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Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

2 edits

Gem

Premium Member

[WIN8] Did windows 8 adversely affect XP hard drive?

I am having a problem with a Seagate 160GB IDE hard drive while trying to install XP on an older Intel computer with an Abit AG8 i915 motherboard.

Took the drive out and installed it on a Windows 8 system to run diagnostics and to repartition and wipe the drive.

Then tried reinstalling XP onto the drive in the old computer. XP seemed to install fine, but booted up only once after the OS was installed. Then it would refuse to boot again. Tried every jumper setting and different IDE cables as Master, Slave, and Cable select. Finally got XP to boot as far as the Windows welcome window where it either freezes or locks up depending on whether the jumper is set to Master or Slave or Cable Select. The IDE drive is recognized in the bios.

Bios IDE settings are set to "combined" mode which is supposed to allow two IDE devices and two Sata devices with the IDE devices being Primary. There are no Sata devices installed.

The bios boot settings are set correctly. The Hard Drive is set as the first boot device. There is only one hard drive in the computer and it is set in the bios as the first (only) hard drive to boot.

I use USB thumb drives, but have them removed in trying to solved the problem of the drive not completing the XP boot process. The problem still persists.

There are no Sata devices in the old computer. The problem occurs when the Optical drive is present and also occurs when the Optical drive is removed leaving only the IDE hard drive as the only device in the computer.

In other words, the problem occurs no matter what.

Tried installing XP Pro from different install CDs. Again the problem repeats itself with both XP Pro install CDs that we have here. Have not yet tried it with XP Home ed or with W7 or Vista.

Ran Seagate Drive Tools for DOS. The drive passes the Seagate Drive Tools tests.

I don't think the drive size is a problem. A 250GB IDE hard drive was pulled from another system to test in the old computer. It worked and booted Windows and ran Windows XP.

I'm near the point of tossing the 160GB hard drive, but wonder if partitioning and formatting the drive in Windows 8 prior to trying it again in XP might have done something to the drive that prevents it from working properly when attempting to reinstall XP. BTW, when reinstalling XP the W8 partition was deleted and a new XP OS partition was created on the hard drive from the XP install disc.

Any thoughts as to whats happened to this drive to prevent it from booting into windows more than just once after XP's install process is completed?

plencnerb
Premium Member
join:2000-09-25
53403-1242

plencnerb

Premium Member

Re: [WIN8] Does windows 8 adversely affect XP hard drives?

Thanks to google, I was able to find the screen where you can perform the actions on your hard drive (Create partitions, remove existing partitions, etc), as well as the format options.

The first screen is of course where you partition and configure the drive. After you removed any existing partitions, did you create one and then install, or did you just hit the enter key to "install to unpartitioned space"?

I'm also what kind of option did you select for format? That screen is the 2nd picture. Did you do a quick format, or a full format? With it being a 160 GB Drive, a full format may take some time.

--Brian

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor to Gem

Member

to Gem
Not sure what you did in Windows 8, but Win8 can create GPT partitions that can confuse the hell out of older Windows OSs.

I know of 2 easy way to deal with that:
a) use some program that wipes the HD and run that -- that should get rid of all partitions
b) use a good partition editor such as GParted that can get rid of all types of partitions, and remove them

As an aside, you probably want to run a surface analysis on that HD, too.

I normally use Hiren's bootcd, but there are many other ways to get the needed tools.

PS: I just went through the above exercise and some more ( ) not very long ago.

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy to Gem

MVM

to Gem
Just a thought. You may be lookin in the wrong place. I'd run Darik's Boot and Nuke on the drive to eliminate the issues that aurgathor See Profile pointed out. If it continues after that I'd suspect the power supply.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem to plencnerb

Premium Member

to plencnerb
I tried the XP install many many times, Brian, on that 160GB drive.

First two times were with the XP install disc, deleting all existing partitions on the drive, then doing a quick NFTS format the first time, and a Full NTFS format the second time.

