Reviving An Old Computer

[SonofAdam]

I have a five year old Sony VAIO computer which has given me good service with W95. About a month ago, it failed to boot up. Attempts to use Scandisk to see what is wrong also fail; it gets so far and then says that Scandisk has encountered a 'fatal error', and that 'the destination disk is full'. During the Scandisk, it finds numerous files or directories that are damaged; I usually click on the 'Fix It' option. When I run Scandisk and receive an error message, I have only two choices, to 'Fix It' or 'Don't fix it'. If I choose 'Don't fix it', the screen goes blank, says Scandisk found an error,
and then brings up a screen that says 'Data error reading drive C''Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail' . Abort or Fail shuts down the computer. Retry or Ignore simply repeats the same message. So, I can't get far enough to clear my hard drive of any files, and there seems to be no way to delete
corrupted files. Also, on boot up, a message tells me that "the system configuration manager failed to run". I also tried booting up with the Sony Emergency Recovery CD; that goes on for a while, then gives me an error that says it cannot continue and to run Scandisk! I realize I could probably buy a whole new cheapie system for the cost of replacing the hard drive in a five year old system, but I am taking it as a kind of technical challenge. Anyone have thoughts on how I might get this old thing to run, or maybe where one could buy a cheap hard disc for an old computer? Btw, I do have a new system on which I am writing this message, but there is some data on the old one that I could use. Advice appreciated, Thanks,
John

 

[SonofAdam]

Garebo asks: "You mention above that you tried to fdisk. Did you first boot via the startup disk, get to the a drive, and then run fdisk?"

Yes, ran FDISK with the boot disk in the floppy A:\> drive.
Message given was "Error reading fixed disk".

Garebo suggests: "Once you have a set of one or even more of the parameters that this drive will accept, then go to the bios and change the hard drive part to "user" or "manual" and just put in the parameters there."

Have entered the disk parameters from the Maxtor website on several occasions. Makes no difference whatsoever -- FDISK still gives error message, etc.

TedM suggests use of the Powermax utility from Maxtor. Here are the results of this experiment --

1. First time gave report of: PIIX3 Primary Master: No Device Found.
In spite of that, I told it to run what it calls an Installation Confirmation. What it returned was:
Power Connection..... Passed
Interface Cable Connection.....Passed
Master/Slave Jumpers.......Passed
BIOS Extension support.....Failed
Partition Information.....Read Fail
SMART status check.....This model predates SMART

I continued to try out some of the various diagnostic tests from Powermax. The next one I tried is called
Basic Quick Test. It returned:
Soft reset test........Passed
Drive recal test......Failed
Recal command failure, aborted command.
I don't know what a 'drive recal' is.

Next test was called an Advanced Test; it returned:
LBA 0 Blocks: 0 Read verify command failure, aborted command.

Next test was called Write Disk Pack; it returned:
LBA 0 Blocks: 256Write verify command failure, aborted command. Also an ERROR 396SY2.

2. I tried powering off and on a couple of times. On one of these power ons, Powermax reported:
PIIX3 Primary Master: QUANTUM FIREBALL_A NUMBER. This encouraged me, as it was the first time anything had reported recognizing the refurbished drive. I tried to continue the testing, but got the same result as the other tests above. I have tried to repeat this power off and on, but now it repeatedly says: PIIX3 Primary Master: No Device Found. Odd that it would recognize the refurbished disk manufacturer on one out of five power ups. LATER NOTE: it now appears that on about one of five powerups, the BIOS *does* recognize the new hard drive as QUANTUM FIREBALL... But next power off/on does not recognize the drive. Perhaps the problem is an intermittent one.

