... without to remove it.

Maybe someone has a hint for my problem!

Thank You!
Lomi

The Barracuda is connected with a Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal Mainboard which has
4 SATA II-ports(additional 2 eSATA ports). I'am using only one HDD(no RAID).

[BillP]

Lomi, I'll preface my remarks by stating that I am not a technician, only a computer hobbyist who has been messing with innards since '97, and no one else has responded yet to your questions.

First, removing the jumper is not difficult even though they can be snug. You can use a wood toothpick to pry off a jumper by breaking off the pick's tip and prying off the jumper by placing the pick underneath the jumper. Also, I have witnessed computer store technicians use needle nose pliers (and I have myself several times), but that always makes me nervous.

Secondly, the phrase, "Boot from CD/DVD" could indicate that you want to enter your BIOS Setup to verify that booting from a hard disk is an option. If it is, it sounds to me as though your computer does not recognize an operating system on the new HD. That could be due to incorrect parameters of your new drive. If so, that could be due to the procedure you used to "copy" your old drive to your new one.

The fact that you bought a new HD to replace one that had crashed would make me think that it would be questionable practice to copy the crashed HD, expecting its content to function well on a new disk.

Some of the (much) more experienced forum visitors can ask many more questions about the old HD ("What caused the crash?" --> if a virus, a new disk isn't the solution; Master Boot Record; DOS-level partition checker; etc etc).

[Lomi]

Hello BillP,

thank You for Your response!

Please keep in mind that English is not my native language(I'am writing from
Germany) and it is not so easy for me to describe complex technical  procedures
in a foreign language... but I will try my best.

Removing the jumper with a tooth pick is a good advice, which I will try... but
as a last option, because my system was running before with a SATA I HDD(the
damaged Maxtor), which is - related to the data transfer rate -
in accordance with the 1,5Gbit/sec jumpersetted new Barracuda.

The boot sequences  on my system is

1. Floppy disk
2. CD/DVD
3. Harddisk

I already tried to change the boot sequence and set the HDD on the first
place... but this has no effect... the OS does not start.

The crash of the Maxtor was not a software crash! Suddenly a noise came out of
my tower for about 15 seconds which was sounding like a buzz-saw seizing up in a
to hard piece of wood.
After that my MOBO gave me continuously beepsignals as a sign of a critical
incident.

I think this kind of hard disk damage is called "Headstuck to Platter-defect".

Before that my sytem was running without any problems and there is normaly
no reason why I shouldn't use my backup which I make with Acronis
Backup-Software 14 days before.... But You are right! The recovery needed 6
hours(from DVD-RAM media) and it stucks several times. Maybe an error occured.

So I will try to set up a new Windows XP system in the next days... I'am a
little unconfident because my xp is from 2003 and maybe doesn't include the
necessary drivers for SATA and large HDDs.... a lot of stress!

regards
Lomi

[BillP]

Lomi, if you have your WinXP Installation CD, with its authentication code, why not start fresh by formatting the new hd and install WinXP from the CD? If you do that, and the computer eventually boots to Windows, consider going to Microsoft first thing in order to update WinXP.

However, if there is important data on the new hdd, and you can no longer access the old hd, consider using a partition creation /manipulation program, following the POST, to view the partition setup of the new hd, which will allow you to create a partition adjacent to the current Operating System partition. You could then Move the content of the current partition to the new partition, leaving the first partition empty and - hopefully - ready to accept a new WinXP installation. If the WinXP installation doesn't like the empty partition, you would delete it and allow WinXP to re-create it.

(Unlike Windows 98, Win XP will allow multiple copies of itself on one system, provided they are on different drives. And temporarily, you could use the partition creation program to "Hide" the Moved partition.)

Your computer could be operational in a couple of hours.

[Lomi]

Hello BillP,

....  the problem is solved!

I put the Windows CD in the drive and WindowsXP-Setup told me that their is already a OS installed(my restored System). First I tried to repair it, but it didn't work.

So I formatted the system-partition(drive C) new and kept the Data Partition(partition D) without any changes.
In partion C I installed xp new .  Windows system is starting now and the Barracuda is running fine
... but it's still a lot of work to do!  If I will be finished I will use my energy to realize a better backup-solution for my OS... may be something like You mentioned before... a OS-copy on a second drive.... or maybe I should buy an external drive... something like Freeagent Pro....

Lomi

Edit: I forgot to ask if I should remove the jumper of the Barracuda for a higher performance ...or isn't it necessary?!



Message Edited by Lomi on 03-30-2008 11:48 AM

[Melonade]

you dont really have to mess with the jumper.  just leave it alone

although if you are sure that your motherboard is sata 2 then you can remove the jumper

[Lomi]

....I removed it! .... no problem! THX Lomi

[BillP]

Lomi, about having a backup OS - for several years I have used a program called HyperOS (see http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/ ). Presently the SuperGeek 2008 version costs $58 USD. This program controls Windows!!! I have a full "copy" of my main WinXP SP2 drive/partition (D) on a second HDD (H), and a partial "copy" on the C drive. I also have a compressed backup on one of my HDD's which can "restore" the D drive any time I want to delete that drive because of corruption.

If ALL data is stored on a non-OS drive/partition, you can delete a bad OS partition every day if you feel like it, and not lose any data. It takes me about 15 minutes to restore a 12 GB partition, or to create a new copy.

HyperOS does other things. (Before buying it, one should read the Forum, which provides a useful education on the workings of Windows-based computers.) It will allow a user to have numerous different OS on the same HDD, on different HDDs, whatever. It includes a version of PartionMagic that allows you to create, delete, check for errors, Move, convert, etc all your partitions.

Another solution is a Raid setup.

But it is NOT necessary to use an external HDD for the main purpose of having an OS backup.

If you (or another Forum visitor) decides to use HyperOS, I will answer any questions that the HyperOS Forum doesn't answer or make clear. Contact me at: pubresponse at hotmail dot com (written this way to hide from Internet spiders), AND in the Subject line state 'Seagate Forum' so I will not delete your e-mail.

CAUTION: NEVER partition your HDDs using more than one partitioning program!!! You cannot safely mix FDISK with PartitionMagic. They read data in different ways, and Windows XP will rebel.

[qq3]

HI.

I had similar problem with my sata and i solve it but without install new system.

I followed this steps:

1. Reboot computer and start from windows install cd

2. Start install windows (copying files on hd)

3. After first reboot and try to stop loading instalation in dos menu  you have to choose one of two windows . Second it is old windows instalation.

4. After loading windows: edit boot.ini, remove windows.0 folder

5. that's all

regards,

Q

Message Edited by qq3 on 04-12-2008 05:42 PM

Message Edited by qq3 on 04-12-2008 05:42 PM

[Justy34]

Some programs like norton ghost don't do well with coping partitions. Well they copy partitions fine, but what they do miss is the MBR (master boot record on sector 0) And when that is not copied to a new hard drive windows will not boot up. But windows will be there. Just no boot record. TrueImage 10-11 has a MBR option to be copied over to new hard drive. You can fix the MBR by installing windows on a fresh hard drive.. Then do a restore after windows is installed, but like you say thats alot more work.

Message Edited by Justy34 on 04-12-2008 07:13 PM