Wdcaviar blue wd5000aakx and bzbzbz problem

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

i have two hard disk

wd 600 ide (countain OS)

new wd5000aakx sata (6 mounth ago)(data storge)

motherboard gigabyte GA-945GCM-s2l

OS win 7

it was working fine then for 6 mounth then today wd5000aakx started to show bzbzbzbz in bios size 571 GB

i try to change sata cable and sataport in motherboard problem is the same

thanks for your time

2

It’s not “bzbzbzbz”, it’s “BzBzBzBz”. lowercase isn’t always kewl.

The ASCII values, in hexadecimal, are 0x427A427A427A427A.

Assuming that the drive is reporting that it has 0x427A427A LBAs, then this corresponds to a capacity of …

0x427A427A LBAs x 512 bytes/sector = 571 038 036 992 bytes = 571GB

Therefore it appears that the drive is responding to the ATA Identify Device command with a repeating pattern of 0x427A. This pattern results in nonsensical reporting for the drive’s model number, serial number, firmware version, capacity, etc.

As for what is causing this peculiar behaviour, I don’t know. However, I would try to capture the drive’s Identify Device information using CrystalDiskInfo.

3

One easy test you could do to determine whether the problem is on the drive’s PCB or whether it is an internal fault, would be to install the drive’s PM2 jumper. This will force the drive to Power Up In Standby (PUIS). A good drive should still be detected by BIOS, although its model number field may be blank. Otherwise, if BIOS still reports a model number of BzBzBzBz with the drive in standby mode, then this would suggest that the problem is on the PCB, or perhaps there may be a problem with the SATA controller on the motherboard.

4

thanks for your help

CrystalDiskInfo

didn’t capture the driver’s Identify Device of wd5000aakx

only wd 600 ide was shown

I think it is PCB problem

I installed  the drive’s PM2 jumper.

Disk read as B~B~B~B~

I will contact my local store

thanks for your time

5

It’s either the drive’s PCB or the SATA controller on the motherboard that is the problem. I would first try the drive in another machine. In fact I see several Internet posts about similar problems. Most (all?) seem to be about WD drives, and so far the most common motherboard chipset appears to be Intel’s 945G.

I’m still looking, though.

Edit: I found several posts that confirm that the problem is a motherboard issue. All appear to have Intel chipsets, not just the 945G, but all flavours of ICH I/O controller hubs. I haven’t found any AMD chipset problems. So it does appear that WD’s drives and Intel’s SATA controllers don’t always get along.

BTW, the ASCII codes for “B~” are 0x427E, which differs from “Bz” in 1 bit.

I’m wondering whether this pattern is somehow related to SATA rate autonegotiation.

AIUI, when the drive powers up, it attempts to negotiate a connection with the SATA controller. I suspect it does this by transmitting a repeating pattern of bits. The SATA controller might then try three different clock rates (6Gbps, 3Gbps, 1.5Gbps) until it succeeds in reading the data without error. The HDD and controller then agree on this speed. Or perhaps they start at 1.5Gbps, establish a connection, and then try for a higher speed.

The BIOS interrogates each drive by issuing an ATA Identify Device command. Each drive responds with a block of 512 bytes containing its model number, serial number, firmware version, capacity, etc. My theory is that the BIOS may be misinterpreting the autonegotiation bit pattern as Identify Device data. I don’t know if this is even possible, but I’m unable to find a free downloadable SATA standards document that would help me understand the protocol.

6

Problem was the motherboard

one of capacitor was burned

So I bought new one

now hard drive working fine no problems

thanks for your help