I have had an identical problem with SuSE 9.2 and 10.0 and my problem I have decided is related to the Maxtor hard disk. My hard disk is exactly like yours 80 Gb, Diamondmax 9. I have been using a Maxtor hard disk since April 2005, and this problem has happened to me 4 times - twice I re-partitioned over the bad block, and re-formatted a smaller partition to install the OS. The OS installs, but subsequently fails again with a bad block.

Originally, last October 2005 I downloaded the Powermax utility from the Maxtor website, and the utility reports 'hard disk is failing' replace immediately - contact Maxtor. I contacted Maxtor with the error code reported, and they replaced, no problem since there is a 3-year warranty. Yesterday, 2 Jan 2006, after the 4th failure of the OS, I am preparing once again to return my HD to Maxtor with a similar error code. This time the SuSE remained active for 2 weeks before crashing. I believe it is the hard disk and NOT SuSE.

I believe there is a problem with installing a linux OS on a Maxtor HD. There are questions about this on the Maxtor knowledgeable as elsewhere on this forum. I have troubleshooted this problem thoroughly with the SuSE Install distribution CD to repair the filesystem, also manually with the reiserfs filesystem utilities. In every case, warning messages report a defective hard disk!

DougWyl, before you decide that the new hard-disk is to blame (this is of course possible), you should check out your IDE ribbon cable. I had been too rough with my cable and some of the connections were loose where the secondary hard-drive attaches. (In retrospect, the Windows partitions on the primary drive had no problems.) This caused me to reinstall Debian on the slave drive several times, and run PowerMax diagnoses that said the disk was kaputt when a SMART analysis said it was fine.

I ended up buying a new hard-drive (no regrets) and when my installation failed on it, I tried replacing the cable. No problems since.

Thank you michapma for your quick reply to my problem. I am considering buying a hard-drive from another manufacturer to use for SuSE and using the replaced Maxtor on a Windows system. However, before I do this, I will replace my ribbon cable, setup the hard disk again, install the SuSE 10 distribution. I will report back here with the results.

I can't imagine that Maxtor would be suitable for Windows but unsuitable for Linux. I'm using Maxtor for Windows and Debian; I've got two 200GB drives at home. Feel free to buy whatever brand you prefer though.

Don't pay too much for a ribbon cable. I went to the store to pick one up and they were charging 3-4 times as much as I could order them for online. I ended up asking our system administrator for one at work, and got it for free.

but try removing the 256 mb ram and use the system , I M A VERY NEWBIE but doo think its the problemo also if u can tell us is there a hardware change in the hardware before windows and after windows (means the time period of b4 windows linux and after windows linux has same hardware of u have added/changed something

No, there were no hardware changes when I switched from Windows to Linux.

I have been running Ubuntu without any crashes since Saturday now, that's when I removed the 256 MB memory chip. Yesterday I tried to put the 256 MB memory chip back again, and my system crashed all the time again. I also removed my 512 MB stick and put in the 256 MB stick, to test if it was broken or not. I don't think it was, because Ubuntu worked perfectly without any crashes. I guess the combination of my motherboard + multiple memory modules + Linux just doesn't work. I ordered an single 1GB memory module now.

well thankgod its fine now but what lil u do 2 the FREE RAM U LIL HAVE , wanna sell or give , contace me at khaleel5000@gmail.com i might ....

I think I'm going to sell at a Dutch site called Marktplaats (translated: Marketplace). It's something like E-Bay, but Dutch. Sorry, I won't send it internationally.

ok thanks man...
N-JOY LINUX then

This is a followup post from last 3 Jan 2006 where I reported that I was having bad blocks on my Maxtor hard disk after installing a SuSE distribution.

This week after running for 5 weeks plus several days, the bad block problem occurred oncee again on my Maxtor hard disk. I tried the suggestion to replace my IDE ribbon hard disk cable, then did a low level format, re-partitioned, then re-installed SuSE. My confidence was building over the past several weeks, however the bad block problem ocurred again and my system would not boot.

Since April 2005, this is the 5th time this has happened on a new hard disk. After the 1st time I returned the hard disk on the recommendation of the Maxtor diagnostic utility. This time I'll be returning the hard disk for the second time, however I won't install another linux distribution on the replacement. On one of my installations I partitioned the hard disk, creating a small partition where I knew the bad blocks were, re-installed linux bypassing the bad blocks. Several weeks later linux reports additional bad blocks and won't re-boot again.

Earlier on in this thread it's mentioned Linux tends to be less tolerant of flaky hardware than Windows and I wonder if this is the issue with Maxtor, whether Maxtor can use only Fat32 or NTFS filesystems? I first bought the hard disk in a computer shop, and independently returned the hard disk to the manufacturer after the first bad block problem for replacement. Then the same problem arises with a 2nd replacement hard disk. Once again I am returning the hard disk to Maxtor under the recommendation of the Maxtor diagnostic utility, and this will be the 3rd Maxtor hard disk I'll receive under warranty replacement,.

The hard disk is: 80Gb, DiamondMax Plus 9

As mentioned, I am also using Maxtor quite successfully, I think both of my disks are DiamondMax. I don't think Linux has a problem with them. What is your operating environment? Perhaps the disks are overheating from lack of ventilation? Could the problem be not the actual hard drives, but communication errors with the motherboard? I am thinking of something similar to my problem with the cable, but maybe on the board itself. Maybe your mainboard or its chipset is the "flaky" hardware.

It seems highly unlikely to me that you are specially cursed when it comes to drives.