What the hell is wrong with these WDC 320GB drives always losing their boot configuration?!?!?!?

My main WDC 320GB HDD did it again. while in Aruba, I did a normal shut down. Wasn't doing anything other than reading messages, etc just prior.

Next morning, power up, PW entry and instead of winblows XP load, i got a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen.

Of course being prepared, i brought with me my XP boot floppy, which after a few minutes said i had a missing or corrupt HAL.DLL file.

This was after i booted the T30 recovery repair diskette to re-wrrite the MBR.

Still just the cursor.

But I'm still prepared since i brought one of my spare 100GB "original" HDDs (this one is a copy, the real original is staying at home in the computer desk!).

But of course i left my little screwdriver set at home, and i just screwed the HDD caddy in thinking i was finally able to "set" this machine. But a handy dandy kitchen butter knife saves the day.

I booted the 100GB, copied the Karen's power tools replicator jobs that i just spent all last nite creating and testing, ran the jobs to "update" the 100GB with the 320GB's data files, then cloned to 100GB onto the 320GB (again for about the 4th time). and it worked fine.

Then i had to reset the HDD volume serial # ( or roxio won't run - they will not even admit to doing this!) and i was back where i started. But at the expense of a nice vacation day

Next time you go on vacation, take your T23 with you, they are much more reliable (and lighter) than a T30.

I haven't "recovered" any of the T23s yet!

It happenned again day before Thanksgiving. Turned it off. Turned it on later, blinking cursor.

Cloned the drive. It worked. Then the real fun started. i accidently reverse replicated from the newly cloned drive to the backup (and i have carry forward deletions set) and it wiped out all newer files on my backup (no more mixing beer with computer recovery operations!) I was not happy about that And i only had 1 of my 3 backup HDDs completely up to date Of course it was the one that i wiped out...

So what the hel! is causing the HDD to go south????

I'll tell you what though, that Acronis TI is getting one heck of a workout on my T30s.

I have several fully working T23 machines, which I could let you have for a reasonable price.
PM me if interested.

The T30 must also begin to suffer from Southbridge problems (similar to T40/1/2).
(Big Intel chip to the right of the HD-connector)
Try putting pressure on various corners while booting.
If it works, you either need to reball it or get another mobo.

I have 3 T23s already. I just haven't run the Recovery CD on them to get then up and running. If i didn't have to re-clone those darned WDC 320GB HDDs twice a week, I might find time to get to that.

Blasted HDD did it again, bliniking cursor. I left it and went on my trip yesterday. Now i get to try and fix it again. I'm going to start a new topic to see if anyone knows the causes and another way of recovery other than re-cloning to the drive.

The T30 suffers from bad soldering (especially RAM slots).
So a Southbridge coming undone is not news to me, especially after dealing with T4x GPU/SB problems.
Have you ever calculated the cost and time of your "cloning clones"?
Cheaper to dump/sell the baddie(s)...

Southbridge lets the ultrabay work, correct? If so why would that mess up the boot HDD in the main drive tray??

My time does have a cost, but i'd also like to know what is causing this and how to recover the HDD without re-cloning to it.

The Southbridge does a heck of a lot more, it 'steers' USB ports, hard disk(!), CD drive, serial and parallel ports, networking, PCMCIA, etc.

RBS, I found the links here (via a google search) on what the SB chip is and does. It's basically half the machine, sort of a super VSLI combined with the northbridge / GPU chip.

So, if it was going bad, i could see ID issues, but rendering an HDD unbootabe without damaging and of the files??? and not exhibiting any other symptoms of a SB failure - that's doesn't pass my logic tests.

As to the original subject of this thread, I can't really say what is typical, but the only time I have experienced the blinking curser is when the MBR is missing or corrupt. Usually, for me, missing, after a back-up image has been restored, or a drive cloned. But, I have never seen it happen repeatedly as you have. It sure seems to me that this is what is happening to you, but I don't have a clue as to why. But, next time it happens, try restoring or repairing just the MBR, instead of re-imaging the drive, and see what happens...

By restoring or repairing the MBR, do you mean booting with a W98 and riunning FDISK /MBR, or booting the IBM Thinkpad recovery restore diskette and letting the IBM utulity do its thing (getting back an F11 prompt by rewriting the MBR)??

I've already tried that. No help.

Is there a windows XP FIXMBR routine that might help? I finally got a full XP installation CD, but don't know how to get to that. That may work, but again, i need to find out how to get to it.

As to the cause if it is a southbridge, is this an internal failure in the chip itself or is it de-soldering because of poor heat cycling and/ or stress due to excessive flexing? T30s are much more rigid than T4x and should have less issues due to flexing, however nothing is immune. If it is Southbridge then it is with at least two different machines, and it is ONLY doring something to the HDD, no errors anywhere else with the machines. Plus, putting the drive in as drive D: shows all the files intact.

Recovery is straightforward, but tedious, and its getting annoying.

Check out the link below on how to use the Windows XP CD to fix the MBR.......

http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/fix-mbr-xp-vista/

Thanks. I will try this first the next time i get my favorite windows startup screen.