Mysterious hard disk error

[div64]

Hi guys,

during the last weeks I tried to reinstall Win98SE on my ancient computer since it's gettting more and more unstable. But I experimented some strange hard disk errors when copying file around.

Only the highest bits of a single dword is affected and reversed. This error occures from time to time - normally around 1-2 errors in a file of 200 mbytes. The places where the errors occure don't seem to follow a specific pattern.

(I used two different hard disks: a Maxtor of 80 GB and a Smasung 160GB, but all partitions are within the 128GB limit).

While copying files under pure DOS (with Win98SE boot disk... that uses BIOS functions to access drives), there are no errors! Under Win98SE this error occures before and after installing any VIA driver...

If someone has an idea what could cause an error like that, please let me now!!!

Cheers,

div64

(I'm using an AMD Athlon XP 1800+, VIA VT8366/A KT266/A (epox 8KHA+) and 512 MB DDR)

[rloew]

Hi guys,

during the last weeks I tried to reinstall Win98SE on my ancient computer since it's gettting more and more unstable. But I experimented some strange hard disk errors when copying file around.

Only the highest bits of a single dword is affected and reversed. This error occures from time to time - normally around 1-2 errors in a file of 200 mbytes. The places where the errors occure don't seem to follow a specific pattern.

(I used two different hard disks: a Maxtor of 80 GB and a Smasung 160GB, but all partitions are within the 128GB limit).

While copying files under pure DOS (with Win98SE boot disk... that uses BIOS functions to access drives), there are no errors! Under Win98SE this error occures before and after installing any VIA driver...

If someone has an idea what could cause an error like that, please let me now!!!

Cheers,

div64

(I'm using an AMD Athlon XP 1800+, VIA VT8366/A KT266/A (epox 8KHA+) and 512 MB DDR)

Bad RAM is the most likely cause. You can also try turning DMA off.

[Multibooter]

This error occures from time to time - normally around 1-2 errors in a file of 200 mbytes... While copying files under pure DOS there are no errors... If someone has an idea what could cause an error like that

On my old laptops I do most file copying/deleting/renaming under Win98SE with Beyond Compare. Maybe using Beyond Compare v2.5.3 (of 14-Jul-2008, last version for Win9x) instead of Windows Explorer is a workaround. But I wouldn't trust a computer which cannot copy properly.

I suspect that some hardware gone bad is the cause of your copying problem (memory? motherboard? bad cables?)

For most of my hardware (desktops, laptops, etc.) I have identical or near-identical duplicates/spares, so that I can find out easily whether a problem is caused by hardware or software.

[div64]

Thanks a lot for your help !!!

You are absolutely right - it was the RAM with caused the problem... Some time ago I tried another BIOS configuration for the RAM and everything seem to work perfectly... I since this problem only occures rather occasionally, I thought it were caused by the hard disk or the system (with is already running extremly instable ).

Thanks again and have a nice weekend

div64