Several have suggested ditching this drive and getting a replacement; I would like to understand what is wrong with this one before trying to coax another into life. And there is a suggestion from a newsgroup to put the new hard drive in the refrigerator freezer for 10 minutes!
Need more thinking time. Thanks, guys.
John Hanley
jphanley@ix.netcom.com

 

[garebo]

the "freezer method" works sometimes but I am starting to think that perhaps you have a bios problem or a bad cable.
But you have done so very much that you prolly already put a new ide cable on, right? Just in case you don't know, there are ide 33 cables, then ide 66 100 133 cables. The ide 33 cable is lighter in color and has only 40 pins so that the wires inside the cable are larger than the ide 66 100 133 cable, which is also a darker cable as well as the noticeably thinner wires in the cable.
If the cable is the correct one and it has been replaced and the cable is installed the right way and not upside down as to pin 1, then I suspect a bios problem.
Have you flashed the bios? You can do that without the hard drive. If you already have a copy of the bios for this machine you can flash the bios. If you dont you can go to the website for your mobo and get a current bios and install it. It is very easy to do and I or someone else can help you thru this job.
I believe these are the 2 areas you have to address at this point.

 

[TedM]

Well, SonofAdam...

It looks like you are in good hands with garebo. He can probably steer you straight. If you just need some reading material you might try these links:

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/booterr-i.htm

and the subcategory under that link here:

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/fail_Failure.htm

Good Luck and God Bless!

 

[SonofAdam]

garebo asks whether I have changed out the IDE ribbon cable. No I have not. Because the BIOS is able to correctly identify the *old* drive, I have assumed that it is ok. That is a good point, perhaps I should try changing it out anyway. I counted the pins on my cable and there are 40, of which one is blanked off on the female end and an empty pin on the male side at the hard drive. There is only one way the connector will fit to the hard drive.
I don't know what is meant by 'flashing the BIOS', but will research it.
Thanks.
John Hanley

 

[garebo]

Just so you know, both the ide 33 and the ide 66 100 133 appear to both have 40 pins. The reason I mention all this is that i have run into many instances where I have an ide 33 drive and an ide 66(darker gray) cable, because sometimes it will work and sometimes it wont. So to be sure that this is not the problem you need to be 100% sure that you cable is ide 33. Course if that is the cable you have been using all along with this computer, then it has to be ide 33. But as I said, the ide 33 is light gray and the other is dark gray, the ide 33 has thicker wires inside it while the other has noticeably thinner wires inside it. ON the outside you can see the difference. I should have mentioned that they both APPEAR to have 40 pins, but in actual fact the ide 66 100 133 has 80 pins but you can only count 40 holes at the connector piece on the end. So, light gray, thick wires for 33 or dary gray, thin wires for the other.
Bios flash is not too hard. Do you know the make and model of your mobo. That is where we start. If you have that then go to the mobo website and download the latest bios update. While there you will usually find a prog or other that will take you through the steps of flashing(installing) a new bios to your bios chip on your mobo. Basically, all you do is use your startup disk to get to the dos prompt, then put in the floppy that has a copy of the new bios and then issue a few dos commands and that is all!! Then the program will install the new bios. You only have to make sure you are on a stable electrical line, there is no storm going on outside your window that will knock out your power while doing the upgrade, and that you dont touch anything that would turn power off to anything while this is going on. The whole thing only takes like 30 seconds but an important 30 seconds. If the power goes out in between your mobo is usually toast and you have to get an actual new bios chip and get it installed on your mobo. But I have flashed prolly 50 bios and never had a prob yet. You wont either!!! If you get as far as indentifying your mobo make and model, if you want, I will go to the website and find the correct bios and then tell you what to download and then walk you thru the bios upgrade. I wouldnt be surprised if a new bios upgrade or even re-installing whatever bios they have on hand will fix you up.
You mentioned above that your bios is from 1992 to 1996. So you should be able to get a newer bios for your mobo.
Last but not least, I think TedM should stay on. I feel fairly comfortable in that while I wont be giving bad instructions to SonofAdam and wont do anything to hurt his chances, I can tell by what he has written that he likely knows a lot more than I do. Funny thing though is that sometimes the less you know the better but only to a point. Sometimes a person knows too much and wont look at the little steps. They presume the other person knows them when they may not. Or they just overlook them. But TedM hasnt dont that at all. He is looking at it from a different angle than I am but we are both trying to help. Maybe even check in now and again to see how things are. Lets not stop til this is fixed!!!!

 

[TedM]

Thanks for the kind words garebo. I will try to watch this thread as time permits, but work has been a little crazy lately. I'm sure you guys will find a solution and I promise to stick my nose in where I can.

