Hard drive not detected. Why?

[Rbuck]

I had an Abit KN8 board up and running with Win Xp home upgrade. The motherboard went flaky shortly after I activated Windows with MS. I got an RMA board from Abit of the same type and vintage. I installed the new board and my AMD Atlon 64 3200+ along with the hard drive I had been using when I activated. Now when I go into the BIOS my hard drive is not recognized by auto detect. I have changed the ribbon cable, the 4 pin power connector, have it set to master but it is still not recognized in the BIOS.

Surely this doesn't have anything to do with activation, does it? At least I would think the system knows there is a hard drive there.

I could try the secondary IDE controller. The only drives on the system are the aforementioned western digital 40gb IDE and a floppy. I think all of the raid stuff is not enabled.

Any ideas?

[AMD Fanatic]

Ya, try the secondary IDE channel. Also, try setting the jumper on the drive to cable select.

It very well could be that the HD went when the board did. Do you have another HD to test on the board or another system to test your HD on?

[BWM]

ANy time you have one WD on a PATA channel, remove the jumper.

[Rbuck]

Reinserted the ide cable (many times) and finally it was recognizing the drive. Now must fdisk, format and reinstall win xp.

Thanks

Rbuck

[madhatter256]

Now that it detects it, I'd check the drive just to be sure. Go to WD's site and download the diagnostic tool and do a full extended test on the drive.

[CMB]

Follow BWM's advice and remove any jumpers on the WD drive if it is alone on the cable.
Otherwise it might be sporadically recognised, and may disappear again.

[Tagen]

Keep an eye on that WD drive. They have a high failure rate. I have had 2 fail on me and my brother has had one as well.

[Mjölnir]

Keep an eye on that WD drive. They have a high failure rate. I have had 2 fail on me and my brother has had one as well.

Do you have any evidence to support that or are you going by the three failures you've seen?

Here's some information that might interest you:

Take a look at the figures on warranty spending as a percentage of sales:
http://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20050105.html
http://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20050503.html
Note that Western Digital had a lower percentage of warranty spending than Maxtor and Seagate.

Seagate have had a noticeable jump in their warranty spending in 2005 (link1, link2) which can be directly attributed to their takeover of Maxtor Corp. as shown here:




If Western Digital were to have a high failure rate now (as in it's gone well up after the end of 2004), there would be a significant amount of articles and discussion about that on the internet. That's not the case. I can't find any results on WDC's warranty spending for 2005 and 2006, but if you have something you can link to, I'm keen to see it

[Ezzo]

I would check the IDE cable.
Get a new one, and see if that helps.

If you are dealing with a bad cable, it might give you more trouble in the future.

Note,
The IDE connectors can be reattached up to maximum of 5 times.
But you must know how to do it, and make sure there will be no short circuit.

[jpChris]

Hi all,

A little info on Western Digital, their warranty and failure rate:

WD is mfg.'d in Thailand (or another Country). Their warranty is 1 (one) year. Period. The warranty starts from *the date on the label*.

So, let's say that the drive was mfg.'d in January; it sits for a few months on the shelf until all the drives WD ordered can be shipped; then it sits at the docks for a month or so until they're shipped to a WD distribution warehouse; then the drives are sent to the electronic stores warehouses where they sit for another few months; then the drives are sent to the individual stores *as needed* (which, if the individual stores don't need them, they stay in the warehouse or the back room [which could add more months] ); then as the shelves are stocked, they could sit there for another couple of months until sold.

Then, when the stores have too many WD drives, they have a sale! You may not need the drive right away, but it was a great deal!!! So it may sit for a month or so until you need to use it.

But, there's a catch with WD and Rebates: You *have* to send in the "ORIGINAL" receipt; not a copy or a cashregister rebate form. So you make a photo copy of the original receipt and before you know it, one of the kids has used it to draw on; you've spilled coffee on it; youve misplaced\lost it; or (whatever chaos goes on in your home) and the copy is pretty much useless. And when the drive fails, not if, but 'when', and you try to get a replacement, you're SOL!!!

The above scenario happened to me. I purchased a WD drive in October, and the date on the label was September. So, that meant that I had **NO** warranty!!! Before I even used the drive it was one month out of warranty. And, sure as shootin', the drive failed the first month of use.

And, all calls to WD were futile. They wouldn't budge an inch. "Date on the label" was their "Weasel Clause".

As far as failure rate goes, in the 10 years I've been building and repairing computers, WD has had the highest failure rate of all.

And while Mjölnir's chart is accurate, it's only partially the story because Maxtor and Seagate guarantee their drives for 3 to 5 years: Hence, more spending on claims. And, now that Seagate has taken over Maxtor, their drives now have a 5 year guarantee. Whereas WD may have a 'lower' return rate, it's because they only have a 1 year warranty and they do everything in their power to weasel out of responsibility! That's the reason Mjölnir " . . . can't find any results on WDC's warranty spending . . .": IT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A DECENT WARRANTY SO THEIR SPENDING IS ZILCH!!! And, if you buy the 2 year extended warranty, it's a SCAM! It's not 2 years from the "end" of the WD warranty, but from the "beginning". So, you're only getting a one year extension, but they're calling it a two year.

If you have and like WD, you're one of the lucky ones. However, IMNSHO, stay away from WD and buy Maxtor\Seagate\Kmart\ — anything but WD.

[kbohip]

I've never had any of my 10 or so WD's fail. I've got one that's been going since January 2000 almost non-stop too! Definitely remove the jumper as BWM suggested! Did I ever find this out the hard way many years ago.

[John C]

I've never had any of my 10 or so WD's fail. I've got one that's been going since January 2000 almost non-stop too! Definitely remove the jumper as BWM suggested! Did I ever find this out the hard way many years ago.

I agree, I still have a couple of 80gig SE's that are still going strong. I have also never had a WD drive fail. Of course the only HD I have ever had fail was an IBM, "Deathstar".

[BWM]

I've only had one WD fail and that was an old AC31200 many many years ago.

[Yeah]

I've had enough drives fail on me from all brands, the latest was my brothers WD RAPTOR. It was less than a year tho so they had to replace it. However they DID make it a bit difficult. They wanted me to jump through all kinds of hoops to try and get it going. I think after they realized I was at least familiar with computer terminology and adept at using diagnostic tools they relinquished an RMA number. This was after 3 calls to them.

Not saying there is anything wrong with WD as like I said i've had 3 maxtors fail on me within a year or so of eachother. So to me ... I wont go with Maxtor anymore. I've just recently purchased a Seagate Baracuda SATA 320Gig for a new system I am building.

I just wanted to add my 2 cents about hard drives.

And yes I would remove the jumper too.

[kbohip]

I agree, I still have a couple of 80gig SE's that are still going strong. I have also never had a WD drive fail. Of course the only HD I have ever had fail was an IBM, "Deathstar".

Lol, exact same story with me. The scary thing is my sister is STILL using the replacement "Deathstar" they gave me when mine died after a few months. She's been using that thing for probably 5 years now and it's still working!