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Installing SATA HD - 500 GB Samsung H501LJ

Muse

Muse

Lifer
Got the HD OEM, and the supplied Samsung instructions are woeful, IMO. The drive itself doesn't label the jumpers (they are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H), and looking at the illustration, you can't really tell.

I'm tempted to assume that A/B are on the left when the drive label faces up. But even assuming this doesn't remove doubt. They have you jumper E & F for cable select with a mobo supporting >32 GB (my mobo is MSI K8N Neo2). However, you go to Samsung's website and they have you jumpering E & F and also B & D! See illustration at http://www.samsung.com/Product...uide/usersguide_02.htm

How should I jumper this? Right now I have 3 IDE HDs in the system, and this will be the only SATA drive. I figure I'll just format it one big HTFS partition in XP Pro. I figure I get the most flexibility if I set it as cable select instead of master.
 
SATA drives dont have jumpers like that. Are you sure it's SATA? Even the link shows PATA jumpers. If it's in fact PATA, jumper it for master, don't worry about >32GB limits on that board.

EDIT: Some SATA drives do have jumpers, but there is no master/slave and they're usually for future support (unused). You do not need to jumper SATA, they're 1-for-1 to the connectors. Can't hurt to plug it in and see if the board sees it, as well 😀 GL!
 
The manual is quite clear.

The jumper can be used to force SATA150 where such controller fails to negotiate. Master/Slave/Cable Select does not exist as each serial port is independent.

A single NTFS partition is fine and I suggest 64KB clusters for best performance unless backwards OS compatability or EFS &c. are required. Capacity "waste" is negligible anyway.

Also, make it a Basic Disk rather than Dynamic unless there is a specific reason to do so.

Firstly though, I strongly recommend running the full diagnostics (HUTIL) before even bothering formatting and certainly before committing data.
 
Originally posted by: Auric
The manual is quite clear.

The jumper can be used to force SATA150 where such controller fails to negotiate. Master/Slave/Cable Select does not exist as each serial port is independent.

A single NTFS partition is fine and I suggest 64KB clusters for best performance unless backwards OS compatability or EFS &c. are required. Capacity "waste" is negligible anyway.

Also, make it a Basic Disk rather than Dynamic unless there is a specific reason to do so.

Firstly though, I strongly recommend running the full diagnostics (HUTIL) before even bothering formatting and certainly before committing data.
Click to expand...

Ah, I think I misinterpreted the foldup info sheet that was the only thing included with this OEM drive except for the plastic protective shell. It was a one-size-fits-all for both PATA and SATA drives. This is SATA. I was trying to figure out why the connectors didn't look like what I had. 😕

The jumper master/slave/cable select info was if I had a PATA drive.

So, I have it jumperless at the moment. They didn't include a jumper, anyway.

I haven't fired up the system yet, but I have it almost ready to try it. I installed a new PSU today, too (Corsair HX520W). One or two more things to do and I'll try firing it up and go into BIOS and see if the drive is seen.

What is HUTIL, and where can I get it and how do I run it?

How do I set it up for 64kb clusters? I thought if you don't partition a drive the cluster size was automatic. Well, that was a few OS versions ago, so I don't know what's going on with that now. How should I prepare the drive? Do it in Disk Manager of XP Pro? TIA for the news and tips! I'm working on my laptop at the moment.
 
I hope you have a version of XP Pro with at least SP1 (prefer SP2, the latest) included. The original XP did not support large drive partitions over 137 GB, but the Service Packs fixed that so you can partition with one NTFS volume to cover the whole HDD. Note that you still DO a partition - it's just that you create only one on the drive. Then you have to format it.
 
Originally posted by: Paperdoc
I hope you have a version of XP Pro with at least SP1 (prefer SP2, the latest) included. The original XP did not support large drive partitions over 137 GB, but the Service Packs fixed that so you can partition with one NTFS volume to cover the whole HDD. Note that you still DO a partition - it's just that you create only one on the drive. Then you have to format it.
Click to expand...

So, you create a primary partition and make it active and format it, right? How do you specify 64kb clusters?

I have SP2 and all Windows Updates, at least the critical ones.

I'm using the system now. Amazingly, everything seems fine after installing the new HD (it's seen in the BIOS on Channel 2), and installing a new PSU. My system has all 5 PCI slots filled, two serial COM ports, KVM, two monitors, more cables than you can shake a stick at, but AFAIK everything's fine. Not sure I like the whine of my new PSU. Maybe it will be better when I get the sides on the case. 😕

PS The whine I'm hearing is the 80mm Vantec Stealth exhaust fan at the back of the case. With my former PSU, an Antec 430 True, that fan was running way slower. It was on a fan-only connector on the PSU. I was going to do that with this one and thought maybe things would work out better (i.e. good cooling and quiet) if I put that fan on s_fan1 on the mainboard instead. Maybe I can quiet it down using Speed Fan or some such utility.
 
