WD3200AAJS 320GB HD not recognized until accessed from DOS

#1

I know that the reason for this is my fault and the warranty is probably void now, but this is the best place to ask…

A while back I was doing some experiments with this hard drive and I was in some utility to access SMART info.

In this program (i think it’s a WD utility, but am not sure), the were some values that could be changed. So, I changed one.

Afterwards, the HD stopped spinning up and I was sure I had bricked my HD. A few months later I plugged it in to see what would happen and still it would not spin up. Just a few days ago, I was in a frisky mood and began again to try and revive this drive. When I plug it in and boot, BIOS cannot see the drive, therefore Windows could not see it either, and it would not spin up. I downloaded the DOS version of WD HD diag, and put it on a bootable flash drive. I rebooted on the flash drive, and ran dlgdiag5. Lo and behold! It sees the drive, and reports it to be in perfect condition! So, I reboot (ctl-alt-del) and booted to windows which now sees the drive. Now the drive works perfectly under windows (even spinning down for a rest and spinning back up when I access it), UNTIL I turn the power off. When I turn the power back on again, the same situation ensues. I have to boot to DOS, and run dlgdiag5, then reboot and all is good. Even the SMART info is great.

Does anyone know what setting I changed and possibly how to change it back??

The HD works great, and I can use it as is because my machine stays on 24/7

But it would be nice to have it back to normal.

Thanks!

#2

It sounds like your drive is powering up in standby (PUIS). If so, then it needs to receive a read or write command before it will spin up. Otherwise, it can be configured to spin up in response to a particular Set Features subcommand.

See sections 4.19 and 7.48.8 of the following document:

Working Draft AT Attachment 8 - ATA/ATAPI Command Set (ATA8-ACS):
http://www.t13.org/Documents/UploadedDocuments/docs2008/D1699r6a-ATA8-ACS.pdf

WD drives have a PM2 jumper that governs this behaviour.

Jumper Settings Info Sheet:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

Otherwise, you disable PUIS via a software utility. I don’t know how to do this using WD’s tools, but Hitachi’s Feature Tool should work.

Hitachi Feature Tool:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Hitachi Feature Tool Usage Instructions:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/ftool_user_guide_198.pdf

#3

Thank you so much for the information. It’s all begining to make sense.

I looked and I did have a jumper on the drive, which I don’t have one on my others, so I took it off.

I get the same results though, as I said, I changed something via software. I downloaded the program from

Hitachi and it did not work, it wouldn’t change the settings of the drive, only show them. I guess it has

to be Hitachi?

Well, I am on the quest for a utility then…

#4

I don’t know if this applies to you …

Western Digital WD5000KS doesn’t spin-up (firmware bug):
http://www.hdat2.com/hdat2_faq.html#q17

If your drive’s settings are frozen by a DCO (Device Configuration Overlay), then try HDAT2.

HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility:
http://www.hdat2.com/

User’s Manual HDAT2 v4.6:
http://www.hdat2.com/files/hdat2en_v11.pdf

#5

Again thank you for the asnwers. I will test it on another computer to see if that works better.

I’ll report my findings.

#6

I tried everything I could to disable PUIS on the hard drive but was unsuccessful.

I downloaded HDPARM and turn_off_poweron_in_standby by HDPARM and every time

I try to set the PUIS to disabled it returns a failed error.

The article you linked to about no spinning up (flash bug), may also apply to me.

I am just glad I didn’t brick it!

If there are any more suggestions, I will be willing to try it.

#7

Well, I doubt you did anything to the warranty.  So, if worse comes to worse, you could RMA it.

#8

The only thing I can think of is that the PM2 jumper may be in the wrong position. WD’s documentation is confusing – some models use the jumper to disable PUIS, others use it to enable PUIS.

According to the ATA standard, the jumper takes precedence over the Set Features command:

“When enabled by a jumper, this feature set shall not be disabled via the SET FEATURES command.”