Topic: WD HARD DRIVE ISSUES

[waltmon]

I have to 500 GB drives that are chock full of music and my computer will not "SEE" them. 


   The drives power up fine and I here the disc drive spinning, but the computer still does not recognize them....is there a fix?   I have alot of my masters on one plus 500 GB of top notch Dead on the other.

[flipp]

Use a "live" Linux disc to boot from. If Linux sees the drives, transfer the files to something else so you don't lose them if the drives die.

That's the easiest way to see if the drives are still good. With a little more info I might be able to offer a different suggestion. What OS are you using? Internal or external drives; if external, WD MyBooks or bare drives in an aftermarket enclosure? EIDE/PATA or SATA?

[LEDZEPZOSO]

I have to 500 GB drives that are chock full of music and my computer will not "SEE" them. 

Have you tried to use another PC. Simply and easy test.

[waltmon]

I am using windows XP media edition.   The WD drives are the external "MY BOOK" series.

[Gordon]

do they show up in disk management?    (control panel > administrative tools > computer management > disk management)

[chrisdavis]

interesting.  i have a wd passport that has the same issue.  i usually just leave it plugged in...

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

If you can get the data off of them I would HIGHLY suggest buying TWO drives to replace them.

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

In regards to your issue I have heard that external drives can sometime have issues with the electronics that a part of the case that die, and then the computer can't read the drive.

You can remove the drive from the case an install it inside of a desktop or a known good external case and sometimes read the data off the drive.

Hopefully you have backups of your shows. It drives me NUTS when I read about someone that lost all of their recordings because they only had one copy. Hard Drives WILL die. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN. Only having your data in one place is exactly the same as just erasing it.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

[waltmon]

I have alot on disc, but I was burning so many discs, I replaced like 3 disc burners 

    I am freaking mostly about the one with the masters on it..I taped my wedding band and Bob Marley's guitar player and Peter Tosh's base player was in our band and for what ever weird reason my wife did not get a copy after I mixed it down. Basically in the shits as usual...

[it-goes-to-eleven]

So what diagnostic steps have you taken so far?

And.. just a warning, don't use any BS windows repair tools on the drives.  Most of them are crap. At this point it is all about gathering information and doing no harm.  If you actually have a media issue, it would be best to minimize the spin time as much as possible.

[waltmon]

I have tried the drives on a couple different computers with the same results.  As I said, they power up perfectly.  I went to the WD for support and they had a widget that is supposed to sniff out the drives.  It showed that I had a WD500-whatever attached to the laptop, but no luck with the laptop seeing it.

  1 of them initially would pop-in if I left it on a while but since stopped.  I figured it best not to keep running the unit til I had a plan.  I was told that you could take them somewhere and have the drives read and dumped on another drive, but its supposed t be pretty spendy.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

Good to hear. I guess that makes sense. I just got a 1.5TB drive a couple of months ago and it died already! It still works but has developed more than a few bad sectors. Just bought another 1.5TB drive to replace it (WD instead of Samsung this time).

Apologies for the bad advice...but the key thing is keep multiple copies of everything. Chances are you won't have 2 drives die at the same time.

What's the word on taking the actual drive out of the enclosure and putting it into a new enclosure? I've heard that the electronics in the enclosure go bad, and that makes the drive unreadable, even if the actual drive is fine.

[flipp]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

Good to hear. I guess that makes sense. I just got a 1.5TB drive a couple of months ago and it died already! It still works but has developed more than a few bad sectors. Just bought another 1.5TB drive to replace it (WD instead of Samsung this time).

Apologies for the bad advice...but the key thing is keep multiple copies of everything. Chances are you won't have 2 drives die at the same time.

What's the word on taking the actual drive out of the enclosure and putting it into a new enclosure? I've heard that the electronics in the enclosure go bad, and that makes the drive unreadable, even if the actual drive is fine.

Opening a MyBook enclosure will void the warranty. If you send it to WD for a warranty replacement you get a different drive back. You have to weigh whether a working MyBook or the data on the drive is more important to you. I'm betting Walt wants the data off the drive rather than a working MyBook.

Since more than one comp has trouble seeing the drives I still suggest booting from a live Linux cd (Ubuntu just released their latest version yesterday) to see if Linux recognizes the drive(s) and if so transferring the data to yet a third drive; that or opening the MyBook, removing the drive and hooking it to a comp as either an internal drive or mounting in an aftermarket enclosure to see if the drive is bad or some of the MB electronics decided to go south.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The mybook enclosures can be very difficult to open and extract...  that seems intentional.  The good news is that it doesn't take much for windows to ignore/not show drives.  I have a thumb drive right now that is just fine but windows doesn't like it and won't mount it.

