ATA100 HD. But runs like ATA... well 40!

[Uykucu 0]

Himm than there lies your problem. It should not be PIO mode.

But instead DMA 5

have you checked for a Bios Upgrade? drive also might be faulty. Remeber WD drives have 3-5 years warranty

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How do I put it on DMA 5?

 

This motherboard is an EP-8KTA3, came out in Feb BRAND NEW! BIOS is from Feb also. And it supports ATA100 in the BIOS according to the packaging. If you've seen this board first hand you know its a good board and has ATA100.

 

Perhaps. But my friends computer (practically same config) is doing the same thing. I think its a setting or a config or something. Kinda pisses me off there is no deffinate answer.

[Uykucu 0]

If you can take your friends drive and attach it to you machine and try it out. or some other drive that is ATA 100

I believe your drive might be bust. I have a WD Ata 66 20GB drive with exactly the same symptoms. which is sitting outside.

 

But my bios did start to tell me that the drive has failed...

If not try enabling

"Halt on All Errors" and boot up. let's see what it says.

 

I have not used your board (there are so many of them) I use Asus myself. But I verry much doubt it is a problem with your board as I said.

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hmm well I will try but I SERIOUSLY doubt that is the problem. I don't think the drive is faulty.

 

How do I enable DMA5???

[SHS 0]

Hang in there I look it up

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ok thank you I am looking in my manual.

[SHS 0]

Go to this page

http://www.westerndigital.com/service/ftp/drives.html

Download the Ultra ATA Manager.

put it on a blank floppy disk.

boot useing a pure dos boot disk

put in that floppy disk type "dlgudma".

[HELLBRINGER 0]

That is what is on my floppy disk.

 

ATA 100 is working on my friends computer!

[SHS 0]

well then try your on your system friends if it dosen't work then some worng with your disk then I called WD but if it dose then it could be you have a bad ATA 66/100 cable or even a bad motherboard.

Try Put it on the Secondary Master be sure move the ATA 66/100 cable a round.

[HELLBRINGER 0]

Well I checked the cable....

 

I think I need to enable LBA cause it is not on on mine but it is on on my friends. When his sys boots up it says ATA100.

 

I will try and figure it out...

 

Thanks for all the help.

[SHS 0]

LBA has nothing to do with it.

LBA (Logical Block Addressing) is a method of accessing hard disk drives. This allows IDE disks larger than 504 megabytes (1024 cylinders) in size to be fully partitioned using the MS-DOS fdisk command. Prior to this technology, ROM BIOS limitations prevented the fdisk command from using an entire hard disk that was larger than 504 megabytes (MB) in size, except by using other controller ROM routines that effectively translate the hard disk's native geometry.

[HELLBRINGER 0]

Well something enabled ATA100 on my friends comp when i messed in the BIOS.

 

His ATA100 is working. Testing in SiSoft Sandra and it kicked the **** out of UDMA66. Mine is still stuck in PIO 4! WTF is up man?

 

Should I call WD? I have tried everything you guys have told me and its not working. How do I get it out of PIO 4 mode!?

[SHS 0]

Yes I call them ASP you could have a bad frimwire on the disk.

[HELLBRINGER 0]

ok will do thank you

[Uykucu 0]

Tomorrow is monday.

Call them up and request a replacement. but it will take up to 2 weeks if i know WD.

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Well their technical support does not exist. From that I could find.

 

I called their tech support. After going through all the menus and not getting a hold of any god damn person I decided to wait on the non-touch tone phone part. After sitting over an hour I gave up. Total bullshit!

 

So what do I do now? I don't want to wait another 6-8 damn weeks for a RMA to get taken care of. And knowing them they probably wont even transfer the data from my current HD to the new one. I'll probably end up fixing it my self. Then there is always the possibility of getting a new hard drive back, and finding out it is doing the same thing as my current one.

 

I think the problem is my system. I don't see any reason for this drive to not be working.

 

I want to try some more things and go through it more throughly if anyone can help me. Their tech support sucks and their online support is no good either.

 

Can someone help me please?

[HELLBRINGER 0]

Quote:

ATA 100 enabling is not an WD thing. every single drive has it. but coming to quality.
It used to be verry good when the largest drives were 13-15GB not anymore.

Cache handling of WD is verry sloopy although it does not spin down (actually it should) it can under no circumstance keep a constatnt data rate. and it does not spin down to recover errorsa either so it just keeps getting worst.
I find them to be higly unreliable. in a different sense. Usually they do not die straight ahead but your Bios starts reporting drive Fail. You can still access it and copy your data but actual High frequency cct is gone. I have seen bios wiped or cache memory blown reporting %60 failure

IBM and Quantum are actually the real deals. IBM is the one manufactered first HDD and still they have the largest, fastest drives (and most expensive). Quantum on the other hand licences technologies from IBM so it is always about a week behind on size and speed. And the drives are fab. generally. But I have started to come across more and more faulty quantums. it is usually a problem with their suspension or shock absorption which is caused by drive not fixed properly. This is because quantum drives have the quickest spin up and down. which puts stress on the mechanism. Frankly I do not see any other device worth mentioning.

