Well first off, greetings to you all. I registered here, just so I could have some help with my problem. WD3200AAKS Full model is WD Caviar SE16 320GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB. I bought it from a net store in my country 2008 and it worked well, but the problem I have is when I opened it there were 3 platters (It broke about 2 months ago ). I know it doesn’t sound a much of a problem but to me it is (because I fell cheated somehow). I heard that WD3200AAKS are only made 2-platter and a 1-platter versions. I looked it up from google and the appearance of the drive seems identical to one of the 3 version’s out there (If you look it up on google, it’s the version with the black dots that cover the screws and there’s a hole in the WD sticker upper part of the drive). How is it possible that theres 3 platters in it ? The sticker has torn so I can’t make it clearly what the “sub-code” is but it’s something like 00Y?A0. If there’s anyone out there who could help me I would appreciate it a lot. I hope the text isn’t too unclear (english isn’t my first language)
Hello,
Did you get the 2 platter information directly for WD, if so can you please provide me with the link or the place on the website where this information is available.
Well, unfortunately I couldn’t get a answer for my problem anywhere. I red all the info I found about the hdd, but there was only info about 1 to 2 platter versions from every forum there were about wd3200aaks, but not a single mention about a three platter version. WD politely contacted me, but even they couldn’t help me with my problem. I guess I will never unfortunately know, what’s going on and why do I have a 3platters in my HDD.
WD often does strange things with their drives. For example, there was one thread at Tom’s Hardware where someone had a 500GB drive that normally ships with a single platter. However, his drive benchmarked like its 750GB stablemate. HD Tune’s graph suggested that his drive had two 500GB platters, with 3 heads, and that the capacity had been reduced by shortstroking. In other words, the user ended up with a drive with the same capacity, same maximum data transfer rate, but an improved access time.
Another possibility is that your drive may have been refurbished, in which case it possible that it may have begun life as a 500GB version, but was subsequently reduced to 320GB after disabling a bad surface or bad head.
Ok, thanks for the tip. I’m just so annoyed that there’s no way of telling is it the right hdd because I already took it apart.
