Quote:
ATA 100 enabling is not an WD thing. every single drive has it. but coming to quality.
It used to be verry good when the largest drives were 13-15GB not anymore.

Cache handling of WD is verry sloopy although it does not spin down (actually it should) it can under no circumstance keep a constatnt data rate. and it does not spin down to recover errorsa either so it just keeps getting worst.
I find them to be higly unreliable. in a different sense. Usually they do not die straight ahead but your Bios starts reporting drive Fail. You can still access it and copy your data but actual High frequency cct is gone. I have seen bios wiped or cache memory blown reporting %60 failure

IBM and Quantum are actually the real deals. IBM is the one manufactered first HDD and still they have the largest, fastest drives (and most expensive). Quantum on the other hand licences technologies from IBM so it is always about a week behind on size and speed. And the drives are fab. generally. But I have started to come across more and more faulty quantums. it is usually a problem with their suspension or shock absorption which is caused by drive not fixed properly. This is because quantum drives have the quickest spin up and down. which puts stress on the mechanism. Frankly I do not see any other device worth mentioning.

I hope it helps.

You know what... Come to thinking about what you said here... I remember once, and only once, hard disk drive fail during POST. Now I was messing around in the comptuer, and the IDE cable or power might not have been in all the way. But I recall it was in, for what I could tell by my half *** analysis of the cable. I wonder if the drive is not damaged...

But how the hell can that be? It has operated seamlessly all this time, no problems with data what so ever. No misc fails or spin downs or anything.

And who cares about cache handling on hard drives. I have onboard cache for my processor L1 and L2. And 256MB RAM. That's my cache. You can tell it works too. Load MS Word on first boot, takes a few seconds, close it and load it again later, LOADS HELLA FAST! Same thing with quake 3 levels. Cache does make a difference though I can really see it.

Ok I have been messing around with some BIOS stuff.
 
I got the damn thing now to say when booting LBA, ATA-100, 40002 WD blah blah blah stuff.
 
So the BIOS has ATA-100 capability.
 
Now I ran the setup utility. And the phuker still says ATA33 and ATA33 is the ONLY AVAILABLE OPTION!
 
So something is either screwed up with the drive... Or i dont know.
 
I didnt even have to do this on my friends machine. I didnt have to use the WD Utility Disk thing to enable it, it was already enabled.
 
I just installed Via 4in1 4.32 Final drivers and ATA 100 worked on his system. I WILL NOT DO THAT ON MY SYSTEM.
 
Also, on my system it says DMA Mode for transfer rate but it is still sub 66 speeds!
 
I need to figure this out. Why wont the utility enable ATA100?

Well, I thought we wwere trying to help you out.
Here is the deal.
Of course your bios supports it (Dough!) Problem is with your drive I am repeating for the 3rd and the last time.
Have you gone in to bios and enabled halt on all errors? what happened afterwards?
Drive will not get damaged if the IDE or power is not plugged in or shaky etc. It just won't work.
What you should concentrate here is basically when you do run the ATA Utility you do not see the option of ATA 100 or even 66
This is because your drive is misreporting/ not being able to report it's model No. abilities etc.
Or WD Software is messed up which I find the idea to be very unlikely.
 
Try using the same SW with your friend's computer. Do not change anything just try to see if the option is available. If it is for the 3rd time get a new drive or replacement or whatever.
 
Also when you say sub 66 how many MBps in sequential read? And if you keep running diagnostic/benchmark your drive is going to fail anyway.

No need to be sarcastic. I am aware of everything you have told me. I am asking for more help beyond what you have already told me. I want to also go on record by saying I do appreciate your help very much. So you don't need to be sarcastic.
 
Now that that is out of the way. I DID enable hault on all errors, as a matter of fact it was practically on that! I had it on "all, but keyboard" which would do the same effect. The only reason I had it on that was because sometimes I do not have my "cordless" keyboard plugged in. And I can plug in the PS/2 in the middle of Windows and install it no problem.
 
And I also realize the drive will not get damaged if the power is not plugged in or shaky etc. But since I was not sure if it was not plugged in all the way and I got an hard disk drive fail that concerned me because I DID HEAR the drive power up. So you see my point now.
 
Yes the ATA Utility provided by WD on the floppy disk is not detecting ATA 100 or even 66! Its only detecting ATA33. But... It is detecting the drive it self properly. That leads me to believe that (and I may be wrong) the BIOS or something is not setup correctly.
 