Both times Windows XP installed on the drive and did the first boot into windows from the XP CD if you know what I mean, but thereafter it won't reboot into XP on the 160GB hard drive no matter what.

Then did some testing and reformatting in W8 and tried the XP installs again with the same no boot into windows result.

Then Seagate drive tests that show nothing wrong followed by a couple more XP installs that won't boot on their own into Windows after the install.

Then zeroed the drive with Seagate tools and tried more installs of XP onto the 160GB hard drive - still it won't boot on into windows after the first boot following the OS install.

Then tried installing windows on a different 250GB drive and windows boots normally.

Just stubborn, I guess. Trying to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it...
Gem

Gem to aurgathor

Premium Member

to aurgathor
Okay, based on Aurgathor's comments and based on reading up on GPT partitions on Wiki, it sounds like they "might" be the problem.

The problem is how to deal with the GPT issue. I've zeroed the hard drive with Seagate's own drive tools, but the problem still persists.

Will try Hiren's tools next and will report back. Thanks for the help, guys.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor

Member

Since you supposedly zerod said HD, that should've deleted GPT partitions, but since that's only an implicit operation, one cannot be 100% sure without verifying it in some way.

Start with the obvious.

Did you remove the CD/DVD from the optical drive after install?

What are the relevant settings in the BIOS?

Did you explicitly mark the partition active? Do you have other partitions on that drive?

Next time turn off all other boot devices, and see if the problem still repeats.

If yes, put that HD into another machine and get a smartctl log of it (i.e. "smartctl -x /dev/sdb" ) to see if there's anything wrong with the drive.

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy to plencnerb

MVM

to plencnerb
If there are questions about the drive a full format is recommeneded as it will possibly resolve issues where sectors need to be relocated due to errors on the disk. 160GB shouldn't take more than a couple hours to format. I've done full 3TB drives in less than 12.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem to aurgathor

Premium Member

to aurgathor
said by aurgathor:

Start with the obvious. See Answers to Questions asked:

Did you remove the CD/DVD from the optical drive after install? - Yes

What are the relevant settings in the BIOS? All set to boot HD first and this is the only HD. Set to boot IDE first over Sata. There are no other devices other than the DVD/CD and the 160GB Seagate HD attached. Even tried booting into Windows without the Optical drive attached, there it will get to the Windows "Welcome" screen but either just keeps running there or it locks up depending on how the drive jumper is set.

Drive Jumper was set to CS, Master, and Slave to see if any would make a difference - result was no difference.

Did you explicitly mark the partition active? - Yes and that is confirmed viewing the drive in Computer Management tool in a different computer.

Do you have other partitions on that drive? - No.

Next time turn off all other boot devices, and see if the problem still repeats. That's already been done. See answer to question 2 above.

If yes, put that HD into another machine and get a smartctl log of it (i.e. "smartctl -x /dev/sdb" ) to see if there's anything wrong with the drive. - Not sure how to do that, don't know Linus or Linux, but I have viewed the drive in other Windows machines. It is marked as a Basic Active Partition.

Add'l info. - Erased the drive with Seagate's version of True Image with no problems doing so. But the drive would not erase with Seagate Drive Tools for DOS. Short Erase worked, but Long Erase failed.

Sometimes an error message shows error reading something like "00, 0" when running the seagate diagnostics. Seagate has a "short drive test" that the drive passes. Running Seagate's long drive test now.

Also burning Hiren's Boot CD now.

More later. Interim comments/suggestions/thoughts in mean time are still welcome and desired. It's a mystery.

One more thing. Seagate Drive Tools for DOS report that the drive supports security features and that SMART is presently enabled. I don't know how to turn either of those off.
Gem

Gem to Kilroy

Premium Member

to Kilroy
said by Kilroy:

If there are questions about the drive a full format is recommeneded as it will possibly resolve issues where sectors need to be relocated due to errors on the disk. 160GB shouldn't take more than a couple hours to format. I've done full 3TB drives in less than 12.

You'd think so, but it didn't solve the problems in this case.

