HDD BIOS needs a reset

[Adrian C]

Hello...
I've been stumped about a method to clear the BIOS on
my HDD to the correct setting.

You mean reprogram the firmware. Don't think wdc have new ones, so you
are SOL.

Looking at the jumper bus, I noticed a mysterious jumper
near the slave/master pins, called PM2.

Get the full model number written on your drive (it's not just WD800)
and have a look on www.wdc.com

PM2 is a power management jumper.

 

[les]

Hello...
I've been stumped about a method to clear the BIOS on
my HDD to the correct setting.
I don't know how it happened, but somehow my WD800
drive tries to boot, and clatters, then ID's as a WD600
and of course that stops the bootup.
I switched the HDD into another system, and the mis-ID
remains the same. Something has gone awry in the BIOS.
Looking at the jumper bus, I noticed a mysterious jumper
near the slave/master pins, called PM2. I'm wondering if
this is a programming mode, and maybe someone knows
if there is a program that initializes this drive as well.

In have nothing to lose at this point.
I'd appreciate some ideas.

Les

 

[Thomas Tornblom]

Hello...
I've been stumped about a method to clear the BIOS on
my HDD to the correct setting.
I don't know how it happened, but somehow my WD800
drive tries to boot, and clatters, then ID's as a WD600
and of course that stops the bootup.
I switched the HDD into another system, and the mis-ID
remains the same. Something has gone awry in the BIOS.
Looking at the jumper bus, I noticed a mysterious jumper
near the slave/master pins, called PM2. I'm wondering if
this is a programming mode, and maybe someone knows
if there is a program that initializes this drive as well.

In have nothing to lose at this point.
I'd appreciate some ideas.

Les

The disk is shot.

I've seen this on other disks when they go really bad. The WD600 and
WD800 most likely have the same controller and it gets the type from
the media. When it can't read the media, it falls back to the default
in the firmware, which appears to be WD600 in your case.

The clatter you hear is the seeks it tries to get at the data.

Thomas

 

[[email protected]]

If I had to guess I'd say you have a drive electronics failure. Good luck at
fixing this.. About the only possible solution to this would to be to find
another hdd identical to yours manufactured about the same time and swap the
logic borads. That might work, but I wouldn't bet any money on it. It worked
in the old days, but I get the feeling that HDDs may have changed some since
then.

By the way if you really need the data send it out ot a recovery house. They
can get it back for you.. If not, take the hdd apart and get the really
strong rare earth magnet out of it. Throw the rest away or make some kind of
modern art out it.

Mike

Good luck to you,

Mike

The data recovery houses are VERY expensive. The last time the
company sent a 60GB laptop drive to OnTrack, the price was close to
$2000, plus $5 a platter formedia (CD/DVD) the recovered data was put
on.

For personal use, add a SATA controller card and a large drive to an
old computer and use it for over-the-network backups.

John

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Hello...
I've been stumped about a method to clear the BIOS on
my HDD to the correct setting.
I don't know how it happened, but somehow my WD800
drive tries to boot, and clatters, then ID's as a WD600
and of course that stops the bootup.
I switched the HDD into another system, and the mis-ID
remains the same. Something has gone awry in the BIOS.
Looking at the jumper bus, I noticed a mysterious jumper
near the slave/master pins, called PM2. I'm wondering if
this is a programming mode, and maybe someone knows
if there is a program that initializes this drive as well.

How to enable and disable PM2 (power management) on WD Serial ATA hard
drives:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...TEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1QTTI*&p_li=&p_topview=1

In have nothing to lose at this point.
I'd appreciate some ideas.

Les

Try Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=601&lang=en

- Franc Zabkar