Sudden lockups with WD drive

[PT]

Anyone give me any pointers on whats likely to be causing a WD1200PB
drive to lock a machine up at the point in the POST where it detects
drives?

It started back in windows I heard one of the drives sound like it was
parking the heads, then about 20 seconds later windows xp locked up.

The drive is slaved (non bootable) to a 200GB Maxtor and has been this
way for the last 2/5 months with no problem, but now when the drive is
connected the machine will lockup on the POST screen (without detecting
any drive).

If I remove the drive the machine will boot up no problem and even
placing the drive in another PC shows no problem at all (boots up fine ,
all the data appears to be there and even WDs diagnostic program cant
find any errors!).

I've tried new IDE cables and placing the drive on another molex
connector just incase it was a loose plug causing loss of power, but
nothing helps.

Any ideas appreciated.

 

[Rod Speed]

Anyone give me any pointers on whats likely to
be causing a WD1200PB drive to lock a machine
up at the point in the POST where it detects drives?

It started back in windows I heard one of the drives sound like it was
parking the heads, then about 20 seconds later windows xp locked up.

The drive is slaved (non bootable) to a 200GB Maxtor
and has been this way for the last 2/5 months with no
problem, but now when the drive is connected the machine
will lockup on the POST screen (without detecting any drive).

If I remove the drive the machine will boot up no problem
and even placing the drive in another PC shows no problem
at all (boots up fine, all the data appears to be there and
even WDs diagnostic program cant find any errors!).

That last bit is significant.

I've tried new IDE cables and placing the drive on
another molex connector just incase it was a loose
plug causing loss of power, but nothing helps.

It may be the IDE controller in the motherboard thats failed
and you only see a problem with two drives on the ribbon cable.

Worth checking that BOTH drives are jumpered correctly.
You sometimes see a wrong jumper config work for a while.

What happens with just the WD drive connected in that PC ?
There's a different jumper config for single drive with WDs.

 

[PT]

That last bit is significant.


It may be the IDE controller in the motherboard thats failed
and you only see a problem with two drives on the ribbon cable.

Well it could be controller failure but it also lockups when the WD is
Master on its own. Also tried swapping the drive to the secondry
channel and same lockup!

Worth checking that BOTH drives are jumpered correctly.
You sometimes see a wrong jumper config work for a while.

Checked and double checked setting were/are correct.

What happens with just the WD drive connected in that PC ?
There's a different jumper config for single drive with WDs.

I've tried it in all configs (Master with Slave, Master on own and as
Slave) on both machines, net result is lockup in the 1st PC but not in
the second.

This beats the hell out of me and unless you have any more ideas, I'm
going to have to wait until a friend gets back from holiday next week as
hes got almost the same MB (uses the same BIOS that I know for sure) as
me. Then I can see if its the drive has started doing something the
BIOS doesnt like (in that case I suspect I would see the same lockups)
or otherwise it probably a controller failure (although I've not seen
one in a very long time with integrated controllers).

 

[Rod Speed]

Well it could be controller failure but it also lockups when the WD is
Master on its own. Also tried swapping the drive to the secondry
channel and same lockup!


Checked and double checked setting were/are correct.


I've tried it in all configs (Master with Slave, Master on own and as
Slave) on both machines, net result is lockup in the 1st PC but not in
the second.

How long are you waiting ? It can take a long time to timeout
in some situations and that can look like a lockup but it isnt.

This beats the hell out of me and unless you have any more ideas,
I'm going to have to wait until a friend gets back from holiday next
week as hes got almost the same MB (uses the same BIOS that
I know for sure) as me. Then I can see if its the drive has started
doing something the BIOS doesnt like

Doesnt explain why it used to work fine, least that
appears to be what you were saying right at the top.

(in that case I suspect I would see the same lockups) or
otherwise it probably a controller failure (although I've not
seen one in a very long time with integrated controllers).

Yeah, thats certainly rare.

Guess you could try resetting the cmos in
case its somehow got into a funny state and
its that state that is causing the drive poll to fail.