Also, here's an update for everyone who has replied so far:

The 160GB Seagate IDE hard drive just passed the Seagate Drive Tools for DOS "long test" without errors, but it still fails the Seagate attempt to erase the drive - possibly due to the GPT issue or possibly due to whatever security feature the drive may have that I don't know how to disable.

Does anyone know what those security features might be and how they can be disabled?

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

For Win8:
Have you tried or can you have it as a second drive and use CCleaner's wipe function or a tool like HDD Tune Pro's wipe function?

For the computer it wil be installed in:
Dban should work off a boot disk as mentioned.
Also have you used any partition tool that boots off a CD, USB to view the partition tables?
Hiren's Boot CD is one, but there are specific one's like GParted etc.

Strange that Seagate's tool for it's own drive does not work.

Might be worth moving short term to the hardware forum until you get a clean wipe before moving on to the install.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

1 edit

Gem

Premium Member

You guys are doing fine and we've already started here in the MS forum so lets stay here unless the mods force it to be moved.

Besides, other folks might have the same problem with W8 if they try moving a hard from a W8 install to an XP build.

Here's and UPDATE and answers to your questions:

1) No, I didn't try wiping the drive from CCleaner or HDD Tune, but I have wiped the drive totally with two DOS tools that did work:

-- Seagate's version of True Image has a wipe command. That one wiped the whole drive yesterday.

-- Hiren's GParted program has a DOS tool or Linux tool or whatever that just this afternoon wiped the whole drive, but...

After finishing wiping with the Hiren's disc, I booted again into Seagate's Drive Tools for DOS. That utility shows the same error message when it views the drive as before "Can't read from Partition Tables at 00, Sector 0". Actually it said "error when reading from..."

That could be the big problem with this drive and perhaps that is the reason that Seagate's Drive Tools for Dos couldn't wipe the drive, just don't know.

Caution to anyone who has a mind to try Hiren's. Using the GParted program on it to wipe my drive took several hours. Upon completion it looks like either my monitor or video card was damaged in the process. So user beware on that one.

As to using any partition tool that boots off a CD. Yes, I tried viewing the partitions with GParted, but after wiping the drive it couldn't find the drive to mount it again. Don't know if that is normal or not as I know very little about Linux. Just followed what few instructions there are on the Hiren's CD. I'm wondering if that CD is legit or not. Some of those programs may be copyrighted. Unless they are all licensed under a free Software GPL we likely should not be using it. If it infringes copyrights I'm going to toss it and don't recommend it.

I can partition the drive in Windows XP or in Windows 8 or by using the partition tools in the XP install CD. The drive appears to be fine after it is partitioned using any of those methods, but it won't boot windows after a clean install no matter which method is used to partition the drive. That's the issue we need to fix, if it can be fixed.

Part of Seagate's tools do work on the drive, just not all of them and perhaps that is due to whatever is causing the Partition Tables to be unreadable.

Still don't know anything about the potential effect of the Security features that are on the drive. Does anyone know how to disable those? or even what they are?

Any more help or advice or does anyone know what's wrong here?

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
Premium Member
join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

sivran

Premium Member

Can any other OS boot when installed on that drive? Quickest way to test that I think is to grab damn small linux, boot it, and install it. It's tiny so it can't possibly take very long to install.

FWIW I currently have a poor man's dual boot going with 8 and XP--all I gotta do is swap the drives in my bios. XP continues to boot fine and dandy.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to Gem

Premium Member

to Gem

Re: [WIN8] windows 8 adversely affects XP hard drives

Create two partitions. 1st for OS and allocate to it less then 120 GiB (I'd make it 30GiB) and second for data.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor to Gem

Member

to Gem

Re: [WIN8] Does windows 8 adversely affect XP hard drives?

said by Gem:

That utility shows the same error message when it views the drive as before "Can't read from Partition Tables at 00, Sector 0". Actually it said "error when reading from..."

