Ok this is what happened to me today.

Two hard drives on my Primary IDE Channel on my old Compaq Desktop EP
6400 series worked fine for a while.

One is an IBM DTTA-351010
and the other is a Quantum Fireball Fitusi MPG3204A7 or something like that

IBM is master and Quantum is slave

For a while they both worked fine together.

Then the Compaq gave me a smart error of 170 saying indefinite or
infinite error.

So I tried rebooting, no luck.

Took out the master and made the Quantum the master that booted fine.

Then took out the quantum and put the IBM as the master and that booted
fine.

After a while of njust taking out the jumpers and putting them
basicallyh back in the same exact spots, it worked, then when I hooked
the PC back, it didn't work.

so I figured even though this sounds stupid, I physically reloacted both
drivbes having the IBM mounted underneat the Queantum and it now seems
to work without any problem.

Any ideas on what could be or could have caused this?

RedPenguin wrote:
Drive Fitness Test on a floppy, with Advanced test, and it gave
Dispotion Code 0x00 and I did the same after I removed it and made the
IBM the master and it said the samething so it should be no problem at
all with the drives themselves. Can thier just be bad jumpers as in bad
little plastic peaces whatever u call them.

RedPenguin wrote:
Yes you can have a defective jumper but in your case I would be more
inclined to suspect a defective hard drive cable. Try a different cable and
see if that clears things up.

GlowingBlueMist wrote:
at the time. But both drives work now.

RedPenguin wrote:
seemed to work for the CD-ROms the second cable.

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote

Which is it ? That is two completely different
drives you have listed there for the second drive.

If its actually a Fujitsu MPG, you need to backup what data
is on that drive immediately because those drives are dying
like flys and are so bad its produced a full class action suit.

Check what drives you actually have using Everest.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Could be a flakey cable or just the MPG going bad if its an MPG.

The fact that it works sometimes and not others is typical of a
bad cable, they generally go bad where the things that pierce
the ribbon cable get bent over and just unplugging and replugging
can see that connection disturbed enough to make it work for a
while and fail again later.

That may be just because that involved more plugging and unplugging.

If its an MPG drive, its dying and you need to get the data off while you can.

If its not an MPG, get a new cable even tho the one off the
optical drives appears to make no difference, because a
flakey cable will work sometimes and not at other times.

Not clear if you mean that that cable always worked or
sometimes didnt too. If it sometimes didnt, and the second
drive is an MPG, the MPG is dying. Its a heat sensitive fault
and just the time off while reconfiguring is enough for it to cool down.

Rod Speed wrote:
Manager says Fijuni.

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote
Likely just DM having a massive brain fart.

See what Everest says.

Rod Speed wrote:
re-reading over and over and it definaly says Quantum Fireball.

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote:
You've got 3 different spellings of that name now, which is the correct one ?

Rod Speed wrote:

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote:
You should check that out carefully with something like
Everest because those particular drives are dying like
flys. So bad that its generated a full class action suit.

Seems unlikely that a Fujitsu MPG3204AT E would be
physically labelled Quantum Fireball unless fraud is
involved, as you sure its not the other physical drive ?

Rod Speed wrote:
Fireball. I know for a fact the other is IBM DTTA based on the sizes.
The DTTA is 10gb, and the MPG is 20GB, so on the sizes also, I know for
a fact I am not reading wrong.

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote:
Yet another variation on what you previously said.

Welp, you should still work out where the Fujitsu MPG3204AT E
details are coming from, because that drive is so bad.

Rod Speed wrote:
are really basically Quantums, Maxtors, and I guess Fujitsus. I checked
on PC and Device Manager says Quantum so maybe I did actually misread
this drive, anyway I am burning data, because now Windows is claiming I
unplugged the drive, like it's removeable or something, so I am assuming
failure very soon.

Rod Speed wrote:
a new drive (not the samething) from Fugitsu?

RedPenguin <lala@google.com> wrote:
No, its a cash thing, not a new drive. Fujitsu
gave up completely on 3.5" IDE drives.