I am having a problem with a SeaGate Barracuda 200 MB drive that was installed to replace a failing IBM Deskstar. The drive was installed using the SeaGate software that ghosted the old drive when the new was connected as a slave. I successfully got the new drive running with no difficulties whatsoever as the new master. I left the old drive as a primary slave until I was done moving files to the new drive. The system worked fine for about a week, then performance got squirrely and I rebooted. (It had been rebooted multiple times after being put into service as the master drive with no problems of any kind prior to this occurrence) Nothing has worked since. I get the 'A disk read error occurred' and CTRL-ALT-DELETE just repeats the same sequence. Allowing it to boot from the CD gets me a CHECKING HARDWARE CONFIGURATION, followed by a black screen and no visible signs of life. I put a new drive cable on, replaced the master jumper on the drive, etc., nothing has worked. SeaGates Desktop diagnostic shows the drive to be perfectly fine when booting from their floppies. It did show a severe problem with the old deskstar, which I removed from use during diagnostics to ensure that wasn't creating a problem for me. The problem continues regardless of whether the old drive is slaved, whether the new drive is in cable select or set to primary master. If I attempt to start with no hard drive, the windows setup program on the CD takes right off into setup as it should. Conversation with SeaGate has led me no where. I'd really appreciate some suggestions on this difficulty. I have seen many other similar problems posted elsewhere, but have yet to see anyone post a reply indicating a solution. Here's a great chance for all the super techies to show
their stuff.
Thanks

Can you re-ghost the SeaGate from the soon-to-fail DeskStar and see if it works after that? Have you updated the BIOS on this system? Basically sounds like the Windows config you sent to the new drive is having problems...possibly there was heavy fragmentation on the DeskStar? I'd say if you can get to Windows after re-ghosting then you'd want to:

1. Upgrade drivers and make sure it recognizes the new disk properly.
2. Update the BIOS (generally a good step for this kind of hardware issue)
3. Defrag if necessary ASAP.

The Deskstar was making some pretty horrible noises after this latest problem began, but that is certainly worth a try to see if it will spin up. I've got nothing to lose by switching the cable and moving a jumper to see if I can redo it. The Deskstar had been recently defraged (about two weeks before all this started with the deskstar itself). Everytime that I write "Deskstar," I want to write "Deathstar."

Stay tuned and I'll let you know if it works. I should get to it in the next day or so. I appreciate you taking the time to make a suggestion.

I tried your suggestion, and the old Deskstar was already toast - apparently it had finally made its way to a head crash. The system wouldn't see it at all. It still saw the new SeaGate, but I had no access to it.

So when you run setup the old drive is not attached right?

Yes, that is correct. I was able to get past this error (into a litany of other errors that seem to just keep propagating themselves) by a guess that I made after doing a search on Intel's website. One of their knowledge base articles suggested that a timing error could occur with some older BIOS. My system is a P4, but I had never needed to flash the BIOS. There was one new update posted on the Motherboard manufacturer website, so I tried it, and it booted right up. I just wish that had solved all my problems. I ended up having to entirely reload windows, and now, have a very sick system. I'm close to surrender.

So even after Windows reload you're still having problems? What kind of problems now?

I think that I deserve a medal for commitment. I reloaded and reactivated three more times, with the real hassle being that my CD Drives keep disappearing shortly after bootup. A few years ago, Microsoft helped me solve this problem by uninstalling the PCI Bus and rebooting. That caused disaster this time when I tried to fix it. Windows wouldn't start, and it took me about two weeks to get through a successful reload of windows. It would get into the middle of a repair, and then stop reading the CD drive. I tried moving files by floppy, but that proved more than I could tolerate. Right now, I have a very healthy system, but can't use my CD Drives. Fortunately, I knew that was coming, and managed to copy all my install disks onto the hard drive so that I can gradually begin recovering my applications.