That is very bad, and you may want to find out what's going on there -- the disk could be damaged. MHDD has a command that reads all sectors and displays how long it took to read them, but there should be several other suitable tools there.


Caution to anyone who has a mind to try Hiren's. Using the GParted program on it to wipe my drive took several hours. Upon completion it looks like either my monitor or video card was damaged in the process. So user beware on that one.

Can you elaborate?
lorennerol
Premium Member
join:2003-10-29
Seattle, WA

lorennerol to Gem

Premium Member

to Gem

Re: [WIN8] windows 8 adversely affects XP hard drives

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk x
Clean

Make sure you select the correct disk or you will be very sad.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem to OZO

Premium Member

to OZO
said by OZO:

Create two partitions. 1st for OS and allocate to it less then 120 GiB (I'd make it 30GiB) and second for data.

That's the way I normally install an OS. The first small partition is what I created already during the Windows XP install routine. The larger data partition would have been created from within XP later, but alas, the Windows XP install would not boot...

That's the still the problem.

Going to test it with a small Linux install in a moment to see if it will boot with that.

Be back in a bit with more information soon.
Gem

2 edits

Gem to aurgathor

Premium Member

to aurgathor

Re: [WIN8] Does windows 8 adversely affect XP hard drives?

said by aurgathor:

said by Gem:

That utility shows the same error message when it views the drive as before "Can't read from Partition Tables at 00, Sector 0". Actually it said "error when reading from..."

That is very bad, and you may want to find out what's going on there -- the disk could be damaged. MHDD has a command that reads all sectors and displays how long it took to read them, but there should be several other suitable tools there.


Caution to anyone who has a mind to try Hiren's. Using the GParted program on it to wipe my drive took several hours. Upon completion it looks like either my monitor or video card was damaged in the process. So user beware on that one.

Can you elaborate?

As to MHDD, what is the full name of that program or is that it?
Do you have a link from which to download it?

As to Hiren's and the monitor or video card that might have been damaged, what happened is that after several hours of running the disk wiping routine, I came back to a black screen with yellow dots scattered through out the display and some text that was just barely readable.

When I rebooted into the bios, I could read the bios test, but some characters were in different small blocks of color and many of the yellow dots remained. It was as if looking at a display of a target that had been shot by a shotgun with very small lead pellets and as if the target was backlighted by a yellow light.

Very gradually the display problems seem to have gotten less as the monitor and video card cooled down - that's my theory. It's now almost back to normal. Best guess is whatever the default display settings were in gparted on that disk may have been too high for my monitor or the video card. Still hoping that both will fully recover.

I'll check soon and get back on that. Obviously, I'm not on that computer to login and post here as that computer isn't working yet.

UPDATE: Partial good news on the monitor and video card.

After cooling down overnight both seem to be running more normally now. All the small yellow pin prick dots are gone from the black post screens, but some letters still appear in blocks of blue colors instead of pure white. Take a look at a normal bios post screen, you'll see only white on black, but mine now shows some letters in colored blocks.
Gem

Gem to lorennerol

Premium Member

to lorennerol

Re: [WIN8] windows 8 adversely affects XP hard drives

said by lorennerol:

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk x
Clean

Make sure you select the correct disk or you will be very sad.

Okay, but where is Diskpart? is that part of XP, W7, or W8?

If not how do I run it?

Remember, I'm not a Linux user so don't know even the most obvious things about that OS.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

XP - »support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
Win 7 and 8 - »technet.microsoft.com/en ··· 10).aspx
or
»www.sevenforums.com/tuto ··· and.html
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem

Premium Member

Thanks for those links, norwegian.

Opened CMD on an XP drive.
ran DiskPart
List Disk
Select Disk 1 (working XP drive was Drive 0)
Clean Disk 1

That ran, it only took a second.

Got a confirmation that Disk 1 was cleaned.

Then ran Seagate Drive tools for DOS. Same problem as before continues to occur. Get an error message that the Drive Tools cannot read from Partition Table 00, Sector 0.

