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WD Hard Drive Detect Problem
Name: Jimmy Date: April 2, 2002 at 08:29:54 Pacific
Comment:
I have a 1999 era gateway desktop. It has a 60gb WD600ab drive that works perfectly. Yesterday I bought a new 40gb WD400ab drive to add to the system.
The pc will not detect the 40gb drive in any configuration (primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave). The jumpers on the drive were set properly,and the drive was placed on the proper ide channel I have also tried the wd suggested alternate settings for large drives on older systems to spoof the pc into thinking the drive is smaller than it actually is -- same non detect situation.
The drive powers up, I even had the store give me a replacement drive with the same result. The machine works at ata-66.
Is the drive recognized if you swap it with the 60 Gb one?
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Response Number 2
Name: Jimmy Date: April 2, 2002 at 09:19:16 Pacific
Reply:
No, the drive is not detected by the bios if it is swapped with the 60gb. When I tried this I was triple sure that the jumpers were set to the extact settings of the 60gb.
Wierd???
Jim
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Response Number 3
Name: Chris Date: April 2, 2002 at 09:25:44 Pacific
Reply:
Sorry if this sounds daft, but, is your new drive formated? Chris
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Response Number 4
Name: Jennifer Date: April 2, 2002 at 09:30:09 Pacific
Reply:
It doesn't have to be formatted to be detected.
Try adding it manually in the BIOS for whichever configuration PS/SM/SS you have it connected as.
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Response Number 5
Name: Hades Date: April 2, 2002 at 10:11:46 Pacific
Reply:
WD HDD's have to be pinned exactly right or yer not gonna find that drive... the primary drive HAS GOT TO be pinned with the setting slave present.... i have had the same probs with WD. Once pinned in this manner if you yank the slave out the 60gig/primary will not detect.
Question: does the 40 gig detect as a primary with the 60gig unplugged?
IF not its prolly a bunk drive... my school sent 15 of those drives back last month.
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Response Number 6
Name: Mark Date: April 2, 2002 at 11:32:03 Pacific
Reply:
Install one drive at a time. Make sure you have the latest most updated BIOS for your main board.
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Response Number 7
Name: edave Date: April 2, 2002 at 17:20:58 Pacific
Reply:
I have also had problems with WD drives. - Try removing all jumpers, thne try - I had my C: drive suddenly not detected after working fine for 3 months. If all else fails, I have used 'easy drive' to install drives that 'wern't there' several times.
Good Luck
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Response Number 8
Name: intuition Date: April 17, 2002 at 22:10:14 Pacific
Reply:
Jimmy, I had same issue. If you look in the book that comes with the drive you have 2 seperate pages with pin options. There web site has this info too. page 7 standard. page 36 alternate setting. I had to use the alternates- works great..... after you figure it out.......www.westerngigital.com
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