[ExTruckie19]

[SOLVED] My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

I tried to search the forum before posting and could not get anything so.
My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails the smart test. My windows install and all my data is on the drive. I have a second drive of the same capacity installed also. Therefore I have several questions.
1) Should I transfer all my data onto the other drive, and use the one that is failing as a storage drive or just trash it? The drive does not seem to be operating abnormally. I have the manufacturer's hard drive tools to do the move.
2) I was thinking about getting a sata drive of 300G or larger anyway.
Would I set up partitions on it like on an IDE drive? If so I would configure it as 15G Primary WinXP, 1st logical 15G for a possible Vista install. Remaining space to split into 2, one to be 30G and set up as a mirrored raid with my existing 30G that is ok or not possible? A noobe I'm not but just not all that sure if I'm doing thing correctly or trying to do too much.

Thanks
Mark :wave:

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

That drive will not be reliable so do not put anything on it that you cannot afford to lose.
The new SATA seems to be the best option,I would devote at least 20-30g to the Vista Partition as it is a space hog.
Not sure but I don't think you can mirror a partition, someone who knows will advise on that.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

:4-dontkno I got a WD 160G SATA Drive and hooked it up to my machine. I can't seem to get the bios to recognize the drive. About the only thing I haven't done is remove all the ide drives.
Any help would be appreciated.
Mark:wave:

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

You need to install the Sata Drivers first. They should be on your motherboard driver disc.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

OK, I installed the drivers off of the cd. still nothing on the bios part of bootup indicating a sata drive. The winxp splash screen comes up dimly for about 30 sec. and then boots normally. If I check the device manager, I show an missing scsi drive or missing driver that is there if the drive is not connected. This is with the drive connected. all ok without
:upset:

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Go to Administrative tools/computer management/disk management and see if it there,if it is right click on it and format it.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Im back.:sigh: No luck the only 2 hard drives the disk management see are the 2 ide drives. I now have the sata drive hooked up and as I said before the device manager shows that the scsi is inoperable. I also dropped an email to the mobo manufacture

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Go to device manager and right click on the drive and choose uninstall.
Reboot the computer and windows should see the drive and install it with the drivers off your disk.

 

[Deleted090308]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Also - the motherboard doesn't support SATA II.

If the HDD is SATA II you can force it to run as SATA I with a jumper - OPT1 in the picture below.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Thanks
I believe that maybe the drive is sataII However it was in is an oem without jumpers
I'll go back where I got it after work and get one
Mark

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

You can use the jumper off any old hard drive or cd player you might have.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Eneles
Your right on the mark about my mobo not supporting SATA II. I got an answer to my customer support email from the mobo manufacture and that is what they told me. So i'm about ready to try it with the jumper in place.

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

UPDATE:
I am in the process of partitioning the new drive as I write this.
Thanks to both of you. You were a great help.
I guess we can mark this thread solved
BTW Brian, I didn't have an old drive laying around to steal the jumper off of.

 

[kodi]

Re: My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Good to see that you are up and running.
Don't forget we are here if you need any help in the future
I will mark this thread as solved

 

[ExTruckie19]

Re: [SOLVED] My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

Kodi
If your here I may need assistance with making the sata drive the boot drive. I'll make a new thread if I do.

 

[kodi]

Re: [SOLVED] My WD Caviar® WD300AA fails smart test

You will need to do that in the BIOS set the first boot device to CD the second to SCSi as your bios sees sata as scsi if I remember correctly