My Book Studio Edition II disconnects and lots of other problems

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I bought a WD My Book Studio Edition II 6TB, with the intention to use it as a RAID 1 eSata drive on a Windows 7 (64bit) machine. So far, it gives me the following problems:

(1) The drive disconnects itself for no reason after a few hours. I have to unplug the eSata cable and plug it back again for the drive letter to appear again.

(2) On eSata connection, the WD Drive Manager does not start. If I go to Program Files to start WD RIAD Manager, the drive canot be detected.

(3) On eSata connection, the WD software “Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows” reports My Book Studio Edition II 6TB as FAIL. It reports other two Seagate drives as PASS.

(4) On eSata connection, the WD software “Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows” cannot access SMART disk information for My Book Studio Edition II 6TB, although it works fine with other two Seagate drives.

(5) On reboot and eSata connection, my computer BIOS reports My Book Studio Edition II 6TB as “Damaged”.

I bought this from Scorpion Technology. They said that I can return the drive but need to pay a minimum of 15% restocking fee. After reading a lot of news groups, I have the firm conclusion that WD or Western Digital is a name to be avoided in the future.

2

Before you jump into any conclusions. Does your drive have the same problem using another interface such as USB or Firewire?

  • Have you connect your drive into a different computer? It has the same issue?
3

Just add to my previous post, I have tried the drive on two different computers with identical problems. It works fine on USB connection.

4

I have connected 2 separate drives on 2 separate esata ports on the same computer. One drive is a new WD My Book Studio Edition II 6TB, another one is a old Seagate 90GB drive. The new WD My Book Studio Edition II 6TB disconnects 3 time today. The old Seagate 90GB has no disconnection at all.

I have spoken to Western Digital 2rd level technical support. They have taken down my name and phone number. They said that their engineering department is going to contact me in the next few days.