One more question:

Same as before, what are the security features that are said to be present on this Seagate drive?

How do we disable those features if they are enabled?

Perhaps that's what is wrong here?

The Seagate drive tools for DOS can't read from partition table 00, sector 0 and apparently can't write to it either.

That may be why the "full erase" command fails when run from the Seagate Drive Tools in Dos?

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

1 edit

norwegian

Premium Member

The only thing I can think of is issuing fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console of the XP install CD.
See if it errors, and if not try an install of XP again.

Otherwise move to the hardware help to work on the smartmontools as mentioned above by aurgathor See Profile
quote:
If yes, put that HD into another machine and get a smartctl log of it (i.e. "smartctl -x /dev/sdb" ) to see if there's anything wrong with the drive.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor to Gem

Member

to Gem

Re: [WIN8] Does windows 8 adversely affect XP hard drives?

said by Gem:

As to MHDD, what is the full name of that program or is that it?
Do you have a link from which to download it?

That's the full name of the program, and it's on the Hiren CD. I think it's in hard disk tools, and it's v4.60.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to Gem

Premium Member

to Gem

Re: [WIN8] windows 8 adversely affects XP hard drives

said by Gem:

That's the way I normally install an OS. The first small partition is what I created already during the Windows XP install routine. The larger data partition would have been created from within XP later, but alas, the Windows XP install would not boot...

What is the size of your second (data) partition?

If it's bigger then 120 GiB, it will create problem with second boot at installation time. You have to change type of that partition from '0F' ("WIN95: Extended partition, LBA-mapped") to something else, unknown for WXP setup (for example: '08' - "OS/2 (v1.0-1.3 only)"). It will allow you to boot. After you complete XP setup you change partition type back. If you do it with appropriate tool and do it carefully, no data in that second partition (in case you have it there) will be lost
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem

Premium Member

said by OZO:

said by Gem:

That's the way I normally install an OS. The first small partition is what I created already during the Windows XP install routine. The larger data partition would have been created from within XP later, but alas, the Windows XP install would not boot...

What is the size of your second (data) partition?

If it's bigger then 120 GiB, it will create problem with second boot at installation time. You have to change type of that partition from '0F' ("WIN95: Extended partition, LBA-mapped") to something else, unknown for WXP setup (for example: '08' - "OS/2 (v1.0-1.3 only)"). It will allow you to boot. After you complete XP setup you change partition type back. If you do it with appropriate tool and do it carefully, no data in that second partition (in case you have it there) will be lost

At the time of the XP install there is no second partition, just unused, unpartitioned, unformatted disk space.

The small OS partition was just 20GB in size, the rest of the drive was blank at the time of the XP SP3 install.

I understand what you are saying about the 120GB limit under older Operating systems and older bioses. Did that limit still apply in Windows XP with SP3 installed in the install CD? Also, did that limit still apply on relatively modern motherboards such as the Abit AG8? I have the latest bios installed for that board, iirc.

The Abit board seems to have no problem with other 250GB and 500GB drives here so I'm wondering what caused it to konk out with a puny 160GB drive, although for some reason the 160GB drives in general were always problematic for me.

What is your opinion of the inability of Seagate's Dos Tools to read Partition Table 00, Sector 0 on this 160GB drive?
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO

Premium Member

I had similar experience, when I tried to install WXP SP3 on 300GB drive. Setup CD had no problem with partitioning the drive and using 1st small partition to put its setup files there. But at its 2nd boot it always hang. It become obvious to me that setup CD can't handle big partitions in its second phase (and why it even touch them???)... And it's not the BIOS problem. It's the problem with WXP setup, and particularly, its second phase. The only solution was to make second partition invisible for setup and thanks god it honors that "unknown" partition and leaves it alone. Installed WXP has no problem with big partitions after that...

