Western Digital 500GB Install Guide?

[Karpaty]

Hello, I just purchased a new HD (Western Digital, 500GB), but it arrived without an installation guide... When I try to copy something to it, it doesnt always work... I tried formatting it, but it didnt help... I need that guide or a tip to how to properly install it...

Thanx in advance

 

[Karpaty]

My specs:

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/191/untitleddl2.jpg

 

[wahnula]

You don't mention whether it is IDE or SATA drive. If SATA you might need to first add it in the BIOS, by creating a new 1-disk array. First thing to do with a new IDE HDD is check jumper settings (Master/Slave, settings info should be stamped or printed on the drive), connect it to the MB w/ power off, boot, right-click My Computer> Manage > Disk Management and initialize the drive. Then, create a partition and format. Should be fine now.

Tony

 

[Freestone]

The 500GB drive appears to be an external USB device or am I misreading something?

Regardless, can you be more specific than "it doesn't always work"? Are you getting error messages? What does or does not happen?

 

[Karpaty]

1. Yes, the hard drive is external USB 2.0
2. Im not familiar with neither IDE nor SATA, so could you tell me how can I check it?
3. When i try to copy a larger file I always get the Delayed Write Filed error, like here:

http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/2218/2sq6.jpg

What happens after that? Well, when I open My Computer i get the "Waiting animation", like this:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1094/23py5.jpg

...although it never appears in other cases...

 

[ASG0856]

Could be an autoplay problem. goto the microsoft site and search 'autoplay'. The top entry should be for the autoplay repair wizard. Download and install it, then run against the drive. If there is an autoplay probelm, it will repair the registry and than ask for a reboot. I too have an external USB2 drive, and what I Have noticed is that after a period of inactivity, it powers down the disk. It could be that its taking a bit too long to power up again

Because this is an external drive, forget about the IDE/SATA issues in bios. That only applies to internal drives.

 

[Freestone]

Was the external drive purchased as a prebuilt package or were the drive and enclosure bought separately?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174

has some information regarding delayed writes.

 

[Karpaty]

Freestone: it was purchased as a prebuild package
I've submitted a ticket to the WD support, but unfortunatelly i dont feel like im gonna get a reply... Its been 4 days already.
I managed to get rid off the problem for some time by modifying registry:
Changed the key 'LargeSystemCache' from it's default value of 0 to 1 in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Session Manager\Memory Management.

But after I connected the hard drive to another PC to copy some files, the problem return (on my own pc)
On that other pc i had no problems since it still had USB1.1. Mine on the other hand has USB2.0

Any suggestions would be much appreciated... :/

 

[Karpaty]

Anyone, please?

 

[Freestone]

Perhaps an update to your chipset driver could help.

The link to your system specs says 945G chipset. The following utility from Intel will tell you exactly what chipset you have, and with that information you can select the correct INF update from the links at the bottom of the page.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldId=11691&lang=eng

 

[Karpaty]

I've only purchased a new PC and installed the drivers from the CDs provided, so Im pretty sure they are up-to-date. But nevertheless I will try your suggestion and will get back to you...

Just a small update - like I previously stated after tweaking my registry the hard drive works - not every time though... Sometimes it takes a number of attempts, which could get really frustrating, but in the end i am able to backup the files after a certain number of attempts...
But, of course, after spending a lot of money for this hard drive I expected it to work flawlessly, so I am in a kind of a downbeat mood atm...

 

[Freestone]

I can understand your mood, most assuredly. It's never a good thing when things don't worked as expected.

Entering "Windows - Delayed Write Failed" in Google brings many hits, maybe you want to look at some ideas here.

The latest driver I saw at Intel is dated Novemember 2006, so maybe it'll help,

Did you try disabling write caching per the Microsoft article? (

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174)

 

[Karpaty]

Yeah, i have scanned thru tones of documents regarding this issue... The most helpful site was this one:

http://forums.viaarena.com/messagev...d=50468&STARTPAGE=3&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

There are many things suggested there that work for some and dont for others...
Thats, btw, where I got my registry tweak suggestion that seemed to work for me... Well, at least now, although with some work, but I can backup my files...
Maybe someone who stumbles across this problem in the future will find those suggestions useful...

As for disabling caching, yes it is disabled... It was one of those solutions at the above website/forum, but it didnt work for me, cause it was already disabled by default on my machine...

Will keep trying... Will probably contact Intel and hope they'll suggest something usefull...

If anyone has any other ideas, please do post them here... I would much appreciate it...

 

[Karpaty]

Finally, after over a week of waiting Igot a response from Western Figital Support and it was greatly unhelpful to say the least:

We apologize for the delay in responding to you. Due to heavy volume, we are currently beyond our normal turnaround of 1 business day.

We realize that some of you may have already found the answers to your questions. In an effort to respond to your needs more efficiently, please do one of the following:

If you have already found the answers to your questions and DO NOT REQUIRE a response from us, please DO NOT REPLY to this email.

If you have not found the answer(s) to your question(s) and DO REQUIRE a response from us, please REPLY to this email. In your reply, you can just state that you still need an answer to your questions. If you do not respond to this email, we will assume that you do not require a response from us.

...
I just hope im not gonna have to wait another week for another response :/

 

[Freestone]

Did you try the newer Intel chipset drivers?

 

[Karpaty]

Yeah, i have installed it yesterday night... So far, i've been able to copy few larger files onto the HD with no problems... Though Im still somewhat sceptical if its gonna last, since over the past week or so I did have these "error-free" periods, but my fingers are crossed that this time its for good...

 

[Freestone]

Any news on this?

 

[sofi2u]

I happened to be browsing for help on something else, but when I came to this I thought I might be able to help.

When I got my MY BOOK Western Digital External Harddrive, it was formatted in FAT32 file format. In the instructions included with the harddrive it said that if I wanted to be able to transfer bigger files than a certain size then I would have to reformat the harddrive into NTFS file system. After I did that I was able to put whatever size file I needed to onto the system.

~sofi2u~

 

[sofi2u]

Here is a link from Western Digital's website on how to convert the file system.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...Xh0PWp1bXBlciBzZXR0aW5ncw**&p_li=&p_topview=1

~sofi2u~