That said <wink><wink>, here comes my big ole nose... I believe that you'll find that the ultra ATA cables actually have 80 wires, but only 40 pins. The 40 pin connector is part of the IDE (ATA) standard. I think the theory is that more wires can carry a larger burst of data concurrently, hence the 80 wires vs. 40.

My parting thought is that swapping out the cable with a new, or known good one is certainly worth a try. It's been my experience that the standard 40 wire cables or ultra ATA 80 wire cables will work with ANY IDE drive. The only catch is that the newer ultra ATA drives will not run at advertized speed without a corresponding 80 pin cable. On a 92-96 vintage box ultra ATA speed is probably not a real issue.

I'm afraid that you will discover that the &quot;new&quot; drive is unrecoverable due to reasons I've specualted on above. Sad that folks sell things on auction sites that are faulty, but it happens. The &quot;old&quot; drive may be savable, but you are dedicating a lot of time and effort to fixing a drive that can be replaced inexpensively. I know money is tight (... believe me!), but I think you could find a used replacement drive of similar or larger capacity from a local shop and you would have a guarantee that it is a working drive. As I have mentioned before, a NEW, better, larger drive can be purchased for less than $80 at one of the national chain electronics stores like Best Buy, CompUSA, or Fry's.

Good luck guys! SoA, you have my e-mail address. If I can help with anything give me a shout!

 

[garebo]

I can say for sure that sometimes an ultra cable (ide 66 100 133) will work on a ide 33 hard drive but other times it wont. I have had it happen to me more than once. So make sure you are using an ide 33 cable (light gray and thick wires inside the cable) as opposed to dark gray and thinner wires inside the cable for the ultra.

To be fair, we should have mentioned changing the ide cable right up at the top as the first suggestion. You must have an extra hanging around?
Then we go to the bios issue.

 

[SonofAdam]

Hi y'all. Appreciate the recent advice. I see two things you are suggesting:
1. Try replacing the ribbon cable.
2. Flashing the BIOS.

I have hesitated before trying these options, mainly because it has seemed that the present BIOS and ribbon cable have properly recognized the &quot;old&quot; drive, the one that was corrupted. What I will do next is to try to see if the &quot;old&quot; drive is recognized on repeated attempts, or whether my earlier startup with the &quot;old&quot; drive was a fluke (just as the &quot;new&quot; drive seemed correctly recognized once in a while). I will also try to see what Powermax tells me about the &quot;old&quot; drive & will report back on results. We do have a Fry's in Houston; looking for another hard drive would give me a good excuse to visit it!

John Hanley

 

[SonofAdam]

Hello. I had a chance to do a bit more investigating. What I am working with now is what I have termed the &quot;old&quot; hard drive, the one that is corrupted. Trying to see if it can be coaxed to life. To repeat the problem:

The computer is
a five year old Sony with a Maxtor Quantum Fireball TM 3.8 GB, running
Windows 95. The original hard drive became corrupted a couple of months ago. Previous posts have centered on the &quot;new&quot; hard drive. Am posting here my attempts to revive the original hd disk. I do not need any
of the data/information previously stored on this hard disk. Here are some
experiments I have done. Some of the experiments use a Maxtor utility
called Powermax, design to troubleshoot disk problems.

Started computer with original hard drive. F3 and F1 give BIOS. BIOS
recognizes the drive as Quantum Fireball_TM.
Installed Powermax diskette in floppy drive. Restarted.
Old hard drive is detected as PIIX3 Primary Master.

First test: Installation Confirmation:
Power Connection: Passed
Interface Cable Connection: Passed
Master/Slave Jumpers: Passed
BIOS Extension Support: Failed
Partition Information: Present
SMART Status Check: This model predates SMART.
Drive is correctly installed.
Installation Confirmation Code 005.
However, your system's BIOS does not support drives this large. You will not
be able to access the full capacity of this drive without upgrading your
BIOS or using the MaxBlast Installation software.