I agree on using linux to investigate the true status of the drive.  Though it doesn't sound like Walt has those skills.  Maybe someone in Texas can help him out?  There is a logical progression of steps in this recovery...  Is the drive visible on the USB bus?  Can the drive's partition table be read?  Can the drive be mounted (read only) under linux?  etc.

It sounds like this data is not backed up.   So a destination drive will probably be a necessary first step.  You really don't want to do anything that could harm the drive until you have made a full image copy of the drive.  Mounting the drive is not necessary for a recovery.

[TaperBryan]

I am using windows XP media edition.   The WD drives are the external "MY BOOK" series.

Like Walt, I'm running the same OS and using the same WD drive.  Except mine is a 1TB.  Mine is not even powering up.  When I plug it in...I can hear it spinning....but, my desktop recognizing the drive when I plug in the fire wire....

HELP!!  I have TONS of masters on there.  Did they just get 'erased'?!?!??   

[H₂O]

Make gparted boot cd and see if it is recognized using just USB - you may then be able to pull off the data.


http://gparted.sourceforge.net/


I had a WD 200GB drive fail in a similar fashion (there is a common issue with the drive I had and NTFS) at the time I bought some recovery software and was able to get most of the data back (but I had to spend about $100 in software costs).


The above software may have some utils that allow you to recover the partition or volume information and pull the data off the drive without spending the $$$ on recovery software - but if you don't know what you are doing don't mess with it as you may cause more harm - find someone who does - I am sure someone on the site could help you out.


Remember to keep copies of all your masters on multiple types of media and/or brands of HDD's

[TaperBryan]

mine actually seemed to power up last night and the light came on and my desktop found the drive....i have yet to unplug it.....although, i have unplugged the firewire from my desktop tower....just havent unplugged the external from the wall wart.  i'll be stopping at Best Buy on the way home to buy more discs.  Looks like i'm going to have a bit of task to get all the masters I have on there backed up to disc, etc.  I'm not looking forward to the hours thats going to take   .  But, it will beat the alternative of potentially losing them all.....

[flipp]

<cough> get another hd, much faster transferring to it than to optical media and retail drives come with software so you can easily transfer the entire contents<cough>

[adrianf74]

If you can get the data off of them I would HIGHLY suggest buying TWO drives to replace them.

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

In regards to your issue I have heard that external drives can sometime have issues with the electronics that a part of the case that die, and then the computer can't read the drive.

You can remove the drive from the case an install it inside of a desktop or a known good external case and sometimes read the data off the drive.

Hopefully you have backups of your shows. It drives me NUTS when I read about someone that lost all of their recordings because they only had one copy. Hard Drives WILL die. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN. Only having your data in one place is exactly the same as just erasing it.

+1.

Never have only one copy of your shows.  I found DVD media rather flakey for storing my shows because it would fail over time (even if stored in a dark, dry environment).  That said, I have a portable 320GB drive that has all of my shows on it and then copied that to another 500GB full-sized portable.   That 500GB drive is stored in my locker in a rubbermaid tote and I pull it out every two months or so and update.  I keep "secondary" copies on my home computer until they're "backed up" to the second drive.  This way, if I ever lose the one drive (fire, won't spin up, etc.) I have the second drive avaialble.

The $110 for 2TB is great.  I believe those are "green" drives which run a little slower but also run cooler and have a greater life expectancy.

[coloartist]

I got a 2tb Seagate drive about 4-5 months ago. Good so far. Crossing fingers.

[junkyardt]

please don't tell me there are people on here who actually keep only one copy of their masters on one hard drive. i have all of mine backed up on 3 different externals...no way 3 drives will fail all at once.

[coloartist]

please don't tell me there are people on here who actually keep only one copy of their masters on one hard drive. i have all of mine backed up on 3 different externals...no way 3 drives will fail all at once.

I have my masters in 2 places, and one of the places is raided.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The $110 for 2TB is great.  I believe those are "green" drives which run a little slower but also run cooler and have a greater life expectancy.

Pretty much all wrong, except the cheap price.

They are newer technology and they are less reliable.   Major changes to the heads were required for the higher density.

They aren't selling well.  That's why they are cheap.

They aren't slower - that's just a sign that you aren't using the 4096 byte sectors correctly.

Of course when the solar storm hits, we'd better have that stuff on optical!

[mmedley.]

I burn my masters to DVD, if I keep them. I usually just burn a 24bit and 16bit FLAC. I can just reassemble teh 24bit FLAC if I need a master again. 

[adrianf74]

The $110 for 2TB is great.  I believe those are "green" drives which run a little slower but also run cooler and have a greater life expectancy.

