e6400 Harddrive replaced... troubles

Hello everyone,

so i replaced the 80gb Seagate Momentus 7200.3 with a WD5000BEVT
(WD Scorpio Blue 500gb). The problem that i have is simple, its not working.

The Bios is detecting the new HD correctly and the new WD harddrive also
passed the DELL diagnostic test.

But when i try to restore a Backup or install a new OS, the menues
freeze where i have to access the harddrive.

I also tried to download the WD diagnostic tool but when i run that it is freezing at the beginning when it says "DR-DOS booting".

Can someone tell me if it is a bios or chipset related probem or do i need
a replacement for the new WD harddisk. Has someone ever tried replacing
the original hd with a 500gig one?

Thanks for your advise in advance,

cascade

 

The WD5000BEVT in my E6400 has clocked up over 1000 hours of operation without any problems.

I first put it in a USB enclosure, cloned the existing HDD onto it and then put it in, ready to run. No problems.

What SATA setting have you got in the BIOS? (Look under system configuration). Is it set at IRRT? The WD diagnostics could well require ATA mode while I recommend AHCI for normal use. Depending on how and what software you are using to try to restore the HDD, it may be falling over because you need to install the SATA driver. Putting the interface into ATA mode may get round this problem but you will then probably need to switch to AHCI when you reboot.

John

 

Thanks for fast response.

I tried all SATA options in bios and none of them were working.

I tried to restore the hdd with Acronis True Image Home 2009, should
be capable to handle most SATA interfaces. I also
have a slipstreamed (with drivers for sata) installation for xp and vista,
they are not working too. I cant clone the hdd because i dont have
the external interface to it.

But thank you.. now i know that there are no compatibility issues with the
500gb of WD. So i will just get a replacement tomorrow and see how it ends.

i will keep you updated.

btw.: john which bios version do you got? i have A09.

 

I've been though all the BIOS versions and am now at A11. I don't think this is the problem.

There's a small chance that Acronis can't handle the hardware. In the middle of 2007 the then latest version of Acronis wouldn't clone a dual boot Vista / XP HDD I had set up. I then invested in Casper which did the job without any problems.

I find a USB / eSATA enclosure is a worthwhile investment since it means I have somewhere to keep the superseded HDD. eSATA gives the same transfer speeds as if the HDD is internal so you can quickly copy important stuff over to the old HDD then if, for any reason, the new one falls sick (hardware or software) then you have a ready to run HDD. The problem one goes into the enclosure from where you can (if it's a software problem) retrieve all your files.

John

 

What is the difference between ACHI and ATA mode in terms of HDD compatibility, stability and performance?

 

The main difference between AHCI and ATA mode is the support of hot-swappable drives (doesn't apply to laptops), native command queuing , and the use of a flash module as a hard drive cache. In terms of performance, you may or may not see any notable differences. if so, it's very minor.

 

The AHCI specification states:

However, the info provided by the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software may be more relevant:

I believe (but I'm not certain) that you need AHCI enabled in order to use the eSATA port.

John

 

Somehow I was under the impression that this was only valid for desktops, but i could be wrong.

 

So after getting my replacement for the harddisk, everything is working.
Im quite happy with the 500gb instead of 80

Indeed, it was the brand new hd which was faulty.

Thanks for your help.

 

And thank you for the update with the cause of the problem.

John