Second test: Basic Quick (90 Second) Test:
Maximum LBA: 7539840
Soft reset test...Passed
Drive recal test....Passed
Drive identify test....Passed
Drive R/W Buffer test....Passed
Read Verify OD......Failed
Read verify command failure, uncorrectable ECC. (Front of disk scan)
This drive has failed one or more tests. If you do not have a backup of the
data, please do so now if possible. You may attempt to repair the drive
using the advanced test, or you may contact Maxtor Service and Support. Tell
the representative that the diagnostic software reported the following error
code: 396R01.


Third test: Advanced Test
Scanning the drive....
LBA: 0 Blocks: 0
Read verify command failure, uncorrectable ECC. (Front of disk scan)
This drive has failed one or more tests. If you do not have a backup of the
data, please do so now if possible. You may attempt to repair the drive
using the advanced test, or you may contact Maxtor Service and Support. Tell
the representative that the diagnostic software reported the following error
code: 396R03.

Fourth Test: Write Disk Pack (low level format)
Maximum LBA: 7539840
Writing the drive.........
LBA: 7539712 Blocks: 128
Write Disk Pack been re-written with zeros.

Fifth Test: Advanced Test
Scanning the drive....
LBA: 0 Blocks: 0
Read verify command failure, uncorrectable ECC. (Whole Disk Scan) *Note
difference from Third Test
This drive has failed one or more tests. If you do not have a backup of the
data, please do so now if possible. You may attempt to repair the drive
using the advanced test, or you may contact Maxtor Service and Support. Tell
the representative that the diagnostic software reported the following error
code: 396R03.

Sixth Test: Burn-in Test
Read verify command failure, uncorrectable ECC. (Whole Disk Scan)

Seventh Test: Installation Confirmation
Power Connection: Passed
Interface Cable Connection: Passed
Master/Slave Jumpers: Passed
BIOS Extension Support: Failed
Partition Information: Absent
SMART Status Check: This model predates SMART.
Note that this drive has not been partitioned. You will not be able to use
this drive until it is partitioned and formatted. Use MaxBlast or your
Operating System's utilities to partition and format your drive.

Next Step ---> Remove Powermax floppy and insert W95 Floppy Boot Disk.
Restart. Option 5, No CD ROM Support.

FDISK
1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive.
Enter
1. Create Primary DOS partition
Enter
Got a Write Protect violation message after 9% of the disk was
Tells me to restart, which I do.
Repeated FDISK several times, always stops at 9%. It creates a Primary DOS
Partition of only 504 MBytes. If I try to Create an Extended DOS Partition,
it tells me there is not enough space.
A:/> FDISK/STATUS
Disk Drv Mbytes Free Usage
1 504 1 100%
C: 503

Says I have 1 disk 504Mbytes
---------------------------------------------------------
I do not understand:
why FDISK failed on Extension Support?
what the Read Verify command is or does, or why it failed?
what an uncorrectable ECC is?
why fdisk only created a 504Mbyte partition, when the disk capacity is 3.8 GB?

If you have survived reading this far, can you comment on what I have done? Any help appreciated.

John Hanley

 

[JLSigman]

Hmmmm... Write Protection violations usually mean that it runs into bad sectors it can't do anything with. And 504MB is 7.8ish% of 3.4GB (math nerd aura), all that FDISK got to. Sounds like there's something on that hard drive, possibly a physical error on the platters themselves, that's keep FDISK (and, earlier, SCANDISK) from continuing.

Daughter of Eve, Jennifer Sigman
1/2 of the IT staff (does that make me assistant manager?)

 

[garebo]

OK, this thread is long and a bit confusing.
How many mb was original drive and what is the size of the new drive, which, if i remember correctly, is used also.

If they are the same size, looks like the second drive has problems with it.

Also, I seem to remember you replacing the cmos battery. Guessing that if the other battery was producing under 3 volts, then perhaps you need to flash your bios. You do know the make and model so you should be able to go to the website and get the newest bios for this machine. Also get the bios flash prog there as well.
Then you flash the bios, which means running using the flash prog.
Perhaps that might be the place to start.
Otherwise, and I think the bios should be done first, but otherwise, use fdisk on this hard drive and delete the stuff you have on this drive. You have 2 delete orders to give to fdisk i believe. You will see on fdisk.

