I/O Disk Error...Please help - Page 6

DoctorReno · 06-12-2003, 02:15 PM

Ok, then it seems that your MoBo and floppy are fine.
Are you certain you have the jumpers on your HD set to Master? Are you certain that you are on the Primary IDE channel?

If you are certain than I have to agree with RedWolf and WD that there must be a problem with the HD. Return it seems the only thing to do at this point.

Monstermile · 06-16-2003, 11:57 AM

Well I didn't think I would be back to this thread so quick, but I'm still having issues even w/o the other drive. I figured I'd play around with everything using an older drive that I have. It is a WD 2gig. Well I got it to boot up ok using the boot disk. I deleted the old partitions and logical drives, created a new partition and went to format. It wouldn't let me. Went back in and tried again, but the original partitions were still there. Tried to delete them with FDISK to start over but they were still there. Even tried running a debug script but the original partitions still remained. I'm at a complete loss here.

I was convinced that I had a bad drive before. I still am but now I am wondering if there is/was another problem as well.

Monstermile · 06-17-2003, 01:37 PM

Bump

DoctorReno · 06-17-2003, 03:07 PM

Are you restarting your machine after FDISK? You have to restart the machine B4 you can Format. Don't know why but you have to or Format won't work.

When you restart the machine and get to the A: prompt type in "Format C: /s" with out the quotes. It should then format the HD and install the sytem files making the drive bootable.

Monstermile · 06-17-2003, 05:41 PM

Yes I was restarting it after FDISK. But why won't FDISK allow me to delete the partitions that are on there. I made two but decided to just have one. When I run it and then restart and go back to FDISK the same partitions are still there.

DoctorReno · 06-19-2003, 04:11 PM

I really can't tell you. Are you using the WD 2 gig still.
If you are going thru all the steps of FDISK correctly, first removing all partitions and then creating the new partition the size of the entire drive, it should work. This is most unusual.

I guess I'd fall back on doing a zero fill format on the drive to wipe everything including partitions and a disk overlay (if there is one). Then start all over fresh and see if it dosen't work then.

Monstermile · 06-19-2003, 04:45 PM

No I am not using the WD utilities for the old drive. They don't work. Just using a regular boot disk. Do you think it could be because the newer version of FDISK doesn't work well with older, smaller drives??

Also how exactly do I do a zero fill format???

Redwolf · 06-19-2003, 04:49 PM

Shopuld be an option in the Data Lifeguard tools. If it asks, do a 'full' zero fill.

DoctorReno · 06-19-2003, 05:38 PM

I wanted to know if you were still trying to get your system up and running with the WD 2gig drive not if you were using the WD utility disk. I'm going to assume you are using the 2 gig drive.

I don't use WD personally but I'd expect Redwolf is correct that the WD Data Lifeguard disk(s) should have a zerofill utility and that you need to run the "full" option. However... if you are correct that the WD disks don't work on your 2 gig WD drive (very strange and unlikely but...) then I'd use a different zero fill utility.
Personally, I use the Seagate DiscWizard Starter Edition which is a free download. http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...s/discwiz.html

It will take you thru making a 2 floppy set. After you create both disks, boot with them to run the program. Under UTILITIES you will find the zero fill option. It WILL work an ANY and ALL drives except SCSI I believe.

Monstermile · 06-19-2003, 07:31 PM

Oh ok. You're talking about a low level format. Writing zeros to the whole drive. Well for some reason the WD utilities disk will not work with this 2 gig drive.

I'll give the Segate utilities a try.