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Here's one for the savvy... Two different HDDs with the same problem?
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Here's one for the savvy... Two different HDDs with the same problem?
PostPosted: 11/02/2010 7:36 AM Reply with quote
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This story just can’t be made any shorter than this. At least not by me.

I have as computer with most components from 2003 or so and I am running XP SP3. And it works fine, but I need more HDD. So I went ahead and bought a Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB SATA 6.0GB/s. My motherboard is an MSI 865PE Neo2-LS which only supports SATA 150MB/s. I thought they were backwards compatible, but apparently not according to WD?s own support.
So I went ahead and got a WD Black Caviar 1TB SATA 3.0GB/s instead. The exact same problem. And the problem was as follows:

Booted up the computer. The HDD is recognized in BIOS. Went into Partition Magic 8 and formatted it but did not partitioned it because I only want one partition and it is going to be used as a backup drive or second drive. My main drive is a SEAGATE 320 GB also SATA and has worked fine the entire time I’ve had it. I have a third drive that is a Maxtor 120 GB but that is IDE drive.
Once that was done I started to copy all files I had on my first drive and they copied fine and I could even see them afterwards. As soon as I rebooted the drive had disappeared from My computer and Disk Management. In the device manager it appears and also in BIOS . And when I looked for it in Partition Magic it sad BAD.
It should also be said that with the drives connected to the computer, from this moment it took 13 minutes top reboot every time I tried it (once it tried to get into Windows the dots at the bottom of the Windows Logo just kept going by and by and by), which WD blamed on the fact that the computer was looking for it since BIOS sees it. When they were unplugged, it started up as usual.

I never was able to get to the drive again (thank ms Fortune that I only copied the filed and didn't move them!)and my wife took both drives (both with the exact same symptom) to her job and the IT guy there and he couldn’t find them either on his state of the art computer.

I tried flashing my BIOS because mine was outdated (mine was 1.7 and the latest was 2.5) and gave it another try, but no. In BIOS it shows up but not in My Computer. I wanted to take all the files off of the drive because I had personal information but had no choice but to leave it and trust that WD only are going to try to format it and then wipe it clean and sell it as refurbished or just dispose of it.

The tech support at MSI told me that most likely the Mobo doesn’t support that size of HDDs when asking how much it did support they didn’t have an answer. Finally they told me it didn’t support more than 137GB which I found strange because BIOS v. 2.4 was there to make it support >137GB, not up to 137GB!
And before I had upgraded to BIOS v. 2.5 I already had a 320GB in the computer that worked fine. I have it partitioned, yes, but it hasn’t had the problems that these two WD drives had.

I was told by WD that if they showed up as BAD in Partition Magic, then they must have been bad. But how can the exact same problem occur with two different HDDs and two different models? I know it’s been Halloween, but this was before that. I have also read on the web that PM sometimes does show drives as BAD, it's something with the coding of the software apparently. I've tried it on Paragon Patition Manager too and that won't even open when the drive is in.

I am now in the business for a large capacity HDD and it would feel stupid to get a new HDD from Newegg and have to send it back again, if the problem is my Mobo, which I am leaning towards?

If I buy a HDD and an enclosure for USB 2.0 would that support a large drive? That's not the option that I want to go for, but if nothing else is possible that may be my only way out apart from building a new system. Or is there a reason known to anyone that the previous two drives didn’t work.

Any help appreciated.
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Re: Here's one for the savvy... Two different HDDs with the same problem?
PostPosted: 11/02/2010 1:24 PM Reply with quote
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I went ahead and bought a Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB SATA 6.0GB/s. My motherboard is an MSI 865PE Neo2-LS which only supports SATA 150MB/s. I thought they were backwards compatible, but apparently not according to WD's own support. So I went ahead and got a WD Black Caviar 1TB SATA 3.0GB/s instead. The exact same problem.


Gee, Spider ... HDD problems drive me nuts!  They just aren't as simple as they used to be, so many variables.  They can be so touchy.

Does the mobo have two connectors for the HDD, one for 150MB and one for 3.0GB or are they interchangeable?   How about HDD/SATA settings in the BIOS?  Is there info on the HDD itself for jumper settings that may pertain to your problem?

My first guess would be the unpartitioned 1TB HDD even though it did show up at first, when you copied over the files.   Possibly once there was something stored on the HDD the mobo couldn't read it?  Unfortunately now that Partition Magic won't read it either you can't do anything about that.

You said it shows up in Device Manager, does it say "This device is working"?  How about drivers, can up update them using device Manager?  Allow it to connect to Microsoft to look for a driver, since XP is so old it probably wouldn't have drivers for that 1TB HDD stored in it's database.

That's about all I have to offer, Spider.  That and recommendation to Google, Google, Googel.  ALSO if there is a forum for Western Digital HDDs you might presenting your problem there. Sometimes the guys on there know more than Tech Support.  Wish I could offer more.




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Re: Here's one for the savvy... Two different HDDs with the same problem?
PostPosted: 11/02/2010 1:34 PM Reply with quote
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It didn't say it was working actually. And there were jumper settings that I followed on the last one to take it down to 150MB, but that didn't help either.

The mobo has two SATA connectors with the same speed BTW.

I understand you cannot resolve this just by reading my post RB. My friend in Sweden and I sat on Skype for a week trying different options (and he is hell of a computer guy when it comes to solving these kind of problems) and I asked bot MSI and Western Digital and none of the supports have been able to explain it! Maybe I need to do an exorcism of the computer!  violent1

BTW, I don't have them anymore. They're on their way back to Newegg and then to WD and hopefully my money is on its way to our account soon too!
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