Then start fdisk all over. The second command you mentioned above was not necessary as you were installing another partion.
All you have to do is create one dos partition and then make it active. Dont do anything else in dfisk. This involves 2 separate steps. Create on dos partition and then it will ask you if you want to make it active and you say yes. Then you are done except that you need to reboot and then format the hard drive.
By the way, when you enter fdisk it asks you a question and you have to answer &quot;yes&quot; to that question before it even enters fdisk. Did you answer &quot;yes&quot; the when you entered fdisk. Anyway, you only have to make the one dos partition and then make it active.

 

[SonofAdam]

garebo -- sorry this thread has turned into a marathon, but I do appreciate your willingness to look at it occasionally.

garebo asks: &quot;How many mb was original drive and what is the size of the new drive, which, if i remember correctly, is used also.&quot;

Both the original and the new hard drive are the same capacity, 3.8GB. Earlier postings in this thread were about my attempt to make the new hard drive work. My last
post is about work on the *original* hard drive.

I have been trying to 'flash' the bios as suggested. Here are results of recent experiments with that original drive.

Trying to update the BIOS.
Set a choice in BIOS about IDE communications, set it from sort of 'standard' to 'Auto Detect'. I got for the first time, the option in FDISK to &quot;Enable large disk support&quot;, and selected yes. FDISK nows partitions 1 partition on the hard disk to about 3.7GB. Attempts to format have failed, &quot;invalid disk specification&quot;.

I believe the BIOS is from AMI, AMIBIOS version 1.00.08.DD04, based on the message at top of screen when first turning on the machine. Have downloaded AMI update files from the AMI.com website. Two files after unzipping:

AMI703E.COM -- this is called an AMIFLASH Flash Programming Utility, Version 7.03E

F82757.EXE

After booting up with W95 boot floppy, inserted AMIFLASH disk into floppy.

Running AMI703E.COM gives message: &quot;System BIOS does not have Flash support&quot;.

Running F82757.EXE gives messages:
&quot;DOS/4G Protected Mode Run-time Version 2.01A&quot;
&quot;Error 18 - Chipset/Flash part isn't available. The function will be invalid.&quot;

Looking some more at the AMI website, downloaded a utility to indentify the motherboard -- AMIMBID.
Ran this program which gave messages:
&quot;The Manufacturer Code Detected () does not have a data base entry.&quot;
&quot;An AMIBIOS Project Tag String was not detected in this BIOS&quot;
&quot;No AMIBIOS Project ID....was found in memory&quot;.

So, my attempts to flash the bios seem to give me another dead end. I am looking for other ways to update the BIOS, and may have found one on bootdisk.com; will try that soon.

John Hanley
jphanley@ix.netcom.com

 

[garebo]

ok, first off, I have received a heck of a lot of help in the past, so I am only paying it back by trying to help you.
Plus, I still run into probs and still get help so I will never really repay the forums for the help I have received.

Good news first, if you got it to fdisk at 3.7 out of 3.7 you got full value. Sometimes you can get as low as 3.5 out of 3.8 so you have done well.
Your drive will format. Make sure it cable is on tight and drive set to master. ( I do hope that when you were in fdisk that you said yes when it asked if you wanted the hard drive partition active, but you prolly did,)
Put the boot disk in and let it boot to the a:\ prompt.
Then type in format c:
dont put \ in after format c:\ - like that, leave out the \.
If that wont work then do this: format d:
and if that doesnt work do : format e:
c or d should work!!
But if not, you are ok, cuz now all you have to do is get the disk util for the drive. I forget what it is, but all you have to do is get the name of the drive, for example, maxtor, and go to maxtor.com, and then find the hard drive utility. download the util and put in on a floppy. Then put floppy in and turn machine on. You have it booting to a: already from last time. Then when you are at the dos prompt you have to run the executable: like diag.exe or whatever the name is. Then you can have the util format the drive.
One of the 2 ways will work for sure. You are on your way now!!!!
And you likely dont need the bios update. Looks like your bios isnt flashable? I wonder though, if you got a bios update, where did it come from and how could it be a fhashable update when the bios is not flashable? Something fishy there.

