Is this Quantum Fireball Lct15 dead?

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Sun Oct 28, 2001 4:59 pm

Ok, well, here goes.

I bought this from someone here. It came wrapped, and the works. But, NOW I am having second thoughts... I have done some very extensive work with this HD, and have realized that it REALLY doesn't like to work with much of anything. For starters, when I plug it in by itself, it isn't even recognized. When I plug it in with the current IBM (ibm master, quantum slave) it detects, but ONLY the first time. That first time I can get into FDISK, and chose either one. But, when I go to partition it, it freezes. Sooo, I press ctrl+alt+delete. It restarts just like all the other times I have to restart this piece of crap. But, this time, when loading the computer, the BIOS states that there is an error, "ERROR 0200 Fixed Disk 1 (slave)" And, frankly, this happens ALL the time. WTF can I do? It's IMPOSSIBLE!!

Is it dead? Or, could it be due to it being ATA66, and this 4 year old Dell doesn't support it?

FYI: I tried the Quantum converter (to change to ata33 from ata66) but, when I went to do it in DOS, it FAILED. Wouldn't know why...

FYI2: The seller had this sitting in his closet, and he said it had no bad secters, "No bad sectors or anything its all good."

Any help is great! THANKS!!

smb · Post by **smb** » Sun Oct 28, 2001 6:55 pm

#1, Just a bit of trading advice, before posting anyone's name if you had a bad deal or a deal going bad, or issues with a trade, try to work with the trader, it saves you both from an embarrasing situation.

#2, go to the Quantum website, and download the hard drive fitness utility, and run it on your hd. I have no idea what it's called, so you might have to look around some.

#3, check if it's under warranty still, maybe you can RMA it. Yes, it may cost you $5.00 to ship it, and about a month to get it back.

#4, make sure you have the correct jumpers set on it, and it's on the correct connector, on the IDE chain.

#5, Lastly, LCT literally means Low Cost Technology, and other than the Bigfoot series, they are the probably the lowest on the technology ladder for newer generation hard drives.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Oct 28, 2001 8:33 pm

Actually I RMA a LOT of drives. Quantum, Maxtor, Seagate and WDC are VERY fast. I usually get a drive back within 7-10 days if I ship it Priority Mail.

SEAN: Make sure there isn't a seperate jumper setting for "Single Master" and "Master with Slave". Some Quantum and WDC drives are like that. If it's sharing a port with another drive but you have it jumpered as a "Single Master" it won't be detected properly.

If the jumper settings aren't written on the drive then you can look it up on their web site.

One drive being an ATA and the other not should not make a difference. In this day in age it's very unusual to see drive compatibility problems, but just in case try connecting the new drive to the secondary IDE port (make sure to jumper it properly as mentioned above) and see if that helps.

smb · Post by **smb** » Sun Oct 28, 2001 8:56 pm

Fp, I just used a round about date. Actually I've only had to RMA a Fujitsu, and it came within a week.

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 7:27 am

Trying to contact my trader, but he said he'd be gone last week, so maybe I will be able to contact him this week?

Yes, jumpers are correct. I checked Maxtor's website, Quantum, and my jumper is set for cable select. So is my other HDD.

Thanks for the help, I'll see what I can do.

Splitfire · Post by **Splitfire** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 11:12 am

What BIOS are you running for your Dell? These problems honestly sound like your system isn't capable of recognizing the drive. What kind of processor is in your Dell system (make and speed)? What size is the drive you are trying to put in there? The sure way to find out is to buy an ATA/66/100 controller card (goes in a PCI slot). Plug the drive into that and if it works, you know its your system, not the drive.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 11:48 am

Contact him or see if you cant just RMA it. If it can be RMA'ed why not jsut take it into your own hands. Maby let him know what is up and ask if he will take $5 less for your shipping costs to the company. Just an idea.

Greg

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 4:48 pm

Ohh, I forgot to mention my system info:

It's four years old, running pretty slow at 450mhz. It runs slow because windows is such a mess, that's why I want to create a whole new install. All I need this HDD for is backup. (to backup the 10 GB of misc. files. (some game files, etc)) Once I get the install done, I can transfer some files over (like save game files) then just use the 2nd hd for the documents and stuff (the current HDD in here is 12GB (11.2 used))

The size of this Quantum is only 15.3GB

Here's the specs:

It's a Dell DemensionXPS R450
450 mhz (Pentium II)
16mb Riva TNT
12gb IBM
8x DVDROM / 24x CDROM Toshiba
100mb Zip Drive
Generic Floppy
2 128mb sticks (slowest ram there is

)
Turtle Beach Sound Card
Linksys 10/100 NIC

All slots are FULL! Actually, I could move the ISA modem down one, and then we'd have one more PCI (the ISA device there, covers the spot the PCI slot above it needs). If I don't though, then we just have on ISA slot. (1 AGP, 4 PCI, and 2 ISA I think)

Did I miss anything?

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 5:21 pm

System Information
System chip set Intel 440BX AGPset
Data bus width 64 bits
Address bus width 32 bits
DMA channels 7
Interrupt levels 15
System BIOS chip 2 Mb (256 KB)
System clock 100 MHz (matches external processor speed)
Diskette/communications ports 48 MHz from the system clock

off Dell's website. Where do I get the BIOS version? (I will try restarting)

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Mon Oct 29, 2001 6:37 pm

Current BIOS: Peonix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 / 4S4EBOX1.10A.PO9 (AO9)

Hard Drive model no.: DTTA-371290 (14GXP)
CD Drive: Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1202

Just thought I'd list that (I didn't know the HDD in here was a 7200 RPM! LOL)

There's a new BIOS version at Dell.com, but is it older?

Release Title: BIOS: Dell Dimension System BIOS, BIOS, English, Dimension XPS Rxxx, v. 1.0, A01
Download Hints:
Release Date: 10/1/1999
Description: Flash BIOS Update for Dell Dimension XPS R systems.

That was off the site.

ishmael2k · Post by **ishmael2k** » Thu Nov 01, 2001 6:41 am

Some may argue with me but I have never had good luck using cable select, especially when mixing hdd sizes and brands.

I'd try setting the IBM for master and the Quantum for slave and see what happens.

Rob

succubiss · Post by **succubiss** » Thu Nov 01, 2001 8:17 pm

Yeah, i never use cable select either.

try this:

unplug both you dvd and existing hdd.
set your LCT to master and hook it up to your IDE cable.
go into bios and make sure none of the hard drive settings are hard coded (make everything auto).

try to fdisk and format the drive with a win98 startup disk.

Next:

unplug the LCT, set it to slave, plug in your old Master, change this from cable select to master.
then boot up to windows with you fingers crossed.

if your computer is able to see your 12gb, then its not a size limitation we're runnign into.

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » Mon Nov 05, 2001 11:41 pm

Nothing can be done with a bad drive until you download and run the disk check utility from the maxtor website. I just went through this and its very easy and will tell you if its the hard drive. Until you do that no point in worrying about the seller etc.

If its bad from the disk check utility, they'll issue you an rma and you pay a shipping charge and send it in. I just did this for a friends older model quantum of about 13gbs and they returned a brand new 30 gb AS model!

If the drives okay, then its time to troubleshoot as the suggestions above.

But first, download and run the utility.

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Is this Quantum Fireball Lct15 dead?

Is this Quantum Fireball Lct15 dead?

Idea

If the drive is bad...........