• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Weird behavior from WD Green 2TB

S

sirsleepsalot67

n00b
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
8
Hi, I'll try to explain as best I can what happened, and see if anyone has any idea if there's a way to get this drive fixed up or not.

So I was listening to music as I normally do while on my PC and then the sound started going crazy. I stopped Winamp and realized that my D: and E: drivers were missing (partitions on the same HDD, and E: contains all my music).

Anyways, so when I tried restarting my computer, it wouldn't POST so I turned it off and on again. It would then turn on for abour 4-5 seconds before turning the power back off for 2-3 seconds and then back on. After some messing around, I found that if I disconnected my 2TB drive from the motherboard, as well as one of my ram modules, it would boot fine, but leave anyone of those components connected and it would cycle on and off without ever POSTing.

Finally, I managed to reconnect the drive using and external SATA --> USB adapter I had lying around. Windows then read the drive was being a single RAW partition. Using TestDisk, I managed to repair the MBR, and restore the separate partitions although windows still reads them both as RAW. However, with Testdisk, I managed to copy most (if not all) of my data onto a backup drive.

Anyways, does anyone have an idea of what went wrong, and if there's a way to get the drive working again ?

Thanks !
 
What went wrong with your ram module? This looks like a power spike and it corrupted one of the sectors used by the FAT.. I had a drive where sector 2 got an error so sometimes it would use the backup fat and work but after a while it would fail again, I could never get it to map out that sector. It was the only bad sector on the entire drive. But when ever it worked I copied the stuff off it and saved it. In the end the drive stopped reading completely.. There are error routines in windows I think even microsoft dont know about.. The commodore amiga file system on the other hand you could recover 100% of the data after almost any disaster.. I am amazed that 25 years later microsoft file systems still sucks.. Might be version 250.. But like jason, losing data seems to be a recurrence. Actually tools like norton could recover data from fat file systems.. NTFS being so much more robust, not so much.. Guess the meaning of english words are now different as well.
 
Well, after I managed to get all my files back using Testdisk, I overwrote the MBR and removed the partition table. Then, I reconnected the drive in the SATA port on the Motherboard and the computer started up fine and I was able to repartition the drive within windows and it's working normally again.

Here's what crystaldiskinfo has to say about the drive in question : diskdata.jpg

I'm still going to add a new drive and use this drive for something else, just in case it goes crazy again.

Now, onto the memory problem..... :p
 
Wow almost 4 years of continuous use and the drive seems fine. Think it was a power spike causing some sector corruption of the FAT tables.. . It does happen quite often but we dont notice it. Once the corrupted sector is re-written the error gets fixed. It is when the head actually crashes and takes part of the magnetic media with it that it cant be fixed. My 160GB SATA1 Seagate makes a real high pitched banshee screeching sound once in a while.. Have no idea why.. Scares the hell out of me.. Happens in the middle of a copy as well.. I thought it was the head hittign the platters but its been working fine for over a decade so its not that.. I have noticed some drives slow down and then speed up again.. So many weird things going on. The 2TB seagate drive with over 33000 reallocated sectors still works, the copy speed dropped to like under 10mb at one point but then went back to 100mb.. And the weird thing is, it is one of the better faster seagate drives I have. Yea the worst of seagate is actually the best of seagates..
 
Perhaps. Here's the weird thing... Even my RAM is working fine, again.

To test it, I had removed the ram module, and the computer booted fine, reinstalled it, and it wouldn't turn on, removed the other module, put the "faulty" one in it's place and the computer wouldn't turn on, put the good one in the faulty one's place and it worked fine as long as the other stick wasn't in. All this, with the HDD disconnected. Today, after reconnecting the drive, and having it work well long enough to copy all my data back onto it, I put the ram back in, and it's working fine. I ran the windows memory diagnostics and it reported no errors. This thing is REALLY confusing me now ! I've got 14 days to return the drive and ram, if I don't open the packages, to I'll wait a bit to see how everything behaves for a week or so.
 
Well computers are weird, seen some stuff that defy any explanation.. Usually it has to do with some interference which causes comparability problems with timing and things.. Had a dvd drive that did not work in my system but took it back to the shop where it worked.. Had to do some swapping with drives and such to get it working in my system.. I just got a ram upgrade which ended up with faster ddr3 modules that only work if the original slower stick is set as the first module.. Or moving wires around or turning the case and what not. These signals work at such speeds that they are slowed down enough to work in most cases but can break if something causes some minor problems. The signals wont even work if the circuits have any right angles and have to be like curved. So you can imagine just how fragile things are. It is why you have procedures, where you get it working and write it down and then follow those procedures to get it working again, which is how it is.. Like following directions others give you but they know what they did and you dont, and you find you cant get it working.. Because of things like this.. It was far worse 20 years ago.. You had to do things exactly or it did not work.. Guess Apple changed things so others followed.. The term nerd was because of that.. No one except them could get it up and running. It was art..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top