[Resolved] resolution for disappearing Maxtor drives? (post #12)

[hullabaloo]

Hello everybody.

I've been on this forums so long, but this is my first post.

I had similar problems like the others.

I switched from Hitachi 120GB PATA drive to Maxtor 250GB 16MB SATA one (sig) on SATA 3/4, and since then I had only corruption and data loss. I reinstalled windows many times, and always was the same. I even lost some of my files (pictures, drivers, and other) on my second partition (same HDD). I was trying this and that and nothing helped.

And then I switched from SATA 3/4 to 1/2 (Marvell) and since then (two months agao) there are no problems at all. No windows, nor any other data corruption.

I thought that it was something wrong with Maxtor HDD, but it looks like it is nvidia SATA controler.

In the times when I was on socket A, I had Abit nf7s with two Maxtor 80GB Sata drives in raid 0 and never had a problem in a year. When I switchen to DFI nForce3 250 GB the problem started to appear very soon. Windows crashes, data loss and and and... Even with the single drives (no raid 0) was the same. I was then on Sata 3/4 because of overclocking.

Now I am at SATA 1/2 (Marvell) and everything is great, but no overclock.

I forgot to say that I don't even have any cold boot since on SATA 1/2.

I think that I will switch to PATA drive soon and OC again.

[hullabaloo]

I did now a simple test. Just switched from Sata 1/2 to 3/4 and tried to boot into windows. The computer froze at boot screen.

I switched back to sata 1/2 and everything is O.K. (I had to apply last good know configuration)

Looks like I have faulty nvidia sata controler.

[red930]

Thanks to the information on this forum I have now got a working nForce3 system with my diamondmax 10 6B300S0 drives!

 

I originally bought an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum board in September 2004 along with 2 brand new Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300GB SATA drives and needless to say back then it didn't work because of the issues outlined in this forum. At the time there was no fix so I sold the motherboard and bought an ABit AV8 3rd Eye (actually a very solid motherboard, although lacking in features..).

 

Recently I stumbled upon this forum and then turned to the good old ebay and picked up a a brand new MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum board for £45. bargin. as I had a spare Athlon64 3000 chip I thought I'd try it, and if it didn't work with my existing HD's i'd continue using the ABit/Via board.

 

Anyway, after lots of firmware upgrading and rebuilding of my partition tables with partition table doctor 3 (the only program that finds all my partitions, primary and extended and works on 600gb raid-0 arrays!) I now have a working nForce3 system with my drives!

 

My drives had the BAN1980 firmware, and were made in September 2004.

 

I found that I had to upgrade the hard drive firmware from BAN1980 to BANC1BY0 and then finally to BANC1E000 and then upgrade the motehrboard bios to version B (which is higher than v1.9 - MSI wtf ???).

 

I kept all the data on my 600GB Raid-0 array (spanning both drives). But I did have to rebuild the array, so make sure you make a note of which drive is the first one in your raid array and make a note of the stripe size and block size the latter is normally 64k blocks.

 

I used the files found earlier on this thread that someone had kindly uploaded, I'm also talking to maxtor via email but they've not sent me updated firmware yet, though i'll keep persuing them anyway - you never know i might get some free hard drives

 

Ok, and here's some pics of my setup, complete with Asetek watercooling!

 

http://www.hydras-world.com/gallery/comput...mmo533_20051203

 

Thanks DFI-Street.com members, you guys rock!

[BLJ]

i've got newer FW now. Will upload them later this day, if i find time, or tomorrow.

 

but anyway: MY issues got even whorse with them.. (ok, i'm experiencing slight another problem...)

 

cya

[ALeXP]

Hi, everybody!

I've bought a weak ago two Maxtor 7L300S0 drives with firmware version BANC1E00 and two with latest BANC1G10. The one with vE00 already twice lost boot record and wrote some rubish into first clusters, others are ok. I had to rebuild RAID5.

I'm thinking to upgrade it to vG10, do you think it could help?

Where can I read how to do this (download G10 from one drive and upload to another. Or just upload if BLJ shares this firmware=)?

Thanx!

 

BTW Greatings from Russia!

