is this a bad hard drive? advice, please.

I purchased a WD 15 Gig Caviar HD 7200 rpm last week, am now in the process of installing it. The hard drive appears to not be good, but I’m not positive I can exclusively target the HDD as the problem as I have a couple unanswered questions. I’d appreciate any advice on diagnosing this further.

Here is the history: The new drive is going into a machine with Pent. Celeron MMX 300MHz CPU, and 64 mb ram. The machine ran fine with both original drives before the WD was installed. I disconnected the original 8 gig and 3 gig hard drives in the machine, both power and cables. Installed the new WD 15 Gig as a solo drive, red stripe on the IDE cable next to the red wire on the power plug. The WD came with the jumpers set to cable select.

I took the jumper off CS, and installed it as a single drive. Boot would not complete, listing a hard drive failure. I went into the Award bios ver 4.51PG, it was not able to auto detect the HDD in the Auto Detect section, although the Standard CMOS setting section did recognize and correctly identify the WD as the primary IDE master. Rechecked the cable and power plugs to make sure they were seated properly. Still would not boot.

I changed the jumpers to Master, then to CS again, then to slave, started the machine with each changed jumper setting, and still had the same failure reading each time. I bypassed the failure reading and went on to boot from an emergency floppy which also told me there was no recognizable Fat or Fat 32 fixed disk. So I fdisked to see if maybe it was just a formatting problem, but the error message read that it found no fixed disk.

the machine is now reassembled and running fine again with the original HDDs (Quantum Fireball and Fujitsu "“ WD is removed). The bios is recognizing the two original HDDs, both in the auto detect and in the Standard CMOS settings.

Questions: 1) If the drive needed a low-level format would I get this error?

2) Is there perhaps a compatibility problem with a 7200 rpm HDD on a machine of this age (300 MHz)? both of the originals are 5400 rpm

or 3) is this a bad HD?

TIA - maureen

 

Sounds like you did everything right. (and did an excellent job of stating it, few loose end questions.)

When you installed the drive, were you using the old cable which was working on the other drives? I ask because sometimes when the cable connectors are crimped on they don't always connect to all 39/40 pins and you know the old cable worked. A new cable might be bad out of the box. - This might allow the drive to be partially detected as mentioned.

Also when you booted up did you hear the drive spin up, if not try putting your hand on the drive then hitting the pwr button, you should be able to feel the drive start.

If you had used the old cable, and you know the drive was spinning up, return the drive as DOA (Dead on Arrival)

There should be no compatability issues with your system other than the fact that you EIDE controller may not be able to use the full speed potential of the drive. But that is not an issue.

 

I will WAG it again.

WD 15 Gig Caviar HD 7200 rpm

Is it possible that the machine itself will not support a 7200rpm dirve.

Don' t they require a 80 conductor cable ?

BillyBob

 

BillyBob - RPM does not matter, but you are currect that all newer drives which transfere data at UATA66 / 100 / 133 / 150 require a 80 conductor cable to support those UDMA transfere rates. Connecting a 40 conductor IDE cable will cause the drive to run in UATA33 mode and depending on BIOS might display a message about the connection. This will not affect anything except limit the transfer speed.

On the system she described, Mode 4 or UATA33 is about the fastest onboard controllers that was available at the time it manufactured.

 

Profgab101

Thanks for the Info.

I thought that the cable made a difference somewhere.

BillyBob

 

Thanks ProfGab and BB.

In answer to your Qs, yes, I believe I did hear the HD cranking up, but can’t really say at the moment whether it quit or just quieted down "“ in any case, it didn’t last long because the system could no longer detect it. BB, ProfGab is right, this machine does not sport a fast bus speed. Used the same cable which worked before and after the WD attempt.

I presume, since there was no mention of it, that LLformatting would not be a factor in this situation…

I have emailed the supplier from whom I purchased the HDD and will probably be getting a replacement since it does look like it was bad. Unlike this board, they are not accessible during off-business hours - so I was just checking with the experts here during off-business hours to see if there was something I might have missed in remedying this problem. If we find there is any unusual twist here, then I’ll be sure to post back. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

-regards!

 

Low Level Format - not recommended for IDE

Low Level formating was popular in setting up the OLD MFM Hdd's and is still used on SCSI drives either thru the controller BIOS (like Adaptec and others) or through a *.com program that must be run from a DOS enviroment.

There are programs out there that will zero out the drive like GWSCAN, and if needed these should be used. BUT - trying a low level command via Debug or other method can destroy an IDE or EIDE drive because it often tries to bypass the internal controllers geometry.

 

Yeah, using the wrong cable shouldn't be a disaster. The bios displays a message about using the wrong cable. I can't remember if it hard halts or just continues. Either way, you know what to do.

I've never used a WD hard drive but I've heard that they use "weird" jumper settings that no other mfr. uses and I remember that setting up a solo master WD was the "weirdest" setting. Is everyone in this thread familiar with those settings?