Granted, the drive may be 'misreporting' ATA66+ capability. But the drive IS BEING REPORTED CORRECTLY.
 
I am not trying to be rude here. Now before I try to get an RMA and return it I want to STRESS every option I have before doing so. I'm sure you understand why as I don't want to be hard drive absent for any extended period of time, or even 1 hour for crist sake.
 
I will do a test to see sequential read and report back here shortly.
 
And thanks for the encouraging words of my drive failing. I doubt it will fail. It has never failed before but there is always a first time.
 
Again, thank you for your help. I have read everything you have told me.
 
Mike

Heres the data...
 
Desktop Role
 
Buffered Read 51MB
Sequential Read 23MB
Randon Read 6MB
Buffered Write 28MB
Sequential Write 25MB
Random Write 7MB
Averate Access Time 8ms

WOAH! I just realized! I just now saw... Its above 66 now! And I havent even done anything! WTF!?
 
Heres the pic thats what it reads...
 

previous was 2000 Standard, this is 2001 TE...
 

And now with the other 2001...
 
Sorry too lazy to take off desktop...
 

ANYONE HAVE ANY MORE IDEAS?
 
I just though of something...
 
I have 2 heatsinks on the harddrive on the time. Not doing anything wrong (i dont think) that cool the drive. It seems to cool it a lot, it helps a lot. Could this be affecting anything? I doubt it and dont see why or how it could, but I thought I would ask.
 
Thank you.

HELLBRINGER, why don't you try another benchmarking program? Sandra is not considered a very reliable or accurate benchmark for hard drives. You could try HD Tach for a quick and easy test to see whether your transfer rates, access times and burst rates are in line with what you expect. Get it from:
 
http://www.tcdlabs.com
 
The shareware version only works on Windows 9x OSes, but it should at least verify if there really is a problem with the hard drive or not.

I will try that right now and show you what I get.

This is what it says... I had to load in in WinME though. :-(
 
It is a bit higher, but I still dont think my drive is running ATA100 though. The WD utility wont give me the option. The only thing there is 33.
 
Here is a pic so that you can see.
 

I apologize for my too sarcastic remarks...
I guess it was my mood that was responsible.
I do understand how frustrating it is, having something that does not work as it should be. I am sorry I do not have anything else to offer you that is it. I am out of idea's.
(BTW you would not hear an IT Consultant say that ever)
 
But I know this, your heat sink's will not effect the performance.
 
Just a thought that occurred to me now when I saw your desktop.
try disabling or closing all the tray icon's especially NAV to be disabled.
Than shut down some of CPU intensive programs etc in the background. Disable Smart Monitoring and try again....
 
PS. The reason I repeated them was basically i thought you have not tryed them. Sorry!

Just a thought:
If this problem is ever solved we should celebrate! since we are all pretty far away and going down the local for a pint is out of the question. I suggest an online party.
Everybody writes a message while drinking beer.
 
And I just noticed how lame it sounds
Well I just woke up what do you want from me!

what you want to look at is your uncached read and write speeds they tell the real story,if you are getting 40 to 50 meg a second i'd be surprised,also the os has some to do with but it is mostly harware related . and no hardrive will ever perform at the speced speed.ata33,66,100 are all theoretical burst speeds,maximum for a given second or so,like within an apps first nanosecond of launching.

I have the exact same hard drive (Western Digital WD400BB-00AUA1)
and it runs flawlessly for me at ATA100. First off, here's my
system:
 
900 Mhz Thunderbird
MSI K7T Turbo (which uses the VIA 686b southbridge)
GeForce 2 MX400
SBLive
aforementioned hard drive
Creative 12x DVD-ROM
generic 56x CD-ROM
Creative 6432 CD-RW
Windows 2000 Professional
Debian GNU/Linux
 
And another data point, previously I had a K7T Pro (686a) and a
Promise Ultra100 20267 IDE Controller, which the hard drive also ran
flawlessly on.
 
I know that you have checked a lot of things trying to get this to
work, but I'd like to throw a checklist at you again, since you
haven't solved your problem yet, and hopefully we can find your
problem.
 
1. Make sure you are using an ATA66 80-wire IDE cable. One of
the connectors will be blue, and the ribbon itself will have smaller
wires in it.
2. When your computer boots, what does it say on the second
BIOS screen? The one that has everything listed in a table and gets
scrolled off the screen by Windows loading is the one I am
referencing. Mine lists my drive like so:
 
Primary Master: LBA,ATA100,UDMA5
 
3. Check your BIOS settings. The ones in particular that
matter are in Integrated Peripherals and are:
 
Primary Master PIO
Primary Master UDMA
 
These should both be set to AUTO.
 
