Hitachi HTS541680J9AT00 hard drive - says it is ATA/IDE but...

[joe]

I bought a new 2.5 inch hard drive and have been trying to pre-format with
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools which I have always used for large
number of drives.

But this drive is showing up as SCSI and even though Lifeguard Tools
prepared
it, it won't show up in laptop in order to install OS.

I have never seen this happen and don't know how to fix it. I use a Promise
Ultra100 TX2 to setup IDE drives with my system.

HELP!!! Please!!!

 

[Paul]

I bought a new 2.5 inch hard drive and have been trying to pre-format with
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools which I have always used for large
number of drives.

But this drive is showing up as SCSI and even though Lifeguard Tools
prepared
it, it won't show up in laptop in order to install OS.

I have never seen this happen and don't know how to fix it. I use a Promise
Ultra100 TX2 to setup IDE drives with my system.

HELP!!! Please!!!

"Foreign" disk controller cards, use a SCSI interface layer, when in
Windows. Windows understands SCSI devices and a SCSI control block.
The Promise card, uses something like a "SCSI Miniport", which translates
a SCSI CDB, into IDE commands. (Check the floppy diskette that comes
with the Promise, and have a look at the txtsetup.oem file and the
various ultra.inf files. You'll see the word SCSI in there.)

That should not affect the actual hard drive. It is still IDE.

The SCSI layer does a bit of information hiding, and that is one
of the differences between a "native" port on the Southbridge chip,
and an add-in controller. (For example, SMART info may not be available,
unless the SCSI driver supports a tunneling mode, to allow the commands
and responses through.)

So the real question is, what is wrong with the hardware setup on the laptop ?

Some optical drives in laptops, have no jumpers on the back for master,
slave, or cable_select. Apparently, some of them, have that set by the
firmware load used inside the optical drive controller board. In such cases,
it is important to use the opposite jumper setting, of whatever the
optical drive happens to use. (Easier said than done, except in a
case where you're replacing a hard drive - in which case you use the
same jumper setting as the previous hard drive had.)

If the optical drive uses a jumpering scheme, then it'll be easy to
figure out how to set it.

Paul

 

[joe]

"Foreign" disk controller cards, use a SCSI interface layer, when in
Windows. Windows understands SCSI devices and a SCSI control block.
The Promise card, uses something like a "SCSI Miniport", which translates
a SCSI CDB, into IDE commands. (Check the floppy diskette that comes
with the Promise, and have a look at the txtsetup.oem file and the
various ultra.inf files. You'll see the word SCSI in there.)

That should not affect the actual hard drive. It is still IDE.

The SCSI layer does a bit of information hiding, and that is one
of the differences between a "native" port on the Southbridge chip,
and an add-in controller. (For example, SMART info may not be available,
unless the SCSI driver supports a tunneling mode, to allow the commands
and responses through.)

So the real question is, what is wrong with the hardware setup on the
laptop ?

Some optical drives in laptops, have no jumpers on the back for master,
slave, or cable_select. Apparently, some of them, have that set by the
firmware load used inside the optical drive controller board. In such
cases,
it is important to use the opposite jumper setting, of whatever the
optical drive happens to use. (Easier said than done, except in a
case where you're replacing a hard drive - in which case you use the
same jumper setting as the previous hard drive had.)

If the optical drive uses a jumpering scheme, then it'll be easy to
figure out how to set it.

Paul

Wow, great info. The previous harddrive was Toshiba MK6025GAS
but it didn't use any jumpers so I didn't put in on this one.

I will say that I had more trouble than usual getting the harddrive to be
recognized. But eventually it was. The preparation went just as usual
with nothing strange. I guess I will try it again. At least you have
relieved
my mind which was going round and round with the SCSI thing. I do
have an IDE drive.

Is there a better preparation software to use than Western digital
lifeguard???

Thanks Paul!!!! Super info even if I'm not sure what to do.

 

[Paul]

Wow, great info. The previous harddrive was Toshiba MK6025GAS
but it didn't use any jumpers so I didn't put in on this one.

I will say that I had more trouble than usual getting the harddrive to be
recognized. But eventually it was. The preparation went just as usual
with nothing strange. I guess I will try it again. At least you have
relieved
my mind which was going round and round with the SCSI thing. I do
have an IDE drive.

Is there a better preparation software to use than Western digital
lifeguard???

Thanks Paul!!!! Super info even if I'm not sure what to do.

All I'm suggesting, is to check the master/slave thing, because
otherwise, there shouldn't be anything preventing the drive from
being seen. I checked the part number you quoted, and it is an
IDE drive. And the connector on it would have confirmed it is the
right type.

Drives have various pin fields for jumpers. For example, on a 44 pin
drive, there may be a separate 4 pin block which is set apart from
the 44 pin section. That is where the master/slave/cable_select
stuff gets set up.

Check the installation guide on this page for details. It is a
small PDF download, and shows some options for the 2x2 pin block.

http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/products/Travelstar_5K160

On this Toshiba page, it looks like the MK6025GAS drive is Master, when
no jumper is installed. So maybe that isn't the problem, if they are
both Master when no jumper is present.

http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pa...HardDiskDrives/MK6025GASPage/MK6025GASSupport

The capacity of the drives isn't that much different. The old one
was 60GB, and the new one is 80GB ?

Did the cable connect OK ?

Paul

 

[joe]

Did the cable connect OK ?

Paul

I took it out of laptop which was just saying error put it back in my system
in the adapter.
Then when I saw it loading, went into safe mode and did a format (quick) of
it.

Then I restarted my system and it showed up so I did another quick format.
Pulled it out
and this time laptop saw it but strangely to load xp pro I had to format it
again this time not
quick. But at least xp is loading. Yippee!!

Thanks Paul.