Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 I tried to create a new partition and move my /usr over there and like a dummy, I never do it right and I lose all my stuff. So, I decided to try dd if=/dev/hda8 of=/dev/hda1 and it hung up. So, I had to power off. Well, since I had lost the stuff in /usr, it wouldn't boot. I went to try to reinstall and it gets to the point of formatting and then I get 3 quick BIOS beeps and it freezes. The HD activity light is still on, but the screen is frozen. I wait as for way longer than it should take to format the partition and the HD light is still on and the screen is still frozen. So, I power off again. I put in the Win2K disk and delete all the partitions and fomat the whole drive and reinstall Windows....no problems there. So, I put the mdk9.1 disk back in and it gets to installing 'time' and I get the 3 beeps again and freeze. Tried two more times with different partition sizes and still get the 3 beeps and a freeze, mostly during install of packages. Not the same time frame. So, I whip out my Seagate disk and try to zero out the whole drive. It says 'writing' for a certain length of time and then the 3 ominous beeps and freeze (the progress bar has not moved yet). So, I reinstall Win2K again. Again no problems. I try to reinstall 9.1 and I get the 3 beeps some time during the package install process. I've searched the web and can find no meaning of just 3 short beeps. 1 long followed by 3 short is supposed to be a problem with video card and can't print error to screen. I'm downloading 9.2 rc2 right now to see if it'll install. Any ideas? The HD is only about 6 months old and the rest of the hardware is only about 2-3 months old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Getting beep errors on a low level format is not a good thing! I am curious, is windex reporting the size of the drive correctly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Well, not sure right now, I only created a 40 gig partition for Windex and didn't fromat the rest.....I'll be right back after checking that out. Edit: Can't reboot right now to check, because I'm doing the 3rd try of downloading 9.2. Kept timing out on me. But I remember the first time I reinstalled Windows, the install disk reported the size right. Can't say I checked once Windows was up and running. Edit again: BUT, the second time I tried to reinstall 9.1, Windows had all 80 gigs and diskdrake wouldn't let me lower it past 40 gigs (a fresh install of Windows). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Well, the thing that bothers me is the Seagate utility. The only thing that stops a low level format is a bad drive. Windex may actually be able to use what it wants and not use a bad area. I know that I can install windex on a drive that is bad, and linux won't touch it! It's like linux verifies the integrity of the entire drive before it loads, and windex doesn't. Of course, the windex install will have all sorts of odd problems, but it will install on a problem drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Well, I guess it's officially dead. I just downloaded and burned 9.2rc2 and it gets about 2% into installing packages and I get the 3 beeps and the HD light goes off and the screen goes black (in text mode) or freezes (in video mode). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Did you try running the hard drive diagnostics on the seagate disk before doing the zero fill? Worth a try before trashing the drive. Also contact seagate re making a warranty claim. Finally, can you access the drive in linux, even through a knoppix cd? If so, there are some things you can try with the dd command, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Did you try running the hard drive diagnostics on the seagate disk before doing the zero fill? Worth a try before trashing the drive. Also contact seagate re making a warranty claim. Finally, can you access the drive in linux, even through a knoppix cd? If so, there are some things you can try with the dd command, Those were my next thoughts. Right now, I only have limited time to test this stuff, because my box is the gateway for the other computer in the house (with two kids and a Yahoo-Literati-addicted fiancee). Edit: The last few times I've tried to reinstall Linux, it formats fine with no errors and then mounts the mountpoints, but gives the 3 beeps and freezes a little ways into installing packages. I think there is an option in my BIOS to "Halt on all errors except Hard Drive", so I can troubleshoot using that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 I see Seagate even offers a Linux version of their drive diagnostic software: http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ Seeing the harddrive is working (to a certain point), and these beeps are coming from the motherboard (or BIOS?), I would try tracking down what exactly that code is supposed to be telling you. I would double check all the basics... Master drive on end of IDE1 cable, jumper set right, BIOS options all set right, etc. No EZ-BIOS or other 3rd party partitioning software installed on hd? Just to be sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 The more I think about this, the more it does sound like a problem I had two years ago with EZ-Bios. I looked up your board and seen it comes with ASUS EZ Flash and ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2. Don't know if it is related to EZ-Bios or not, or even if something like this is still a problem with Linux. I do remember having a heck of a time getting rid of this drive overlay feature to allow MDK 8.0 to complete the install. I did notice some BIOS updates for your MB here: http://www.asus.com/support/download/item....odelName=A7V600 One of the fixes was listed as "3. Fix Disabling IDE controller may cause system hang." (so generic, but it could be?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Thanks for digging for me. I did not have trouble installing 9.1 originally on this setup, so I doubt it's the overlay feature (or whatever it is called), but I will check it out. The last time I checked, my BIOS revision was identical to the updates I found, but I will look at that also. I'm not overlooking anything right now, even things I'm "sure" are okay. I just created a fat32 partition of the rest of the hard drive so I could run Windows ckdisk on it. I have to look and see if it outputted any logs of errors that it found and try stuff again. Thanks for hanging in there with me guys. Should this discussion even be allowed here? I don't want to cause any trouble. BTW, in case anyone is wondering, I have removed the overclocking on my system while attempting to deal with this. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarissi Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 I had a hard disk die on me several years ago. This one's drive motor ground to a halt during win98se format. Not fun when something like this happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Well, I set my BIOS to 'Halt on all errors except disk erros' and I get the 3 beeps while installing packages with 9.2, but the system does not halt or reboot, so I guess that tells me it is a disk error. Right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 If your feeling adventurous, here's a few thoughts. General Disclaimer: I have not tried this myself, but in theory it should work. I know you can access the "dd" command in knoppix and I think you can off install cd 1 in rescue mode. Here's the idea, zero fill either the mbr or the entire disk using dd. Boot up in rescue mode or with a knoppix cd and leave all partitions on the effected drive unmounted. To zero fill the mbr, from a console as root run: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdx bs=512 count=1 That should zero fill the first 512 byte sector on the drive which is the drive mbr. If you want to try to zero fill the entire drive run: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdx May be worth a shot if the drive is otherwise toast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 What does the Seagate hard drive diagnostics tell you about your drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted October 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 Seagate Diagnostic utility says the drive is fine. I've only done the short test, not the long one. Edit: Just ran the long test. Everything checked out fine, but the drive is still partitioned with some reiserfs filesystems. Does the Seagate utility check the whole drive? I had run Win2k's chkdisk on the whole drive before I added the reiserfs partitions again. I'm so confused. If it's not a disk error, then why does the BIOS not halt the system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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