4. Make sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard.
 
5. Check your Windows drivers. You will probably want the
latest VIA 4in1 drivers, 4.32. In Win2k, under Device Manager, VIA
Bus Master IDE Controller, the version number for viaide.sys is
5.0.2195.5110. Offhand I think that's not the newest version, but
there has been 686b ATA100 support for the past 4 or 5 driver
revisions, so as long as you are up to date, you will be ok. The
procedure under WinME is similar.
 
6. Make sure you have Service Pack 2 installed, on Win2k.
There were issues with ATA100 that were fixed in SP1, IIRC. Plus,
there are literally hundreds of things that SP1+2 fix. It's just
a good idea in general.
 
7. Check your settings in Device Manager. Under Primary IDE
Channel->Advanced Settings, it should be set to DMA Mode If
Available, and will register as Ultra DMA Mode on Win2k. (I noticed
XP actually lists the mode number.. much nicer!)
 
That should just about cover everything related to ATA100. I don't
have Sandra installed at the moment, but in HWINFO's benchmarks,
I get 74.50 read burst rate and 16.81 random access mode, which
are the best scores I have had yet. (They have gotten better as
newer VIA IDE drivers have been released)
 
I would also like to point out that ATA100 does not necessarily
equal 100 MB/sec. This is a theoretical maximum, and usually
get bottlenecked by other parts of your system, especially
your PCI bus.
 
Also, I noticed some posters said that you had to run a program from
Western Digital to enable ATA100 mode on the hard drive. I never
ran such a program and my drive has worked at ATA100 from the first
time I plugged it in. I have never even put the WD disk in my floppy
drive! I think I will check it out though, just to see what it says.
But I didn't have to do a thing to get it to work...
 
Anyway, I hope this post helps you out. I'll be checking this thread,
but feel free to mail me at the address in my profile if you have
any other questions about the drive. But it'd probably be best
to keep the discussion here.
 
James

Excellent. I will go check everything again and report back.
 
Thank you guys for responding. I do appreciate it.
 
And Uykucu, it's ok. I understand where you are coming from and where the other guy was coming from also. We will get this figured out hopefully. If not, WD will be getting a nice call... Or actually. I think I will take it back to Circuit City where I bought it from and deal with them first to see if I can trade it in for a new one.
 
Who knows... it may be my motherboard. I have still yet to get my friends comp to test it out since he has nearly the exact same sys config as me. We have just been so busy lately working, and out website. Which you should check out some time, I want some hits anyway. Who doesnt right?

Ok here are the results. I feel dissapointed. :-( I will do a WinME test here in a few...
 
Hard Drive
 
I also put in other sys benches, in case anyone wants to compare or sees a problem.
 
CPU
 
RAM
 
Network
 
Ok... I will post the stuff for jcurbo here in a sec...

Ok here we go...
 

Quote:I have the exact same hard drive (Western Digital WD400BB-00AUA1)
and it runs flawlessly for me at ATA100. First off, here's my
system:
 
900 Mhz Thunderbird
MSI K7T Turbo (which uses the VIA 686b southbridge)
GeForce 2 MX400
SBLive
aforementioned hard drive
Creative 12x DVD-ROM
generic 56x CD-ROM
Creative 6432 CD-RW
Windows 2000 Professional
Debian GNU/Linux
 
And another data point, previously I had a K7T Pro (686a) and a
Promise Ultra100 20267 IDE Controller, which the hard drive also ran
flawlessly on.
 
I know that you have checked a lot of things trying to get this to
work, but I'd like to throw a checklist at you again, since you
haven't solved your problem yet, and hopefully we can find your
problem.
 