Pretty much all wrong, except the cheap price.

They are newer technology and they are less reliable.   Major changes to the heads were required for the higher density.

They aren't selling well.  That's why they are cheap.

They aren't slower - that's just a sign that you aren't using the 4096 byte sectors correctly.

Of course when the solar storm hits, we'd better have that stuff on optical!

Incorrect.  There has been some bad press on the newer high capacity drives.  The SAMSUNG STORY STATION drives have gotten pretty good reviews.

've got 4 x 2TB WD Caviar Green EAD20 drives running in a JBOD config.  With a small tweak, the drives are good without issues as far as head parking. 

They are selling well... and if that's the case, how come you can buy a 1TB drive (bare that is) for less than half of that?

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The $110 for 2TB is great.  I believe those are "green" drives which run a little slower but also run cooler and have a greater life expectancy.

Pretty much all wrong, except the cheap price.

They are newer technology and they are less reliable.   Major changes to the heads were required for the higher density.

They aren't selling well.  That's why they are cheap.

They aren't slower - that's just a sign that you aren't using the 4096 byte sectors correctly.

Of course when the solar storm hits, we'd better have that stuff on optical!

Incorrect.  There has been some bad press on the newer high capacity drives.  The SAMSUNG STORY STATION drives have gotten pretty good reviews.

've got 4 x 2TB WD Caviar Green EAD20 drives running in a JBOD config.  With a small tweak, the drives are good without issues as far as head parking. 

They are selling well... and if that's the case, how come you can buy a 1TB drive (bare that is) for less than half of that?

It's a lot more than bad press.   Look at the most popular 2TB WD drive on newegg.  25% of the ratings are one or two stars.  These densities require significant changes to the design of the drive. It's new tech and it hasn't matured yet.   And for those who aren't aware - you can find that same higher density tech in 1TB drives - so you have to watch out for those.

Samsung is a small player compared to wd and seagate (who I avoid; they've been close to bankruptcy for years).  The power consumption (and heat) on the samsungs is also higher than wd or seagate.

1TB Western Digital WD1001FALS, my preference, are still $90 street price.  I wish they were half...

[mmedley.]

You can't trust the reviews on NewEgg at all anymore. Most of those people have no clue what they are talking about. The low reviews usually are almost always due to user error. I have bought 20-30 HDD's in my lifetime and I have NEVER had one show up DOA or fail within a week as alot of these claims indicate. OEM or Retail. I can only recall 2 of my drives totally failing and they were well out of warranty (5-6 years old).

The only thing drive manufacturers are doing is cramming more platters into same drives and updating the firmware. More platters means they are more prone to failure. The Green drives ARE slower, regardless of sector sizing. Most every major OS uses 4096 sectors by default. The Green drives are meant to be economical and used for storage that is not heavily accessed for writing purposes. The Green drives are not expected to yield longer service life either. Not sure how that conclusion was arrived at, unless Green = Less Power = Less drive strain.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The only thing drive manufacturers are doing is cramming more platters into same drives and updating the firmware.

Wrong.  But I really don't care.

[rjp]

Most every major OS uses 4096 sectors by default.

The problem with the Western Digital EARS-series drives is that they lie to the operating system and say they use 512-byte sectors. The OS blithely trusts this, and if you aren't careful when setting up your drive, it'll perform very poorly. You must make sure to align the partition to a 4 Kbyte boundary, and force your filesystems to use 4K (or multiples thereof) blocks.

The other nasty problem with WD Green drives is that they will park the heads automatically after eight seconds of inactivity. This can result in ridiculous load cycle counts if you use these drives for anything other than the storage of backups. I'm not sure whether or not they tend to spin down after short timeouts, but if so, that would be another reason to avoid these drives for working storage.

[Johnny Thunder]

Using Linux is ok for some of us, but for thoise that don't have the experiance to do that, Acronis True Image is a good solution. Not only are you booting into a very small OS of it's own, (I beleive it's a version of the old Dr. DOS), you immediately have cloning options in a menu driven system that is very easy for someone with limited computer skills to use. Further, the software can be had at pretty reasonable cost.

-JT

[mmedley.]

+1 for Acronis. Love it.

[adrianf74]

The other nasty problem with WD Green drives is that they will park the heads automatically after eight seconds of inactivity. This can result in ridiculous load cycle counts if you use these drives for anything other than the storage of backups. I'm not sure whether or not they tend to spin down after short timeouts, but if so, that would be another reason to avoid these drives for working storage.

This is is an issue that can be fixed by two or three methods; just google it.

