1 TB External Drives and Service Pack 3

echo1434 · 07-08-2008, 12:27 PM

Recently I bought a pair of Western Digital My Book Home external hard drives - 1 TB each. Although they seem like decent drives in general, they have more quirks than externals I've used in the past.

I'll spare some details for now, but my I noticed that these drives *really* got weird on me when I installed Windows Service Pack 3. They are often not recognized under this OS, and worst of all, it is IMPOSSIBLE to daisy chain them via FireWire. Quite simply, if you try to start up the second drive while the first is running, it will not be recognized and the first drive will freeze up - which often leads to the entire computer freezing up, thus requiring a complete restart. Also, it seems these drives do not properly go into standby in SP3, and they tend to overheat more.

I am sure this problem is related to SP3, because most of these problems instantly go away upon reverting back to SP2. Also, I have duplicated the issue on a different computer, going back and forth between SP2 and SP3 - several times.

Moreover, as I suspsected there might be better 1 TB drives out there, I recently purchased a pair of Seagate FreeAgent drives to do a comparison. And while these drives seem to have their own issues (like the "painted on" power button that only works about 1/3 of the time - their behavior is strangely similar to the Western Digitals. They aren't always recognized when turned on (often requires a restart to fix this) - and they go *really* wacky with Service Pack 3 - the exact same behavior I have with the WD drives.

I'd just as soon be using Service Pack 3, but these new drives are making it difficult. While normally I'd think this is some sort of fault on SP3's behalf, but I'm not really sure.

Please note that I have six of the older gray Seagate "pushbutton" drives (in 400, 500, and 750 GB - two of each) - and those work flawlessly virtually all of the time regardless of what OS or service pack I'm using. These newer 1 TB drives drives, however, are incredbly fussy for some reason - even to a lesser degree with Service Pack 2.

So now I've narrowed it down to:

1) There's something about these newer externals that decreases their reliability and makes them function especially poorly with Service Pack 3

or

2) There's something about 1 TB drives that's a lot different than those of lower capacity.

I've called technical support regarding these issues, and they seemed clueless about it. Basically, they acted like they had never heard of such issues.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone could shed some light on this or suggest some sort of possible workaround. I'm definitely not keeping all four of the new terrabyte drives. Two of them will have to go for sure, and the decision as to which (or all) is one I'll need to make in the near future

Thanks in advance.

07-08-2008, 12:27 PM	#1 (permalink)
echo1434 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1 OS: Windows XP	1 TB External Drives and Service Pack 3 Recently I bought a pair of Western Digital My Book Home external hard drives - 1 TB each. Although they seem like decent drives in general, they have more quirks than externals I've used in the past. I'll spare some details for now, but my I noticed that these drives really got weird on me when I installed Windows Service Pack 3. They are often not recognized under this OS, and worst of all, it is IMPOSSIBLE to daisy chain them via FireWire. Quite simply, if you try to start up the second drive while the first is running, it will not be recognized and the first drive will freeze up - which often leads to the entire computer freezing up, thus requiring a complete restart. Also, it seems these drives do not properly go into standby in SP3, and they tend to overheat more. I am sure this problem is related to SP3, because most of these problems instantly go away upon reverting back to SP2. Also, I have duplicated the issue on a different computer, going back and forth between SP2 and SP3 - several times. Moreover, as I suspsected there might be better 1 TB drives out there, I recently purchased a pair of Seagate FreeAgent drives to do a comparison. And while these drives seem to have their own issues (like the "painted on" power button that only works about 1/3 of the time - their behavior is strangely similar to the Western Digitals. They aren't always recognized when turned on (often requires a restart to fix this) - and they go really wacky with Service Pack 3 - the exact same behavior I have with the WD drives. I'd just as soon be using Service Pack 3, but these new drives are making it difficult. While normally I'd think this is some sort of fault on SP3's behalf, but I'm not really sure. Please note that I have six of the older gray Seagate "pushbutton" drives (in 400, 500, and 750 GB - two of each) - and those work flawlessly virtually all of the time regardless of what OS or service pack I'm using. These newer 1 TB drives drives, however, are incredbly fussy for some reason - even to a lesser degree with Service Pack 2. So now I've narrowed it down to: 1) There's something about these newer externals that decreases their reliability and makes them function especially poorly with Service Pack 3 or 2) There's something about 1 TB drives that's a lot different than those of lower capacity. I've called technical support regarding these issues, and they seemed clueless about it. Basically, they acted like they had never heard of such issues. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone could shed some light on this or suggest some sort of possible workaround. I'm definitely not keeping all four of the new terrabyte drives. Two of them will have to go for sure, and the decision as to which (or all) is one I'll need to make in the near future Thanks in advance.