1. Make sure you are using an ATA66 80-wire IDE cable. One of
the connectors will be blue, and the ribbon itself will have smaller
wires in it.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
I CHECKED THE CABLE... IT IS AN ATA100... 80 WIRE IDE CABLE. THE CONNECTOR TO THE MOTHERBOARD IS BLUE. THE RIBBON HAS SMALLER CABLES. I KNOW ITS A ATA-100 CABLE.
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
2. When your computer boots, what does it say on the second
BIOS screen? The one that has everything listed in a table and gets
scrolled off the screen by Windows loading is the one I am
referencing. Mine lists my drive like so:
 
Primary Master: LBA,ATA100,UDMA5
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
I CHECKED ALL OF THAT... IT READS LBA,ATA 100, 40022MB. BUT IT DOES NOT SAY UDMA 5 AND I CAN NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET IT TO SAY THAT! I TRIED A FEW THINGS AND I CANNOT GET IT TO SAY UDMA 5. SO HOW DO I KNOW ITS USING UDMA 5???
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
3. Check your BIOS settings. The ones in particular that
matter are in Integrated Peripherals and are:
 
Primary Master PIO
Primary Master UDMA
 
These should both be set to AUTO.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
THESE ARE BOTH ON AUTO AS SPECIFIED AS PRI SLAVE AND SEC MASTER AND SEC SLAVE.
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
4. Make sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
I HAVE THE ONLY BIOS AVAILIABEL FOR MY BIOS. THE BOARD WAS RELEASED IN FEBURARY OF THIS YEAR AND IS DATED FEBRUARY 19, 2001. THERE IS NO NEW COPY FOR IT THAT I COULD FIND. I CHECKED UNICORE.COM OR WHAT EVER FOR BIOS UPDATES AND TALKED TO AN REP ABOUT IT THERE ARE NONE.
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
5. Check your Windows drivers. You will probably want the
latest VIA 4in1 drivers, 4.32. In Win2k, under Device Manager, VIA
Bus Master IDE Controller, the version number for viaide.sys is
5.0.2195.5110. Offhand I think that's not the newest version, but
there has been 686b ATA100 support for the past 4 or 5 driver
revisions, so as long as you are up to date, you will be ok. The
procedure under WinME is similar.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
I CHECKED ALL THAT IT DOES SHOW 5.0.2195.5110 EXACTLY.
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
6. Make sure you have Service Pack 2 installed, on Win2k.
There were issues with ATA100 that were fixed in SP1, IIRC. Plus,
there are literally hundreds of things that SP1+2 fix. It's just
a good idea in general.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
I HAVE SP1 INSTALLED, AND REINSTALLED SP2... AND SOME OTHER UPDATES SEE WHAT FILES I HAVE HERE I HAVE ALL OF THEM INSTALLED...
 
UPDATES I HAVE
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
7. Check your settings in Device Manager. Under Primary IDE
Channel->Advanced Settings, it should be set to DMA Mode If
Available, and will register as Ultra DMA Mode on Win2k. (I noticed
XP actually lists the mode number.. much nicer!)
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
CHECKED THAT AS WELL. IT SAYS ULTRA UDMA MODE AND APPEARS TO BE WORKING FINE. I DO HAVE IT SET TO "DMA MODE IF AVAILABLE"
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
That should just about cover everything related to ATA100. I don't
have Sandra installed at the moment, but in HWINFO's benchmarks,
I get 74.50 read burst rate and 16.81 random access mode, which
are the best scores I have had yet. (They have gotten better as
newer VIA IDE drivers have been released)
 
I would also like to point out that ATA100 does not necessarily
equal 100 MB/sec. This is a theoretical maximum, and usually
get bottlenecked by other parts of your system, especially
your PCI bus.
 
Also, I noticed some posters said that you had to run a program from
Western Digital to enable ATA100 mode on the hard drive. I never
ran such a program and my drive has worked at ATA100 from the first
time I plugged it in. I have never even put the WD disk in my floppy
drive! I think I will check it out though, just to see what it says.
But I didn't have to do a thing to get it to work...
 
Anyway, I hope this post helps you out. I'll be checking this thread,
but feel free to mail me at the address in my profile if you have
any other questions about the drive. But it'd probably be best
to keep the discussion here.
 
James
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have looked EVERYTHING! I already checked all of this and it had no effect. The utility provided on the WD boot disk still says ATA33 and ATA33 only available and so does the updated version of the software.
 
I wonder if it is not the motherboard it self or damage in the BIOS, the ROM on the hard drive, or a stream of bad IDE cables I have...
 
Anything else I should check? WD is pretty much saying the same things as you guys and I am telling them the same thing I am telling you. They have stopped responding to me as of Wednesday. I think they are sick of hearing from me lol.

HELLBRINGER, you need to check the Advanced Size Check option in HD Tach. Otherwise, it will only test the first 8GB of your hard drive.
 
Still, looking at your burst speed, you're definitely in ATA100 mode. BTW, what's the model of your WD hard drive?