If you want, give me or us the websites and I/we can check it out for you?

 

[garebo]

pardon me, I thought that you had d\loaded a bios update. After reading your last remarks I see that you used the ami identifier util tool to get that info.
Prolly, doesnt matter, since you are using exact same hard drive anyway. I only mentioned that for future use. If your present bios wont accept a larger hard drive then a bios update would likely fix that. But at present you dont need it.

 

[TedM]

Sticking my nose in again!

Common mistake often made with FDISK... You MUST reboot before trying to Format. You probably did, but just to be sure I thought I'd mention it.

Also, SoA, I forwarded a note to you a while back that had a link to the Sony website for BIOS updates. As I recall you are running ver. 8 and the newset is ver. 10. The reason you got the &quot;The Manufacturer Code Detected () does not have a data base entry.&quot; error from the AMI update utility is because AMI and all the other BIOS developers write a generic BIOS and the OEM manufacturers use their own modified version of that code. It is ALWAYS a best practice to use the OEM's version of the BIOS flash regardless! Usually, an attempt to flash an OEM BIOS with a generic, or wrong, code level will yield an error like the one listed. Sometimes however you have the capability to override that and do the update anyway, which can be dangerous. I would advise reading all the warnings on any BIOS flash you attempt. A wrong flash can render your PC useless in some cases.

Again... My advice is to toss the old drives and buy a newer one. Since your old drive was over 2gb and was working fine before the crash, your BIOS obviously understands large drive support. Refreshing it to the current code level might be helpful, though.

Good luck!

TedM

 

[SonofAdam]

Hi guys. I am in process of obtaining another Quantum hard drive, since the two I have not yet responded to our ministrations. Actually (and this is a bit funny), I have bid on a package of three, yes 3!, Quantum Fireball TM 3.8GB drives in a package on Ebay. The total price was about what I paid earlier for what has been the 'new' drive. Yes, I am a little odd in this, but the process is interesting to this retired guy. I will, in the meantime, be trying the latest suggestions from garebo and TedM. When I get the three drives, I plan to start a new thread.
How can this be fun?, well, my brother collects stamps; collecting a few hard drives may be the start of something big. Or not! Thanks for continued help.

John Hanley
jphanley@ix.netcom.com

 

[SonofAdam]

Trying to polish off this thread...
garebo suggests I try format c: after fdisk. Result is
&quot;Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable.
Format terminated&quot;. I also tried format d: and format e: with the messages &quot;Invalid drive specification&quot;.
I have tried using the Maxtor utility called MaxBlast which is advertised to efficiently partition and format Maxtor Quantum drives. Basically, this utility failed, with the message &quot;the number of used sectors could not be calculated because there was a device error reading drive 1 absolute sector 219 count 31&quot;. Clicking ok got me back to my A:\ prompt. Well, that seems about it for the original hard drive. Next stop is to receive the additional new ones and see if one of those will work. Onward!
John Hanley

 

[fasttoon]

I take it that you have not solved the problem.

Heres a couple of ideas.

1. power supply is old maybe its not supplying enough power, not enough power can corrupt and destroy hard drives as well as other components, Also if there has been uneven power and this happens a lot at home then you could have burned out internal saftey switch (like a fuse, I don't know what the technical term is) and let thru surges, spikes, sags that while not enough to affect most components or appliance on the same circuit could be enough to scramble data on hard drive and could also have corrupted your motherboard, ram, etc.

2. long thread however I remember you mentioned 1992? and also 1996, in any case you may have to use software to enable bios to see drive, some computers built around 1995/1996 needed software to enable bios to &quot;see&quot; hard drives over 2.1gb, computers built prior to 1994 could not &quot;see&quot; hard drives over 528mb without software.

Theory - somehow your EZ-bios or other software was corrupted/erased/etc from your original hard drive, and since your &quot;new&quot; hard drive did not have this bios extention software installed you would have the same problem. How did your original hard drive lose it if it had it? Could be a bad power supply, spike or lag and the data gets scrambled.

Anyway a couple of suggestions that were not covered.