New Build Problems

[Carl Martin]

The extension cable I needed to finish my new build finally arrived yesterday, so I managed to put the rest together and it almost works.

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB

No USB, front or rear (fortunately I have an old PS2 keyboard and mouse), and I'm unable to format the hard drive.

Windows set-up shows the drive is formatting, but after it gets to 100%, it says it was unable to format the disk which may be damaged. Two subsequent attempts both showed partitions on the drive. Strange.

Thinking there could be a remote possibility that there was something wrong with my copy of Windows, I ran a set of XP Pro set up disks from floppy disks, but they wouldn't even attempt a format. I suppose I could try to format the drive on another computer, but I'm not sure if it's worth the bother.

I thought problems may be due to no drivers being installed, but the motherboard manual clearly says not to install until after Windows has been installed.

Hate to have to RMA these, but it looks like that's where we're headed.

Carl

[polobunny]

I would try to partition and format on another PC, just in case something might be wrong with the motherboard SATA controller/SATA cable/jumper setting on drive before RMA'ing the hard drive. It doesn't bode well, though.

[Carl Martin]

This is very strange. Installed hard drive on another PC and disk management is showing five volumes. C is the hard drive and I is the storage drive. J, K, and unnamed are the new 500GB drive. Lower section of window labels it as disk 2, which is divided into three partitions: K, J, and Unknown. Sizes, respectively: 104GB, 811.57GB, and 259.39GB for a total of 1174.96GB on a 500GB disk! Don't know what to make of all this.

Screenshot

Carl

[polobunny]

Happens when the MFT is fubared. It's strange but I've seen ridiculous numbers like those. Remove the K J and no letter partitions, reconnect the drive and check in disk management how it goes if it's detected properly.

[Carl Martin]

Deleted partitions and drive formatted with no problems. Copied a couple files onto it and they saved and opened with no problems. looks like that's taken care of, now for the motherboard.

Will have to RMA it. I see Newegg has deactivated them. That leaves me with having to decide on a different motherboard. Kind of sour on Gigabyte, just don't know what best choice would be???

Carl.

[Carl Martin]

Just contacted Newegg to RMA the board. Thanks for your help, Polobunny!

Carl