Lock-ups and other issues with a new SATA drive

[ZebuluniteV]

Hi. I recently ordered and received Western Digital's new WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA drive. I installed this into my newish desktop, with a Abit IP35-e motherboard with a 200GB PATA drive and PATA DVD drive. However, I have not yet been able to successful use the new SATA drive: whether due to a defective drive or me not doing something correctly with SATA drivers or something I'm not sure.


I Currently have Windows XP 64-bit installed. It initially did not detect drive, but I was able to get the system to see the drive via Disk Management under the Computer Management program. However, if I try to format the drive the system sits for about 1 minute or so, then the cursor becomes shaky/jittery while moving it, and after about 10 second of that the system invariably freezes.

I then tried installed XP 64 on the new SATA drive. However, when trying to format the SATA drive there, the progress bar shoots up to 20% but then freezes there, and eventually the system will reboot itself.

I additionally tried installed Vista, only to run into an error message (don't remember off hand what it was). Since I've read comments regarding similar issues turning out to be RAM related, I lowered the speed of my 8GB DDR2 setup (normally 1:1.5 ratio running at 900MHz, lowered to 1:1 running at 600MHz), and bumped up the voltage slightly. For some reason this actually let me get further in installed Vista, seemingly formatting the drive successful and installing, but after the first reboot during installation I received a disk read error.


Under Ubuntu I am able to format the drive to NTFS seemingly-successfully, though towards the end of formatting GPart (or whatever its called) receives an error, and I seem unable to access the drive in Ubuntu despite the format.

After formatting in Ubuntu I am able to access the drive in Windows XP, and tried copying some backed-up DVDs from an external drive to the new drive. This process seemed somewhat slow, but eventually all the files seemingly copied over successfully. However, when trying to play one of the backed-up DVDs off the SATA drive, Windows locked up after 30 second or so in a similar fashion to when I tried formatting the drive.


At this point I'm pretty much all out of ideas, or at least don't want to waste too much more time attempting random solutions when clearly I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong (or if the drive itself is simply defective). SATA-related issues with Windows seem fairly common, so hopefully I am just missing something relatively simply. Thanks for your help.


Edit: I should add that the system has been essentially 100% stable other than the recent SATA issue since I originally installed Windows XP about a month and a half or so ago, with it being on 24/7 running Folding@Home much of the time. So I'm pretty sure the hard drives issues aren't related to RAM or something else like that. While boosting the RAM voltage and lowering the speed apparently helped with Vista (though I haven't thoroughly investigated why that happened), it didn't do anything to help with Windows XP. Thus I don't want to leave the impression that my RAM is at fault, when I'm pretty sure that is not the case.

 

[hclarkjr]

did you download and run data lifeguard diagnostic? if not here is link that will tell you if the drive is bad or not

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: hclarkjr
did you download and run data lifeguard diagnostic? if not here is link that will tell you if the drive is bad or not

I ran the quick test earlier without no problems. I just started the extended test, and will report back its findings.

Edit - the extended test froze the system after about a minute or so while running in Windows. I just download the DOS cd-version of the diagnostic software, and will see how that works.

Edit 2 - Well, actually I seem unable to find a blank CD anywhere, and I don't have a floppy drive in the system. Is there any easy way to run the software off a USB drive?

 

[ZebuluniteV]

I tried running the Data Lifeguard Tools, which too froze the system after a minute or so after telling it to format the drive.

Edit: I also ran HDTune, which, before it freezes, shows the new drive getting at peak a 7MB data transfer rate, which obviously is far less than it should be.

 

[SickBeast]

Try the error test in HD Tune.

It sounds bad. Perhaps the drive was dropped during shipping. Hard drives are very sensititve devices.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Try the error test in HD Tune.

It sounds bad. Perhaps the drive was dropped during shipping. Hard drives are very sensititve devices.

If I remember correctly, that too caused the system to freeze in short order as well.

I'm beginning to think the hard drive may well be damaged. I'm still confused as to why, for instance, I have been able to successfully copy over large amounts of media files over at times, yet simply attempting to format the drive locks up the computer.

I have been able to format the drive under Ubuntu, though there I seem unable to access it otherwise (that could be my inexperience with Linux causing an issue, but I'm pretty sure a newly formatted drive would quickly appear) and GPart or whatever the software was called consistently has an error after existing or attempting to do anything else with the drive.

At any rate, I haven't been able to find some "magical" driver that could put the issue at rest, and unless I'm somehow missing some fundamental piece of software or something I'm beginning to think it is a hardware issue.

 

[Tweakin]

Have you thought about unpluggin your PATA derives and just doing a quick install to the WD on the stata bus? I'm wondering if the crappy aftermarket chip for pata is causing the problems.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: Tweakin
Have you thought about unpluggin your PATA derives and just doing a quick install to the WD on the stata bus? I'm wondering if the crappy aftermarket chip for pata is causing the problems.

I did consider that; however both my DVD drive and older hard-drive are PATA devices. Obviously I could try unplugging the hard drive, but otherwise I need the PATA controller on to install windows (well, I could get an external drive I suppose, but still).

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Okay...after returning to my dorm and booting the desktop into Windows, I saw that now for some reason the SATA drive wasn't even showing up in My Computer. Likewise, Disk Management reported there being some sort of error with the SATA drive (don't remember exactly what it was) and wouldn't let me try to format it or anything else.

I then rebooted the computer and went into the BIOS, where across from SATA Channel 1 literally nothing shows up (not the drive, not "None", but instead simply nothing). I still am able to press enter while selecting the "space", but I am greeted with a screen showing no info about the drive, with auto detection finding nothing. Likewise, at the moment the system seems to hang on the Abit logo screen, presumably as it tries in vain to detect the drive.

So, unless I somehow screwed up my BIOS (which I highly doubt as that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever), it seems I've basically confirmed that there is a serious hardware problem with the new drive.

Now to decide whether to RMA it to Newegg or to Western Digital....

 

[Vitaminx]

Think I've seen reviews from newegg about sata cable issues.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: Vitaminx
Think I've seen reviews from newegg about sata cable issues.

I suppose that could be the issue as well. I'm currently just using the cable that came with my IP35-e motherboard. Two were included, so I guess I should try the other one at some point and see if it makes a difference.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Well, trying the other cable didn't work, so unless both are faulty I don't think that's the issue.

While I had the drive cage out, I put my ear up to the drive while I had the BIOS attempt to detect the drive. I heard it making a lot of faint clicking noise, which likely indicate hardware issues.

So, I guess I'm even more certain now of hardware issues.

Edit: And I forgot to mention, but I also tried other SATA ports on the motherboard, so that's probably not the issue otherwise.