Hello everyone, I was hoping for some advice on an issue with my new Seagate 'Barracuda' 80Gb Hard Disk that I bought a couple of days ago. The disk was purchased as extra space to run alongside my existing 20Gb disk which runs Windows 98SE (on a 2Gb partition).

I have managed to get the Disk working, Partitioned it into two 40Gb sectors, and I am able to save (and load) files to it (and from it).

The problem I have is during large file moves. The reason I bought the disk was because I was running out of space on my current 20Gb and so after installing the new disk, I dragged about 7Gb of files (all at once) over to a new 40Gb partition.

During this process the computer crashed about 20 times (screen freezes up, mouse doesnt move and then it reboots itself!) and the Hard Disk was getting exceptionally hot. I just used an available power supply cable that is the same type as the one powering my 20Gb hard disk.

Can anyone suggest anything that may be the problem? Please ask me any more questions that I may not have answered here. Thanks alot! SB.

Just a question did you try copying smaller number of files over? Maybe try it with XXCOPY you can get it here (http://www.xxcopy.com/). You may be wigging things out by trying to drag such large amounts over to the HDD. There are issues with some boards with file corruption when copying large files. It might be worth it to try a couple of things first before we start to blame the HDD for the cause of the problems.

What kind of motherboard and processer to you have?

Ensure that the transfer mode under the properties of the IDE channel is set to DMA. Also try connecting the 2 hard drives on different IDE cables and disconnect all other IDE devices. If this fails, try connecting the 2 HDDs on the same IDE cable, while the other IDE devices are disconnected.


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<b><font color="navy">The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.</font></b>

I'm speculating here.

I think this may involve the "Clipboard".

When you cut/copy & paste or drag & drop, the info is [temporarily] copied to the clipboard. It's then moved to it's final location.

I'm not sure where that would be kept, perhaps in the swap file, but it's definitely on the C: drive unless you made other arrangements for your swap file and it's in the swap file.

Now if your C: drive does not have the huge space going spare that's required by your transfer of huge amounts of data [7GB of files to transfer to a clipboard on a 2GB C: drive (NO WAY!)] then the clipboard will fill the C: drive and run out of room.

SOLUTION
Move your swap file to your biggest partition, or to the one with the most free space.
You need to find out where the "Clipboard" is kept if not in the swap file.
Alternatively, increase the size of the C: partition [I'd avoid that if possible].

I've just used "Filemon.exe"
[for free from http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml]
to record file accesses during a copy [ctrl+c] of some info and the very first file access was that "Kernel32" "read" "win386.swp".
I cannot find any info on the location of the Clipboard but this certainly suggests it's contents are put in the swap file.

Under normal arrangements the swap file is kept on the C: drive and it's required size is constantly [dynamically] calculated and re-sized to suit the need.
It only has the free space on the C: drive to work within.

Make a temp directory on your old drive and try the same "file copy" or similar test without using the new drive.

There is such a thing as a "large IDE drive" patch file for systems running Windows98, it's at the windows update website if needed...

Shut down and reboots can be caused by high temperatures. Hope you didn't bump a fan wire.....

If I had new drive, I'd either reload or copy my OS to the bigger drive, it's probably faster... use the old one for data..... and backups.

Follow the suggestion given by Sylvander about the swap file.
How much RAM(Memory) u got, anyway? Looks like memory is too low.
Make sure that DMA is enabled(ticked) in the settings of the Disk Drives properties in the Device Manager. As gopi_vs said, try the two HDD's in two different IDE's. Use Norton Ghost or Total Commander to copy files.
Also, check the newly partitioned HDD with scandisk for errors.