Try as I mentioned before. Allow setup to make big second partition. Connect drive to another computer (or boot from the old 1st drive and keep new drive connected in computer). Change partition type. Then run setup CD again. Do not re-partition the new drive at this time (you can format the 1st partition, if you need). Install WXP on its 1st (small) partition. Finish setup. Then change type of the second partition back (you can do it within new installed WXP). I suggest to do partitioning before the final setup, because you will eventually need to use this way anyway. For example, later on you may want to re-install WXP on that drive, but want to keep data partition intact. Changing partition type to "unknown" for setup type and then returning it back after you finish installing WXP will help you in this scenario too.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem

Premium Member

Okay, Ozo, I now understand all of what you are saying except exactly how to I change the partition type of the second larger partition?

I understand we need to do that from another computer and from within another XP install, but how is that done?

Is that something you can do in Computer Management? If so, I've not see that option before. It could be there, I just don't know where to look to see it.

If changing the partition type requires a DOS tool and a dos command please specify exact how to say the right commands.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO

Premium Member

I guess, you can use any MBR tool. But in this case I'll show you how to use free MBRWiz.exe CLI tool, running within Windows XP. Below I use pictures for my WXP 300 GB disk, that I've partitioned at setup time to have OS partition 25MB (WXP shows it as 24GiB) and the rest were allocated for data partition

1. List all your drives:
MBRWiz /List
Let's assume you see for your new drive:

Known for WXP partition type


2. Change type of the new drive's second partition:
MBRWiz.exe /disk=1 /part=2 /type=08
Then you see that:

Unknown for WXP partition type


3. After installing XP return it back:
MBRWiz.exe /disk=1 /part=2 /type=0F

Be careful and use correct disk and partition numbers, listed by 1st command.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to Gem

MVM

to Gem
said by Gem:

What is your opinion of the inability of Seagate's Dos Tools to read Partition Table 00, Sector 0 on this 160GB drive?

I've been asked to chime in in this thread (more or less), so I'll give you my opinion:

Stop avoiding the advice that two people have already given you: you need to use smartmontools 6.0 or newer and provide output from smartctl -a for that drive. Do not edit any of the output. I can actually read/decode the output provided (this is something I tend to do a lot of on this forum, see my posts for many years) and I'm happy to do that for you.

If LBA 0 is truly unreadable, the SMART error log should show those READ_DMA or PIO requests as failed, and provide an ATA CDB history of what transpired. There is only 1 condition I can think of where an LBA read/write request would fail, but I do not want to start making assumptions until I see evidence of it.

Barring that one situation, if LBA 0 isn't readable or writeable, then the drive is worthless -- the only way to get data off the drive is to use a utility like GetDataBack (for either FAT or NTFS, depending on what the drive previously had on it) which actually reads all LBAs on the drive looking for filesystem signatures and using some general "fuzzy logic" to work out what's a file, then (hopefully) provide you a general layout of what the filesystem looks like. You will not be able to use the drive for any purpose other than this -- if LBA 0 cannot be written to, then the drive cannot be used to store an MBR or partition table, and thus should be destroyed/thrown out. LBA 0 is special.

Tools like MBRWiz.exe will attempt to read LBA 0, and therefore if the LBA cannot be read, will certainly not work or behave wrongly.

Do not start messing about with MHDD. I repeat: DO NOT START MESSING AROUND WITH MHDD. MHDD is not a "general end-user" tool and you can absolutely destroy usability of a disk this way. If the drive uses an HPA region you could destroy it and make the situation way, WAY worse. The tool is intended for folks who are very, very familiar with hard disks at a very low level.

Final comment: Windows 8 did not "destroy" your hard disk. There is absolutely nothing that, or any other OS, can do to induce LBA read/write failures.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem

Premium Member

Okay, haven't used MHDD and won't do so. Did do a surface scan test. The drive surface checked passed that test 100%.

I'm not trying to avoid what people or saying to try. Many people have said to try different things and I've been trying all of those in time.

Just tried loading a different small OS to see if it would boot independently of the install - it would not.

On to looking up the smartmon tool you suggest and will post results somehow if possible.

Is that a windows tool that I can run on the balky drive on a different computer?