[BLJ]

http://juchli.home.solnet.ch/special/BANC_1B70.rar

http://juchli.home.solnet.ch/special/BANC_1BY0.rar

http://juchli.home.solnet.ch/special/BANC_...%20firmware.rar

http://juchli.home.solnet.ch/special/E0%20SATA.zip

 

 

i've got only 1E00. Maxtor support told me (middle of november) that they would be the latest (hahaha... seems like customers are ahead of support^^).

 

i'll take a look how to download firmware, might you please share them with me then?

 

thx

cya

 

EDIT: i can't verify it at the moment because the other pc which i need to test is beeing in use right now.

 

-Create a bootable floppy in windows and then add the file dload.exe of Version 1BY0. No other files of the package!

-Shut down

-Disconnect all drives but one with the new firmware

-boot from floppy

-type dload.exe -h oder dloadl.exe -help and look if theres a switch you may use.

 

-> i hope theres enough space on the floppy disk to store the firmware. Elseway connect another drive and try saving it on that one.

 

 

thx

 

btw.: My sister is studying in moscow at the moment (for a year)...

 

EDIT: ADDED 1B70!

[insane]

I had problems getting windows 2k to recognize my Maxtor DM SATA until I installed the NF4 IDE SW drivers.

 

I have a Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D. The drive shipped with firmware BANC1E00, which others here reported as solving their problems.

 

The drive was recognized by the BIOS, but errors were reported in the Disk Management snapin under Administrative Tools, and the drive was unavailable for use. I tried just about everything to resolve the issue without success.

 

The tip off was that the nVidia SATA controller was not present in device manager. Because of problems reported in these forums I originally shyed away from installing the IDE SW drivers, but I was at a loss to figure out how to install the SATA drivers alone. So, I finally went ahead and said 'Yes" to the IDE SW when installing the nForce 4 v6.70 drivers. The SATA controller magically appeard along with my Maxtor drive!

 

I hope this helps somebody!

[Makrolon]

Hi,

 

what is the difference between firmware-version "BANC_1E00_latest firmware.rar" and "E0 SATA.zip"? Are those two firmwares for the maxtor 7b300s0 hdd too?

 

 

THX

(Sorry for my bad english! :eek: )

[BLJ]

BANC_1E00_latest seems to be for PATA HDDs. (it didn't work with my SATA Drives). E0 SATA worked with my SATA drives.

 

cya

 

 

-----------------

 

kannst es ganz einfach ausprobieren, das DLoad.exe meldet es, wenn die FW nicht aufs Gerät passt!

Ich habe es auf eine 250GB Platte geflasht, aber die Plattengrösse spielt IMHO keine Rolle...

[Makrolon]

Thanks BLJ,

 

I’ll test the sata-firmware!

 

Last week I’ve contacted the Maxtor-support. They sent me per email the version “BANC1BY0” for sata-hdd’s. They told me that the “BY” version is the latest (for sata). But look on the date !

 

Here is the link: BANC1BY0_SATA.zip

 

 

THX

(Sorry for my bad english! :eek: )

[BLJ]

Last week I’ve contacted the Maxtor-support. They sent me per email the version “BANC1BY0” for sata-hdd’s. They told me that the “BY” version is the latest (for sata). But look on the date !

 

Here is the link: BANC1BY0_SATA.zip

 

i've compared it to the 1BY0 i've uploaded.

It's absolutely the same (see screenshot of checksums).

 

still waiting for BANC 1Gxx... nobody got it?

 

thanks

cya

[Makrolon]

Hi,

 

I go crazy :confused: ! I’ve tried to flash the firmware 100 times with the Silicon Image Sil 3114 chip on the DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR motherboard. But I get an error message “READYTIMEOUT”.

 

Here is the complete error message:

 

Working ON: Sil3114:00:00 Maxtor 7B300S0 (BANC1B70.xxx)

Exit with error code 147:

READYTIMEOUT: Time out waiting for ready

 

 

What’s wrong :sad: ? Must I change the sata-controller to an other like promise? But the most sata-controller chips are Silicon Image. And nobody of my friends has an Intel based computer. They all have an AMD/nForce based computer. What am I to do?

 

 

Big thanks for your help!!!