Actually, I've never seen an option to choose cluster sizes in the partitioning software I have used, but then I don't get too sophisticated. If you have your system partitioned into one NTFS 500GB partition, formatted and working, don't worry about it. As Auric said in making the suggestion, capacity "waste" is negligible, anyway. Did you follow his / her other suggestion and run diagnostic software on the new HDD to be sure it is all good? You could use the HUTIL software recommended (don't know whre to get it, but I'm sure Google can help) or just go to the Samsung website and see what they offer for free downloads.
 
Originally posted by: Paperdoc
Actually, I've never seen an option to choose cluster sizes in the partitioning software I have used, but then I don't get too sophisticated. If you have your system partitioned into one NTFS 500GB partition, formatted and working, don't worry about it. As Auric said in making the suggestion, capacity "waste" is negligible, anyway. Did you follow his / her other suggestion and run diagnostic software on the new HDD to be sure it is all good? You could use the HUTIL software recommended (don't know whre to get it, but I'm sure Google can help) or just go to the Samsung website and see what they offer for free downloads.
Click to expand...

All good suggestions, seems to me... thanks. At the moment, I've done nothing except install the disk physically (no jumpers) and go into BIOS and make sure it's recognized. I haven't initialized it in Windows, no partitioning much less formatting. I'll look into the diagnostics before doing those things. Auric recommended analyzing the drive before formatting. I'll see what Samsung provides in the way of utilities (hopefully, they provide documentation, instructions, etc.), and Google HUTIL. Should have it humming today (they say it's quiet, though...).a

Edit: Ah, HUTIL is evidently Samsung's own utility. So much the better, if they provide documentation that is. In my experience, it's the big companies that don't document their programs. The little guys who produce freeware, document and support or noone will pay any attention.
 
Looking at HUTIL's online documentation, they do explain it, but in pretty fractured English and they don't particularly hold your hand. This utility can do a lot of things, including low level formats (trashing your data), and other data trashing things. There appears to be no mention of what state the drive can be in (i.e. unformatted). From Auric's remark I have to suppose it will work on an unformatted drive and that the only function (of the many functions) I should run is a surface scan, and hopefully I will untimately see "Pass!" and that's that... 😕
 
It took 4 hours, but the drive passed all tests in HUTIL. Now I have to format it. Anyone know how to specify 64kb clusters?
 
I did this on my HTPC to make it handle video files a little quicker.

Right click My Computer - Manage - Disk Management
Select the drive, right click it, and pick Format.

there you can pick the Volume Label, File System, and Allocation Unit Size, from default to 64k

also:
Start->Run
cmd
format <drive letter>: /a:64k /fs:ntfs
 
Originally posted by: tehach
I did this on my HTPC to make it handle video files a little quicker.

Right click My Computer - Manage - Disk Management
Select the drive, right click it, and pick Format.

there you can pick the Volume Label, File System, and Allocation Unit Size, from default to 64k

also:
Start->Run
cmd
format <drive letter>: /a:64k /fs:ntfs
Click to expand...

Thanks. About to do that. Mine is an HTPC too. I also use it for "every day" computing. The partition I was using for HDTV files was cramping me quite a bit (110 GB). I'll have much more breathing room now.
 
Originally posted by: Auric
The manual is quite clear.

The jumper can be used to force SATA150 where such controller fails to negotiate. Master/Slave/Cable Select does not exist as each serial port is independent.

A single NTFS partition is fine and I suggest 64KB clusters for best performance unless backwards OS compatability or EFS &c. are required. Capacity "waste" is negligible anyway.

Also, make it a Basic Disk rather than Dynamic unless there is a specific reason to do so.

Firstly though, I strongly recommend running the full diagnostics (HUTIL) before even bothering formatting and certainly before committing data.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately they didn't include that manual with the drive. The included little fold-up was confusing and didn't address jumper setting for forcing 1.5 GB throughput. Thanks for the link.
 
It's fully formatted now.

My only question is why XP Pro appears to see the drive as a removable drive. It's causing the Safely Remove Hardware icon to appear in my taskbar and is the only device in the screen when I punch up the icon. Normally, that icon only shows up when I have a USB device plugged in.

When I right-click the drive in Disk Management, I'm given the option to "mark the partition as active." Why is that? I see the drive and can write to it already (I copied a folder to it). When I set it up, I created one primary partition. Wasn't that what I wanted to do? Or is marking it active just making it a candidate for an OS partition?
 
Originally posted by: Muse
It's fully formatted now.

My only question is why XP Pro appears to see the drive as a removable drive. It's causing the Safely Remove Hardware icon to appear in my taskbar and is the only device in the screen when I punch up the icon. Normally, that icon only shows up when I have a USB device plugged in.
Click to expand...

That's normal, it's because SATA can be removed quickly.

 
Originally posted by: tw1164
Originally posted by: Muse
It's fully formatted now.

My only question is why XP Pro appears to see the drive as a removable drive. It's causing the Safely Remove Hardware icon to appear in my taskbar and is the only device in the screen when I punch up the icon. Normally, that icon only shows up when I have a USB device plugged in.
Click to expand...

That's normal, it's because SATA can be removed quickly.
Click to expand...

Should I make the sole partition active? I presume it had to be primary, but it's not "active."
 
yeah, thats what it looks like. I think I did that once on a slave drive and got the missing ntldr message upon trying to start up the system.
 
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