dah, …
if you can plug a usb-sata cable into the new drive, or put it into an external usb box, and plug it into another machine, I bet it shows up. USB into your own machine if you want to boot from dvd. May aswell apm format it while its up, in case it’s easier for your imac to recognize when its installed, but I wouldn’t count on it. Not sure if it would make any difference.
So, call disc utility when its back in the imac, booted from dvd, just in case its not mounting. You could mount it in disk utility and format from there. Slim chance, though. Mine didn’t show without the usb interface, but good luck. Sounds tough, but it might be better if the drive was faulty, if there’s no support available, as at least its returnable. Otherwise, its an angry guy in a shop going, but its workin perfect mate,…
Worth using the latest available os dvd, so you’ll be using the latest and most compatible version of disk utility.
There’s something out there called wdspeed which may solve your problem, as it allows you to set many wd drives to different interface speeds, but I can’t find it on the wd site anymore, and finding versions which have been flying round the net for a while like i did might be dangerous, so if you were to try this i think it would be worth trying to get hold of a copy from wd directly or some reputable source. Good software well explained, … definitely worth trying to get hold of it.
Last thing… I think it might be good if it wasn’t too much hassle to check for the unlikely possibility of some power/board failure on the machine side. Easiest way i can think of is to put a known compatable (ha, ha) working drive in there for a sec to see if it powers up etc. A windows or linux or anything drive will do if you boot from dvd, have a look with disk utility, do nothing, and shut back down. Unlikely cause, but good to rule it out. I suppose plugging the old hitachi into a usb-sata cable or usb box will tell easier, depends what you have lying around. If the old drive shows up then the machine has a problem. Far more likely i reckon that the machine is fine, but hey.
wdspeed
re victor
The SATA III is backward compatible and should work fine on SATA II or SATA I
Well, this is the mistaken understanding of the concept of standards which has cost us so much time. What is this should? How do you calculate the probability?
SATA3 is backward compatible and works on SATA2 or SATA1, i thought. If it doesn’t work with sata2 and sata1, then it is not sata anything.
however the performance would be degraded as per the SATA specifications.
Of course, we must agree on the specifications. Thats the whole point of them. Otherwise there is chaos. So we gladly accept the downside of a 3G\sec limit, as you say, its as per the sata specifications. But so is compatability. This guys performance is degraded down to zeroG/sec, and that is not as per the SATA specifications.
It’s best to check the compatibility of the drive contacting manufacturer of the host device
Sorry to be a bit frustrated, here. The manufacturer of the host device, is apple in this case, and i’d bet they would vouch for their controller being sata compliant. They told their customers it was.
dah will not be travelling back in time to tell Steve Jobs that he’s gonna have to redesign his controller so that it is compatible with future hard drives which aren’t sata2 compatible.
So, either, 1… apple cheated and claimed to be sata compliant when they weren’t,
2… drive manufacturers cheat and claim to be sata compliant when they’re not, or
3… the sata guys cheated and gave up on compatability and standards having drunk too much complimentary champagne at a plugfest.
Either way, when some poor imac guy with the best intentions reads SATA, thinks oh, thats a standard, isn’t it, one of the selling points of my machine, I need a SATA drive, and goes out and buys one, it’d be good not to patronize him/her.
But I could be wrong. Maybe it’s as you say, My drive won’t work 'cause I’m too stupid.
