Msi 745 & Wd 120gb Se?

[Gurm]

Well, here's my puzzler...

Ordered a Western Digital 120GB 8MB cache "Special Edition" hard drive. Thing is supposed to be the fastest IDE drive on the planet.

It shows up, I slap it in... BIOS sees it as 120GB so I boot...

XP fails to format it. Uh-oh.

Fire up Data Lifeguard, it says "Your BIOS doesn't see this drive correctly."

Hmm... go into BIOS, check drive parameters... instead of 16383/16/63, it says xxxx/255/255 (xxxx is some 5000 number I forget). Oops! So I say to myself, is it the drive or my BIOS?

According to MSI, the 745 sees big drives (up to 200GB were tested) just fine. Hmm...

Go next door, slap it in the neighbor's P4... and it promptly starts making funny noises, KICKS violently (made the case move!) and dies outright.

Wow.

Erm, so does this happen often with WD? Should I go for a slightly slower yet perhaps not as defective drive?

- Gurm

[Jon P. Inghram]

Hey, at least it didn't spin the disk fast enough to explode!

[Wombat]

Sounds like a DOA drive. I don't think it has anything to do with MSI.

[Kurt]

Re: Msi 745 & Wd 120gb Se?

Originally posted by Gurm
Well, here's my puzzler...

Ordered a Western Digital 120GB 8MB cache "Special Edition" hard drive. Thing is supposed to be the fastest IDE drive on the planet.

It shows up, I slap it in... BIOS sees it as 120GB so I boot...

XP fails to format it. Uh-oh.

Fire up Data Lifeguard, it says "Your BIOS doesn't see this drive correctly."

Hmm... go into BIOS, check drive parameters... instead of 16383/16/63, it says xxxx/255/255 (xxxx is some 5000 number I forget). Oops! So I say to myself, is it the drive or my BIOS?

According to MSI, the 745 sees big drives (up to 200GB were tested) just fine. Hmm...

Go next door, slap it in the neighbor's P4... and it promptly starts making funny noises, KICKS violently (made the case move!) and dies outright.

Wow.

Erm, so does this happen often with WD? Should I go for a slightly slower yet perhaps not as defective drive?

- Gurm

you should ask ThePIT what he usually does in this case

[Ribbit]

I've had one of those drives for the best part of a year, and it's given me no trouble whatsoever.

[GT98]

Never had a DOA Western Digital Drive, but I've RMA'ed dozens of them. I still like them anyway, since they get you a replacement drive, unlike IBM

[Dr Mordrid]

I've only had 4-5 WD's in the last couple of years, of which only one still survives; a 30g I use as a removable beta OS drive.

OTOH I have well over 30 Maxtors ranging from a couple of Diamond Max 2160 8.4g's to the D740X's. Every single one of 'em survives and is in use somewhere around here.

Got a DiamondMax Plus 9 200g on order for testing with another new toy: 7200 rpm, 8 meg cache, 200 mb etc. We'll see hot that goes.

Dr. Mordrid

[Claymonkey]

I've said it before and I'll say it again Gurm. You have the worst hardware luck of ANYONE I know......

[Paulr]

I installed that exact same model and size of drive in my system about two weeks ago.
Lovely piece of kit, near silent and oh so fast.
Just one of those DOA's that slipped through the net by the sounds of things.

[Gurm]

Yeah. Well, it's on its way back.

In its place is a dead-silent, ultra-reliable Seagate Barracuda V ATA - also with 8MB of cache. The 2MB 120GB SBV wasn't the world's best performer... 10% slower than the WD or IBM models. But the 8MB model ought to rock the house, and still be inaudible.

- Gurm