very weird drive problems

[Phaelax]

Drive specs:
Type: Seagate Barracuda, 7200rpm
Model: ST3200826AS
Size: 200GB
Interface: SATA

System specs:
OS: Win2k SP4
RAM: 1GB
CPU: P4 2.8e
MOBO: Asus P4P800-e deluxe
AV Software: NOD32, 30 day trial version.

Problem:
In short, data corruption.
Originally, I was using NTFS on the drive. I use it as a music storage drive with iTunes 4.2. Recently, I noticed files missing in iTunes. When I found them on the drive, they were all wrong. File names did not match the files, and other files were just plain corrupted and wouldn't play.

I took the drive to my friend's house and we connected it to his Mac, running OS/X. Formatted the drive using FAT32 and loaded it back up with data. I got home, plugged it in, and half the data was corrupted. Folder/file names weren't readable, just random ascii characters. Selecting only the corrupted files and getting the property info stated that the total size of the selected files was 4.19TB. Yea, that's right, I said Terabyte! Obviously, that's not possible.

Next day, back to the friend's with the same procedure. This time we verified all the data before leaving. Now the source of the data is on a raid system that works just fine as other people have been using it without problems, including myself in the past. Got home, connected it back up and checked all the data, it was good. No visible corruption. I was importing the data into iTunes then about halfway through it began giving me errors. I opened up file explorer and saw that the last half of the data has become corrupted yet again.

I rebooted and on boot Windows did a file system scan of the drive, fixing about 7 errors or so. So far, all the data is back in order. There's just one tiny problem still, I cannot delete anything. I can create new files ok and read the existing data, but I can't delete!

I'm just not entirely sure what's going on. Is it a drive failure, Windows, or iTunes related? I tried downloading Seagates diagnostic tools, but the self-extracting zip included everything but the actual executable. A help file, which contains nothing but drive specs, an icon, and some text files, that's it. Any type of new drive sector virii going around?

I've asked for help on two other programming forums over the past 2 days and so far the only help I've received was that I must not know how to use a computer properly.

[Chaky]

(this goes if your drive is NTFS format)
Looks like you don't have permission to delete the files that you didn't create on your system. You will have to unchecked "use simple file sharing" (in the folder options/view).
Now set permissions (full control) on that drive's root folder for either Administrator group, or your account. (Rightclick the drive/properties/security tab) Also check the "replace permission entries on child objects...." check box (all that before/ "advanced" button). Also, you might want to take over the ownership of the directories/files. Click on the "owner" tab, select either administrators or your account, check the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" and click "apply".

That should straighten out that security-ownership confusion made by formatting and transferring files on the different machine.

As I said this only works on NTFS. Just in case you forgot to mention that the second time you formatted it on NTFS.

Filename "corruption" can occur every now and then. If the filename contains one or more "illegal" characters, file would become unaccessible, and therefore you wouldn't be able to open it nor delete it. You would be able only to see that the file exists. That can easily happen when taking your HD to different OS type and saving files there.

For the data corruption, it can be number of things. From chipset drivers to 3rd party software (defragmenters, AV, you name it).

From the hardware point of view, it can be damaged SATA cable, or slightly dying drive.