external HD troubles

[MonKENy]

I have a Western Digital WD7500P032. I just looked online and that model # comes up as a 750gig HD but the most I see is 230. Also when I try to save something to it I get the write delay to J:\ failure bubble. I already reformatted it once. Is there anything you guys would think to do to figure out what the problem is? It also seems like quite often when I try to use the safely remove hardware, it tells me device cant be removed. but nothing is using the device.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Run HD Tune's error checker. If that turns up errors, take the drive out of the enclosure (if possible) and test it by itself.

 

[MonKENy]

if there are partitions on this drive how would I see them? Can they be hidden? I was given the drive by my roomate who found it at his office. so How would I go about completely clearing it because I get a message from disk tune that writing is disabled and I need to remove partitions. I got 0 errors in the scan though.

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: MonKENy
if there are partitions on this drive how would I see them? Can they be hidden? I was given the drive by my roomate who found it at his office. so How would I go about completely clearing it because I get a message from disk tune that writing is disabled and I need to remove partitions. I got 0 errors in the scan though.

RIght click 'My computer' ->manage ->disk management.
Then select the correct HD, and you can do anything you want with it.
By that, I mean it will show you all partitions, and you may assign letters, mount it to a directory, format it again or whatever else.

 

[MonKENy]

I formatted it once already by right clicking and selecting format but This time used drive manager. Ill test the drive tonight and see if that made a difference.

 

[Elixer]

Did it show the correct size of the drive? Did it have multiple partitions?

 

[MonKENy]

no it showed as 232gigs

 

[MonKENy]

ok tried to backup my files to it again last night and got the windows delayed write failure again. any more Ideas?

 

[dunkster]

A quick Google look at your hardware suggests that the external drive/housing is interfaced by Firewire, and your Chaintech mobo has two SATA connectors.

You don't know if the problem is:
- The actual physical drive (inside the enclosure).
- A BIOS/Firewire problem that may incorrectly identify the drive.

I'd first check the actual drive:
- Remove it from the enclosure.
- Physically connect it to the (other) SATA board connector and power it by the board.
- Turn on the PC and see if the drive is correctly identified. Windows 'found new hardware' message should recognize it and report the drive by model name.

If the drive is correctly identified and functioning, do your format, partition, etc., while the drive is physically connected to the board.

If the drive proves OK, and performs properly as an SATA device - but does not work when replaced in the external housing - I would suppose that the problem lies with BIOS/Interface to the external housing.

Hope this helps!

 

[MonKENy]

ok Ill give it a shot this weekend and post up results.

 

[MonKENy]

ok so It seems that its a interface problem with this HDD, It is just gonna lock up and have to be restarted every so often, I guess that all there is to it?