New SATA Drive crashes Windows XP

[Tweave]

Installed WD5000AAKS (3rd SATA drive) in Dell computer running Windows XP Pro. BIOS did not autodetect drive, so entered Setup and enabled drive manually. Then Windows did not autodetect drive, so entered Disk Management, chose drive letter, entered volume name, chose NTFS, and reformatted the entire 500GB. Much later, there was an error during formatting, and I rebooted.
Now the drive icon shows up in My Computer. But - any activity with it (mouse click, Disk Management Status, etc) IMMEDIATELY crashes Windows. The only way I can prevent Windows from crashing is to disable the drive in BIOS Setup. What should I do?

 

[Ahhk]

Im no expert, but that sounds like either a bad SATA cable or a defective drive.

Ahhk!

 

[Tweave]

Oh, and I ran Hard Drive Diagnostics from the BIOS, and it passed, so I believe the cabling and I/O is good, it's something in the partitioning or formatting or Windows interface that's screwed up, but now what?

 

[Ahhk]

Well, the BIOS didnt auto-detect it, XP didnt auto-detect it, and there was an error while formating. It definitely sounds like a hardware issue (vs software) of some kind.

If the BIOS is old maybe it cant support the large drive? Might the system only support SATA 1.5 and the drive is set (by default) to 3.0?

The odds of this being XP's fault are pretty slim. But I'll let one of the more qualified people here try to help since I'm just guessing. Sorry.

Ahhk!

 

[wolluf]

Oh, and I ran Hard Drive Diagnostics from the BIOS

Do you mean you ran Western Digital's diagnostic (lifeguard?) - or something in your bios settings?

What you're describing definitely sounds like a defective drive - but unless WD's diagnostic shows a fault, you might have a problem getting it replaced. btw - exactly how did you 'set it up manually' in the bios? Also, when you say XP did not auto detect drive, what do you mean? (you always have to partition and format a new drive using disk management or 3rd party tool before its available to XP). I'd expect XP to detect the device and load drivers for it, then you have to partition & format it. Did you try a full or quick format?

Can you try the drive in another machine?

 

[Tweave]

The diagnostics which I ran are from the BIOS, they take about 5 minutes per drive, and all 3 passed. My vintage 2004 BIOS does not have auto-detect option. But it's a simple process, when booting up, to hit F2, then select the drive, then enable or disable it. When it's enabled, Windows "sees" it. But ANY access, whether by Disk Management, Lifeguard, or clicking on the drive icon IMMEDIATELY crashes Windows.
When I first installed the drive, Windows did not see it, because it had not been partitioned or formatted. I chose the full format and it was sometime during that process that an unspecified error occurred. I'm regretting I did not choose quick format, since there was no data on the drive that needed to be wiped.

 

[Ahhk]

2004 is FAR from being vintage when it comes to HD auto-detection. Hell, that became standard by probably 1996 or so.

You also don't WANT to do a quick format on a new drive (even if you had that option).

Also, I don't know how useful the BIOS diag would be - especially with it being so "vintage" as you put it. If you can, you should try putting it in a different machine and run the WD diag on it.

It STILL sounds like a defective drive/cable.

wolluf: As for XP not detecting the drive, it will usually detect the non-initialized drive and prompt the user to initialize/format it. So something did go wrong there.

Ahhk!

 

[wolluf]

Download and run WD's non-windows diagnostics (runs from floppy or CD) - its the definitive test for determining if you can RMA drive or not (and it should tell you what's what with the drive). Bios utilities are just general purpose - not really much use (apart from catastrophic failure). I'd be 99% that its a defective drive.

Ahhk - as I said, I'd expect XP to detect the device & load drivers for it (and to tell the user that's what its doing) - and yes it usually does prompt to initialise once device is installed - but I was asking what actually happened.

Hard drive issues - first thing to do in my book is always run the drive manufacturer's diagnostic from outside windows (if one is available, if not try the hitachi diagnostic, it generally works with other makes, but doesn't give detailed results, just pass/fail)

 

[Tweave]

AHA! Don't know what made me decide to try Windows Safe Mode, but voila, now the software didn't crash, so I renamed the volume and did a full format with Disk Management running in Safe Mode. Once formatting completed, and drive declared healthy, returned to Normal Windows and everything is fine, at last. Sooo -- Windows XP had the initial error during formatting, didn't tell the user what to do. Then Windows XP crashes because of the formatting error, and doesn't insulate the operating system from whatever the heck was wrong. And you guys suspected bad cable, defective drive, hardware issue, too old BIOS, everything except what it was, a vulnerability in Windows. What a learning experience. I've posted this issue on 3 forums, and not ONE person suggested Safe Mode.

 

[wolluf]

This tale doesn't add up. I hope you really are sorted now - but if you've been giving us the full story, I doubt it. There's NO reason a healthy hard drive should act like you've described. Windows Safe mode just loads a subset of the normal drivers/services, to give a chance to be able to get into windows at all when there's a (usually) driver problem.
So if it really is working in safe mode - it suggests there's something that loads on normal mode, that's interfering with disk access (btw - when you originally formatted it, windows hadn't found the device, installed drivers and then said you need to restart before use - but you formatted without restarting?)

You originally said bios did not discover the drive - and you set it up manually (but didn't describe how when I asked).

 

[Ahhk]

Yeah, this makes NO SENSE whatsoever. As wolluf said, Safe Mode has nothing to do with the format of a HD.

Unless you have some funky format-trashing virus that doesn't load in safe mode....I missing something.

And safe mode also clearly had nothing to do with the BIOS not detecting the drive.

Oh well, good luck with your data! I sure as hell wouldn't be comfortable with that situation.

Ahhk!