[liveween]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

For anyone with external drive mounting issues - if your drive STILL fails to mount after attempting the aforementioned "Remove drive from enclosure > Install drive internally in your desktop machine" method, you can try the following:

Acquire the proper PCB/LOGIC BOARD for your specific drive, remove the old board, install the new board and attempt to mount.  I have had great success with this method.

If you have an identical HEALTHY drive laying around, you could always BORROW the PCB/LOGIC BOARD from it (be sure to label both of the boards before removing them) - otherwise, you can source the PCB by either purchasing a used identical drive (be CERTAIN that the part number of the actual physical drive - NOT the part number of the external drive - matches EXACTLY) or by purchasing a PCB on Ebay or elsewhere (HERE is an example of an Ebay-sourced PCB).

Please remember to take the proper anti-static measures when handling a bare drive, ESPECIALLY when removing/installing the PCB.


Good luck!


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

[liveween]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

You obviously are obsessed with being correct whilst assuming way too much.

5400 revolutions per minute is 1800 revolutions per minute SLOWER than 7200 revolutions per minute.

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I have used newer 5400 RPM Green drives on an internal SATA bus to edit multiple HD video angles - steady playback is IMPOSSIBLE, even at low quality/low framerate playback settings. 5400 RPM drives are WORTHLESS for this application, even the newer drives which possess the technology that you site above in your own defense.

Why?

BECAUSE THEY ARE SLOWER.

PERIOD.

I consult the Tapersection forums regularly for accurate answers to a myriad of questions.  Anyone consulting this thread deserves an ACCURATE answer, which is that GREEN (5400 RPM) DRIVES ARE SLOWER & PERFORM AT LEVELS BELOW THAT OF 7200 RPM DRIVES.


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

You obviously are obsessed with being correct whilst assuming way too much.

And you seem to want to shift a discussion about drive performance into a personal attack...

[JasonSobel]

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I don't know if there are more, but a quick google search came up with these:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000CSRTL 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136334

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298

[rjp]

When I look at WDC's spec sheet for their Caviar Green drives, they cop out on rotational speed - they just say "IntelliPower," with the following claim:

A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. Additionally, WD Caviar Green drives consume less current during startup allowing lower peak loads on systems as they are booted.

All this mumbo-jumbo and no numbers. Hmmmmmmm.

As I said before, I wouldn't use them for anything other than backups. The performance hits that come from trying to save every last milliwatt are more trouble than they're worth.

[liveween]

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I don't know if there are more, but a quick google search came up with these:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000CSRTL 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136334

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298

Both of those drives incorporate Western Digital's "Intellipower" algorithm, which fluctuates the rotational speed between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM.  Neither of them are true 7200 RPM drives, and neither of them perform as such.


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Both of those drives incorporate Western Digital's "Intellipower" algorithm, which fluctuates the rotational speed between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM.  Neither of them are true 7200 RPM drives, and neither of them perform as such.

It sounds like you didn't partition them correctly, and the 4k sectors were not aligned.

If you don't understand the importance of areal density vs. rpm, you'll never grasp drive performance.  If you did, you'd know there are plenty of 5400 rpm drives with higher transfer rates than 7200 drives.

[liveween]

It sounds like you didn't partition them correctly, and the 4k sectors were not aligned.

It sounds like I didn't partition them AT ALL, because I never had neither of them in my physical possession, nor did I claim to.

Have you noticed that you are STILL assuming way too much, even after you've been made aware of said personality flaw?

(That was a rhetorical question)

If you don't understand the importance of areal density vs. rpm, you'll never grasp drive performance.  If you did, you'd know there are plenty of 5400 rpm drives with higher transfer rates than 7200 drives.

If you don't understand the importance of listening when people that AREN'T you are talking, you'll never grasp the concept of listening > processing > reacting LOGICALLY.

While I haven't tried EVERY 5400 rpm drive known to man, I have used SEVERAL - BOTH of which claimed ON PAPER higher transfer rates than my reliable entry-level Toshiba 7200 rpm SATA drives - and both of which performed at a level FAR BELOW that of said Toshibas.

LAG CITY

UNUSABLE FOR MY APPLICATION

!SLOWER!

Understand?

I certainly hope so, because I will NOT be explaining it again.

I think RJP said it best when he said the following:

As I said before, I wouldn't use them for anything other than backups. The performance hits that come from trying to save every last milliwatt are more trouble than they're worth.

INDEED,

- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Have you noticed that you are STILL assuming way too much, even after you've been made aware of said personality flaw?

Dude, again, this is a fairly basic discussion about hard drives.   Apparently you find that very personally frustrating and want to dumb-down the thread to the level of personal attacks.   That really isn't what this site is about.