I hope it helps.

You know what... Come to thinking about what you said here... I remember once, and only once, hard disk drive fail during POST. Now I was messing around in the comptuer, and the IDE cable or power might not have been in all the way. But I recall it was in, for what I could tell by my half *** analysis of the cable. I wonder if the drive is not damaged...

But how the hell can that be? It has operated seamlessly all this time, no problems with data what so ever. No misc fails or spin downs or anything.

And who cares about cache handling on hard drives. I have onboard cache for my processor L1 and L2. And 256MB RAM. That's my cache. You can tell it works too. Load MS Word on first boot, takes a few seconds, close it and load it again later, LOADS HELLA FAST! Same thing with quake 3 levels. Cache does make a difference though I can really see it.

[HELLBRINGER 0]

Ok I have been messing around with some BIOS stuff.

 

I got the damn thing now to say when booting LBA, ATA-100, 40002 WD blah blah blah stuff.

 

So the BIOS has ATA-100 capability.

 

Now I ran the setup utility. And the phuker still says ATA33 and ATA33 is the ONLY AVAILABLE OPTION!

 

So something is either screwed up with the drive... Or i dont know.

 

I didnt even have to do this on my friends machine. I didnt have to use the WD Utility Disk thing to enable it, it was already enabled.

 

I just installed Via 4in1 4.32 Final drivers and ATA 100 worked on his system. I WILL NOT DO THAT ON MY SYSTEM.

 

Also, on my system it says DMA Mode for transfer rate but it is still sub 66 speeds!

 

I need to figure this out. Why wont the utility enable ATA100?

[Uykucu 0]

Well, I thought we wwere trying to help you out.

Here is the deal.

Of course your bios supports it (Dough!) Problem is with your drive I am repeating for the 3rd and the last time.

Have you gone in to bios and enabled halt on all errors? what happened afterwards?

Drive will not get damaged if the IDE or power is not plugged in or shaky etc. It just won't work.

What you should concentrate here is basically when you do run the ATA Utility you do not see the option of ATA 100 or even 66

This is because your drive is misreporting/ not being able to report it's model No. abilities etc.

Or WD Software is messed up which I find the idea to be very unlikely.

 

Try using the same SW with your friend's computer. Do not change anything just try to see if the option is available. If it is for the 3rd time get a new drive or replacement or whatever.

 

Also when you say sub 66 how many MBps in sequential read? And if you keep running diagnostic/benchmark your drive is going to fail anyway.

[HELLBRINGER 0]

No need to be sarcastic. I am aware of everything you have told me. I am asking for more help beyond what you have already told me. I want to also go on record by saying I do appreciate your help very much. So you don't need to be sarcastic.

 

Now that that is out of the way. I DID enable hault on all errors, as a matter of fact it was practically on that! I had it on "all, but keyboard" which would do the same effect. The only reason I had it on that was because sometimes I do not have my "cordless" keyboard plugged in. And I can plug in the PS/2 in the middle of Windows and install it no problem.

 

And I also realize the drive will not get damaged if the power is not plugged in or shaky etc. But since I was not sure if it was not plugged in all the way and I got an hard disk drive fail that concerned me because I DID HEAR the drive power up. So you see my point now.

 

Yes the ATA Utility provided by WD on the floppy disk is not detecting ATA 100 or even 66! Its only detecting ATA33. But... It is detecting the drive it self properly. That leads me to believe that (and I may be wrong) the BIOS or something is not setup correctly.

 

Granted, the drive may be 'misreporting' ATA66+ capability. But the drive IS BEING REPORTED CORRECTLY.

 

I am not trying to be rude here. Now before I try to get an RMA and return it I want to STRESS every option I have before doing so. I'm sure you understand why as I don't want to be hard drive absent for any extended period of time, or even 1 hour for crist sake.

 

I will do a test to see sequential read and report back here shortly.

 

And thanks for the encouraging words of my drive failing. I doubt it will fail. It has never failed before but there is always a first time.

 

Again, thank you for your help. I have read everything you have told me.

 

Mike

[HELLBRINGER 0]

Heres the data...

 

Desktop Role

 

Buffered Read 51MB

Sequential Read 23MB

Randon Read 6MB

Buffered Write 28MB

Sequential Write 25MB

Random Write 7MB

Averate Access Time 8ms

[HELLBRINGER 0]

WOAH! I just realized! I just now saw... Its above 66 now! And I havent even done anything! WTF!?

 

Heres the pic thats what it reads...

 

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previous was 2000 Standard, this is 2001 TE...

 

[HELLBRINGER 0]

And now with the other 2001...

 

Sorry too lazy to take off desktop...

 

[HELLBRINGER 0]

ANYONE HAVE ANY MORE IDEAS?

 

I just though of something...

 

I have 2 heatsinks on the harddrive on the time. Not doing anything wrong (i dont think) that cool the drive. It seems to cool it a lot, it helps a lot. Could this be affecting anything? I doubt it and dont see why or how it could, but I thought I would ask.

 

Thank you.