On Sun, 2004-04-18 at 23:16, Keith Powell wrote: > I know this isn't strictly Mandrake, so apologies. > > My set-up here, is one computer with several hard drives each in its own > caddy. Each drive is used for a different purpose. > > A couple of days ago, one of them (a Maxtor 40GB) stopped working a couple of > days ago whilst I was using it,. So I rebooted. It started to boot, then > stopped with the error message: > > Partition Check: > hda: <4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status ==0x21 > hda: timeout waiting for DMA > hda: timeout waiting for DMA > hda: (__ide_dma_test_irq) called while not waiting > > the hard drive activity light was permanently on. > > This error message means nothing to me. > > I have tried installing two different Linux distros, but neither would > install. I then found my old Windows98 CD and tried installing that - it > wouldn't. > > I ran the complete Maxtor diagnostic program, but the results were that > everything was OK. > > I have formatted the hard drive, and tried various things with FDISK. The > drive still can't be used. > > Googling brings up nothing of apparent use. > > Can the hard drive be sorted, or is it only fit to be thrown away? > > Any ideas will be gratefully received. > > Many thanks > > Keith > You'll have more potential to diagnose the problem by attempting to mount it from a running system than by trying to install onto it. Can you connect it as a second drive and try diskdrake on it?
HTH Brian
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