 

Hi Chiles4

the jumper settings were printed right on the drive, so there's not much chance that you can guess wrong unless you intend to; settings for solo master, master w/ slave, slave or CS, printed on the drive - I think there was even a park for the jumper. There were other configuration choices, perhaps enabling the ATA 2s and 3s, but since that didn't apply, I didn't study it out. Anyway, I haven't found WDs to be any more wierd than other HDDs I've come across.

The ones that have confused me the most are the old HDDs with the jumper pins right on the circuit board, instead of between the IDE cable and power slots on the back of the drive. Maybe that's what you're referring to? I've spent a lot of time looking up jumper configurations on various mfr websites for old HDDs.

Happy ending: the supplier is replacing the hard drive, should have it in few days.

-maureen

 

maureen

When you installed your new HDD did you use the EZ install disk from WD? Did it come with or did you only get the HDD by itself? If so you can go to WD site and download the install program.

I just did two 40 gig HDD from WD. I had to download the install program. Mine are both set on CS which means the on on the end of the cable is master and the one 6 inches down is the secondary. If you install the other drives along with the WD, the install program gives you the option of transferring all your data to the new drive.

 

Hi Bill "“ I got a refurbished bare drive, Mfr date May 2002, no install software. I’ve never used install-software for an internal HDD except for bios overlay disk management. I’ve used both the EZBios (Data Lifeguard) and the Maxtor disk overlays, and yes indeed, they do copy data over to the new HDD.

In this case I didn’t need to use the EZ disk mgmt program because this bios was able to recognize a large HDrive. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you are referring to a disk management or bios overlay program when you refer to the install program?

If you are, let me caution you to keep your programs, because you will need them to remove the overlay when you are ready to put one of your disks into another computer "“ otherwise you will not be able to read and retreive your data from other masters or slaves which do not have the same program. See my dilemma at post #7 & 8 in this thread that started with video problems. video >HDD problems

The only other install programs that I can think of might be for external drives or SCSI? If this is not what you are referring to, then please educate me a little more! I’m curious.

Thanks for joining in. - maureen

 

Maureen

Sounds like a recently advertised CompGeeks HD but regardless, my admiration for your diplomacy in telling BMoore to watch it with the third party HD program utilities - personally, my recommendation is to avoid them like the plague. You were much kinder.

 

maureen
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I purchased a WD 15 Gig Caviar HD 7200 rpm last week, am now in the process of installing it.
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The Software of which I spoke is the official installation disk from Western Digital. I didn't know you had purchased a refurbished HDD, I assumed you bought it from Western Digital or one of it's dealers.

This is not some third party software, I don't even know what a "disk management" or "BIOS overlay" program is. If you go to the Western Digital site, you can read all about the installation program. It is a very good program for anyone who wants to diagnose a Western Digital HDD problem. Other reputable manufacturers also put out install and diagnostic programs for their HDD's.

The one drawback to using the install software is they cannot partition and format a HDD that you wish to make no primary. I have my second drive partitioned as one 40 gig extended and three logical drives. I had to use fdisk and format for that.

I'm glad you are getting your problem solved. Good luck with your replacement drive.

 

BMoore:

I didn't say this was a refurb - CompGeeks sells both new and used - regardless, that is irrelevent.

However, I was referencing the "Official WD software" which I ambiguously referenced as "Third Party ".

No offense meant, just personal preference. And, for what its worth, I use a lot of WD drives and have had very good results with them and a very low failure rates. Company is top notch and RMA procedures are painless.

 

Hi Bill & Rockster,

took your advice, Bill, went to the WD site, and it does appear that there is a difference between the EZ Bios and the EZ install software. Rockster, this was new to me "¦ my only experience has been with the overlays "“ and yes the drive was a refurb, I was the one who said it, and you nailed the supplier (Good job!) Here are some FAQs on the install/overlay software from WD - FAQs EZ install + EZ bios

Bill, with the bios overlay you usually have to execute a keyboard command during the boot process in order to bypass the overlay and boot from A: (like if you needed to boot with an emergency disk). There is an instruction that appears on the screen for a couple seconds while it is booting. That would be a clue as to whether you were running that program.

The only reason the overlay becomes necessary is if you want to install larger HDDs in older machines whose bioses only recognize 2 gig or 8 gig drives "“ I’m sure you know this. Effectively, the overlay program tricks the bios and allows it to "see" and use the larger drive to its full capacity. The problem with overlays is that once you’ve installed the program onto the disk, other drives without the same overlay cannot read data from the disk. Neither can a modern bios in a newer system read that drive. You have to remove the overlay if you’re going to use it in another environment, otherwise you cannot access your data. I learned that the hard way.

I have emailed WD tech support to ask a little more about their install program. If anything interesting turns up from their reply, I’ll post back. Thanks for putting me on to some new info, looks like you might be able to straight-copy partitions with this program!

-maureen

 

Quite welcome...

Go Diamondbacks!!