Formating a "locked" hard drive

[ivwshane]

I have a sata drive that I pulled out from an att homezone unit (dvr setup for use with dish service). I'd like to use the drive but I cannot get my system to recognize it.

Let me clarify that, Vista recognizes it in the disk management tool as unknown but it says it's not initialized. When I try to initialized the drive it says "incorrect function".

What do I need to do to use this drive?

 

[ivwshane]

I probably need to add that I have this drive connected via a powered USB enclosure.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: ivwshane
I probably need to add that I have this drive connected via a powered USB enclosure.

why? connect it directly to mobo via SATA

 

[Blain]

* Use some type of partitioning utility to delete the partition and create a new one.
* You could use the HD manufacturers utility to format the drive or use KillDisk to wipe it.

 

[ivwshane]

It turns out the drive was just dead!

It wouldn't even spin up. Oh well.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: ivwshane
I'd like to use the drive but I cannot get my system to recognize it.

Let me clarify that, Vista recognizes it in the disk management tool as unknown but it says it's not initialized.

Vista recognizes the drive in the disk management, but it's not spinning up??

How can this be??

 

[ivwshane]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: ivwshane
I'd like to use the drive but I cannot get my system to recognize it.

Let me clarify that, Vista recognizes it in the disk management tool as unknown but it says it's not initialized.

Vista recognizes the drive in the disk management, but it's not spinning up??

How can this be??

By recognize I mean vista sees it but that it, no drive details, no size details, manufacture info, nothing.

XP didn't see it (via usb or sata) nor did gpart see it.

 

[ivwshane]

It appears to be a hardware lock, kind of like how an xbox locks out it's hard drive. From my research it appears that drives with this feature enabled will not function if removed from their original host computer.

If anyone know of a way to get around this please let me know.

 

[ivwshane]

Wahoo!!!! I got it working!!!!

I basically downloaded a linux live cd tool (see below), it ran automatically and disabled/fixed the issue as described in this thread:
http://forum.hddguru.com/how-f...-hard-drive-t9666.html

I think that you have a problem with with "Power-up in Standby" ...

Use this tool ( "turn_off_poweron_in_standby-1.01.iso) to force the drive to spin (you will have to boot from the iso).
URL for the tool is :
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=136732

Your drive have a firmware bug and WD haven't provided a fix for it, once you turn on "Power-up in Standby" you will not be able to turn that off, because the drive will report that it doesn't support it.
You will be able to boot the drive on the PC but you will not be able to fix the firmware, because WD doesn't provide any fix for it.
You could use PC-3000 to fix the drive but it very expensive.

Drive before EFh 06h:
Word 83 (A6h): 61h 7Fh
Word 86 (ACh): 41h 3Ch

Drive after EFh 06h:
Word 83 (A6h): 01h 7Fh
Word 86 (ACh): 21h 3Ch

The above EFh 06h is the ATA command for "SET FEATURES - Enable Power-up in Standby". The hex words 83 & 86 you see there are the response to the ATA command IDENTIFY DEVICE. What it says is that before the SET FEATURES command, the drive supports "Power-up in Standby" and that it is disabled. After the feature is enabled, the drive says it does not support it, yet the drive says it is enabled.

Reporting the wrong information is one thing. But once that feature is enabled, the drive refuses to disable it with the SET FEATURES Disable Power-up in Standby (EFh 86h). An ATA RESET command does not work either.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hdparm/files/
turn_off_poweron_in_standby
v1.01