BSOD in XP?

[Federico Dib]

I´ll ask here before going to a HArdware forum. I just feel more comfortable around here.
Anyway..

I installed an IBM 120GB HD just for my Video capture and editing..
I have Win XP PRO. I never had any problems.. a few hangs.. but Task Manager allways worked to solve it..

But since I installed the drive.. I´ve been having BSOD that freezes the PC completely and tells me to remove the hardware..
It has only happened 4 or 6 times in 2 months..

I didn´t even know XP had Blue Screens...

Any suggestion? Commentary? Similar experience?

[Edward Tune]

Yes, as you have found out, XP has BSOD's. It is an WINNT variant and many of XP's error calls will result in a blue screen.

First, Federico, if you have anything on that hard drive, archive it off, not tomorrow or the next day, but now.

This has the feeling of being a bad hard drive.

If you installed the drive then open the case and see if the power and data cables are seated properly. Did you have to install a "Y" cable so that there was enough power sockets to add the hard drive? If so, remove it and consider upgarding the power supply. You may not have a power problem under normal conditions but when you have the C drive spinning, the D drive spinning and theCD Rom/DVD drives accessing, you may be sucking down too much power from the power supply. This is especially true if you have done major memory upgrades. The CPU and memory are major power users. Also, check to make sure that the hard drive is "floating"; i.e. that nothing on the circuit card attached to the hard drive is coming in contact with the case and make sure that the screws holding the hard drive in place are properly secured.

Where is the hard drive placed? Is it mounted between another hard drive and a CD Rom drive that you are using all of the time? You may be dealing with a heat related problem. Observe when you are having the problem. Is it on start-up? Only after two hours? Only after four hours? Hard drives (and most other equipment for that matter) are not getting bigger physically but they are getting bigger in the amount of stored information and space so that means everything must be smaller in size internally. It does not take a whole bunch of heat to cause components to 'grow' throwing tolerances off enough to cause problems. You need good air flow around all components so if you can mount hard drives and such with an empty bay between each unit your life will be easier and your equipment will last longer. This is why I like the big, tall tower cases. I have many extra bays so that I can separate equipment, more area to place fans and more area for heat to defused.

I would then attempt to do a complete re-format of that hard drive in NTFS format and see if you have any errors. When that is completed then do a full disk scan to see if that will uncover any errors.

Bottom line is that you may have a defective hard drive inside of your machine and you may need to replace it to get satisfactory operation.

Hope some/all/part of this helps with your problem.

Regards;

[Federico Dib]

Ok.. so I´ve been trying to find out some kind of pattern on the error, but so far it has happened at very random moments (no lost work so far.. but then again I´m a CTRL+S maniac). It happened once after start.. the rest of the times I´ve been going for hours or days in row without turning it off and nothing happend.. but then.. BOOM...

I don´t think its a heat problem.. my tower is pretty high and well ventilated and this drive is sitting in middle of two empty spaces...Nothing funny touching where it shouldn´t..
Besides this room is pretty cold also..

I did install it myself.. but I´m pretty sure everything in there is tight enough...
But now I suspect it could be the drive is sharing the "flat cable" (don´t know the name in english) with the CD-ROM...
COuld this be part of the problem? I sure hope so because I don´t want to buy another drive.

Still what puzzles me Is this Randomness on the error... One thing.. it has never happened while working with Vegas (yet)...

[Edward Tune]

Sounds good Federico. What I suggest right now is that you do a full disk scan on that hard drive and see if anything turns up.

[Rob Lohman]

Smells like a bad harddisk, *but* I must say that WinXP generally
handles bad harddisk pretty gracefully. Unless it can't read some
critical system component (ie, you boot from the drive).

In the past there have also been problem with certain harddisks
and IDE controllers/mainbords. Just so you know.

[Federico Dib]

I have also the 40gb version of this drive and never gave me problems with the motherboard...

I did various versions of scandisks looking for errors or whatever... and nothing was found..

And I´ve had the thing shutting down not using the drive at all...
I mean, this dirve is just video storage stuff... no programs or anyhting.. just AVI´s, MOV´s, WAV´s and a few JPGs..

I´ve had my good deal fighting against the evil forces of PC´s deamons.. so I´ll just do it again..
I learned the hard way to backup everything important very often... (back when using win 95 at the office I did it daily).

Oh well...
I´ll just wait until the thing blows up on me... or I get a paid Job I can´t allow me to loose on a bad drive...

[Edward Tune]

Here is hoping that a format will make that drive feel better.

One other question: Do you know the difference (and between the different cable types) between an IDE drive and an ATA drive?

In other words, is this new drive ATA? Did you use the cable that probably came with the drive when you bought it or did you just plug it into the cable that was already running to your CD Rom?

[Federico Dib]

The Drive is ATA... It didn´t come with any cable.. so I used the only cable left.. and it is the one coming out of the CD-ROM... allthough I have a few spares hanging around from my old PC.

Also, there is no more place on the MB to plug the Drive directly to the MB... It has to go through the CD-ROm.. or maybe if there are Cables with three connectors... I could try connecting the three Drives I have?¿

So to answer.. no I don´t know the difference between IDE and ATA... Guess I should though...

[Edward Tune]

The ATA's have a 80 wire cable and the IDE's have a 40 wire cable. There are other differences but that is the first one that you will notice. The cables are the same width... just smaller wires... An ATA drive will run on a 40 wire cable but it is not recommended. The 80 wire cable provides better shielding and grounding which gives a faster transfer rate.

Another question, did you properly set the master/slave jumper when you installed the drive. On the particular drive link you are using is the hard drive master and the CD Rom slave? Or is the CD Rom master and the hard drive slave?

It makes no difference which one is which. Just make sure that they are both not set to master or that they are both not set to slave.

[Adrian Douglas]

But now I suspect it could be the drive is sharing the "flat cable" (don´t know the name in english) with the CD-ROM...

Although this may not be the total cause of your problem it's generally not a good idea to have CD-ROMs and HDDs on the same bus. It will generally cause the faster HDD to run slowly. THe bus will onlt run as fast as the slowest component, your CD-ROM. If possible put all HDDs on the primary bus and the optical drives on the secondary bus.

[Federico Dib]

1. - THe CD-Rom is master and HD is slave, both properly set.
2. - I´ll just try to find a cable to hook all the HD on the same bus, and hope I don´t get a BSOD again.

Thanx for your help.

[Adrian Douglas]

How many drives do you have as most motherboards can only handle 4 IDE devices on the main controllers. If you want to add more drives then you should use a PCI controller and add either ATA1?? or SCSI drives to the controller. Trying to hook more than 4 IDE devices to the main controller could be causing your crashes.

[Federico Dib]

I have 3 Hard Drives and the CD rom...