strange problem when formatting seagate barracuda HDD's
 

I have 2 Seagate Barracuda ST340016A (40GB each) and I'm trying to format them to ReiserFS V3 but for some strange reasons, when the format tool starts, the computer suddenly shutdown! Just like a power outage or if I pulled the power cable...

Formatting ANY other drives, either new or old drives works... I know the computer is OK (hardware wise) and I checked the ATA cable, power cable, etc....

Anybody knows if these drives have any incompatibilities with ReiserFS or anything else?

This is really the first time I see that!

Are these drives presently formatted with any file system?

SOme time ago, I used slackware 12.2 to remove all partitions on these HDD's... basically, I used fdisk and deleted all partitions.

They used to be formatted in NTFS, winxp was installed on both of them (coming from 2 IBM's netvistas)

First partition both drives with Primary partitions, if you are using the complete disk. Try to avoid any extended partitions, initially. You can go back later and resize after formatting if you need to.Try formatting them first as Fat32, then try your Reiser format.

Very unusual, what about formatting it with a different filesystem ?

Have you checked the jumpers to make sure you do not have two masters / slaves on the same controller?

jtarin, when I was going to format the drives (and suddenly get the crash), the drives were newly partitioned with fdisk (Linux) and the process went smooth with no errors or any other kind of problems...

Basically, I created a single extended partition, and then a logical volume that occupies the whole extended partition. That's not the first drives I partition like that... I have a WD Caviar 80GB partitioned the same way and formatted as reiserfs, and everything is OK with it. Only these seagate barracudas are doing something weird like that.. shutting down the whole machine?!?!?!

H_TeXMeX_H, I tried with ext3, same behavior.

michaelk, yes I did. Actually, I started only with one drive on its own cable and no other devices attached to it. When I saw what aappens., I thought the drive was dead and then I tried with the second cuda I have.. same thing. The jumpers were both set to master.

Check power supply and use separate leads....in other words don't use a single line with a splitter or try formatting one at a time with only one connected.

jtarin, i already tried all of what you are suggesting...

So basically you can format with any other file system but resierFS? It must be very cpu/power supply intensive. What size power supply do you have and how old is it?

No, like I said in my post of June 27th, I tried with ext3 and same thing.... Basically, trying to format them (from the Slackware installer at least) results in a total shutdown of the PC. The power supply is almost brand new (6months old) is 430W, and has been working perfectly since then... I can format other drives, as I currently have 3 HDD's in that server... 1 WD Green HDD (750GB), 1 WD Green HDD (1TB) and an old WD 80GB... they are worked fine to format...

What happens , IMO indicated wither a problem with the PC itself, or with that type of HDD... I ruled out that I have a bad drive since both of them are identical units and they both result in the same thing.

Sooo weird...

You might try this and some of the other tools available. They also have a support forum and knowledge base. let me know what you find.

Hey guys! Just to let know, I actually found out that my PS was going.... SO it seems that for some reasons, the HDD was drawing too much current, the PS couldnt handle it.... I successfully completed the operation with a new PS.....

What a shame, not even 1 year old... at lest it is still under warranty.

So, tell me how you finally isolated the problem? Disconnected the other drives? I was having some problems years ago with a computer and everyting pointed to CPU....then I bought a new power supply (only because it was on sale) and my problem went away. Since then I am a firm believer in having more than I need when it comes to PSU. I currently run with nothing less than 600w and you can notice the difference in the fan speeds ergo cooling. Much quiter now and more responsive in CPU intensive operations. Made a big difference in compile times also. Most power supplies sold with cases are only for the normal usage of the setup....anything else better to upgrade.

jtarin, I was lucky a co-worker experienced something similar in the past 9his video card was not working properly => blank screen) and he tried to pin point the source of the problem part by part until he replaced the PSU...

He suggested to replace the PSU and I borrowed a spare from him. It worked right away.... Strange, I don't really understand why the machine was halting completely but according to him, it would be some kind of auto protection or overload protection in the mobo or the PSU...