HDD claims no free space <Update RMA'd drive caught in train derailment, see latest post>>

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 12:22 PM

I'm building a brand new PC on a Z68 board with this lovely laptop HDD (I wanted it for the minimal noise) But when I attempt to install windows on it it shows a total size of 0.0MB with 0.0MB free space. The drive is recognized by the BIOS just fine however. Thoughts?

**irishron** · June 12, 2011, 12:41 PM

Format it, yet with the utility that came with it?

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 12:53 PM

I can't format it with the windows installation tools and no utility came with the drive (OEM), it's just a WD drive and all other drives I've had from them are formatted and ready to go.

I plugged it into another PC and the BIOS there doesn't show the drive and neither does it show in "computer" however under computer management I can see the drive there and it is definitely spinning.

Ah, here we go, the drive on the left is my OS drive, the drive on the right is this new drive, must be DOA for some reason which I do not know.

**irishron** · June 12, 2011, 01:06 PM

It's been too many years so some of these sound stupid, please bear with me as This old brain goes back to DOS 3. The first drive I ever installed myself had a boot up utility on a floppy. I think the one I boughtin 2009 had theirs on a cd-rom. I don't remember the makes, though.

In this day and age it should make no difference but does it have the pin setup for master, slave, and cable select? I have had dual drives including mine, now that cable select did not work and I had to do it the old fashioned way. This is with Win 7 and SATA.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by irishron

It's been too many years so some of these sound stupid, please bear with me as This old brain goes back to DOS 3. The first drive I ever installed myself had a boot up utility on a floppy. I think the one I boughtin 2009 had theirs on a cd-rom. I don't remember the makes, though.

In this day and age it should make no difference but does it have the pin setup for master, slave, and cable select? I have had dual drives including mine, now that cable select did not work and I had to do it the old fashioned way. This is with Win 7 and SATA.

From a pdf by WD:

"Jumper settings determine the order in which EIDE hard drives
and other devices attached to a single interface cable are
detected by a computer system. On SATA hard drives, jumper
settings enable or disable enterprise-level features."

Being a laptop drive it only has 4 pins instead of 8 although I'm not certain if these 4 pins are for something else... One forum I was reading on said when the disk shows up but with no capacity it means the PCB is shot. IDK

**irishron** · June 12, 2011, 01:25 PM

The poster could be right. I know nothing about laptop drives. I was assuming they would be pretty much like desktop ones. EIDE and I have hda our differences. My dvd-RWs are still EIDE. SATA did have a fit with my two harddrives, though.

Sorry I can't help you past this.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 01:31 PM

Time to create an RMA ticket with Newegg it looks like... they make you pay return shipping which sucksalot.

**irishron** · June 12, 2011, 01:32 PM

They got me that way once, too.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 01:36 PM

This will be the second time for me >.<

Last one was an active display port to DVI adaptor that would cut out at anything above 1600x900. I suppose having the customer cover return shipping allows them to keep their prices lower but just imagine if you bought some large heavy item such as an HDTV or speakers/subwoofers that arrived damaged or DOA... bad policy methinks.

**atraps** · June 12, 2011, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by ChaobSiroc

bad policy methinks.

I've heard that they'll give you a return label if you call them up and explain your situation (***** about it). Worth a shot I guess.

**irishron** · June 12, 2011, 01:40 PM

If the package showed up damaged I could see dmage inside, the UPS driver would be taking it back with him as refused for such reasons. Let them take it out of UPS' insurance policy instead of me.

**atraps** · June 12, 2011, 02:34 PM

Can you initialize it?

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by atraps

Can you initialize it?

"The drive cannot find the sector requested"

Was worth a shot. +rep

**PoleCat** · June 12, 2011, 10:43 PM

Just a shot in the dark - what SATA port are you plugging it into?

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 12, 2011, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by atraps

I've heard that they'll give you a return label if you call them up and explain your situation (***** about it). Worth a shot I guess.

I sure would if this were a larger item, however I'll be able to use first class postage on this return, not a big deal. What would be really nice is if they would have a cross-ship service for DOA RMA's.

Originally Posted by PoleCat

Just a shot in the dark - what SATA port are you plugging it into?

It was the intel controller on the Z68 board, on my P67 board it was the marvell controller.

I already packed the RMA now, I tried WD's low level formatting tool and that even gave errors so I gave up.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 21, 2011, 12:20 PM

So I RMA'd the drive... Newegg received it back, sent out a replacement.... it was supposed to arrive today so I looked at the UPS tracking info and it says "06/18/2011 08:00:00 TRAIN DERAILMENT" I checked the news online and sure enough severe weather had swept through Kansas where my HDD just so happened to be at the time causing near 2" diameter hail, tornadoes and a reported train derailment. lol I can't imagine a HDD doing well in a weather related train derailment.

**The Black Reaper** · June 22, 2011, 12:36 AM

Originally Posted by ChaobSiroc

So I RMA'd the drive... Newegg received it back, sent out a replacement.... it was supposed to arrive today so I looked at the UPS tracking info and it says "06/18/2011 08:00:00 TRAIN DERAILMENT" I checked the news online and sure enough severe weather had swept through Kansas where my HDD just so happened to be at the time causing near 2" diameter hail, tornadoes and a reported train derailment. lol I can't imagine a HDD doing well in a weather related train derailment.

Yea I was driving through that area and barely was 20 miles west of a tornado that touched down where i was just 20 minutes earlier. Scary stuff.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · June 22, 2011, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by The Black Reaper

Yea I was driving through that area and barely was 20 miles west of a tornado that touched down where i was just 20 minutes earlier. Scary stuff.

Yeah, this year has been downright nasty thus far, even up here in Minnesota there were tornadoes all around near where I live and just this past Saturday night we had 4" of rain in no more than 2 hours. I've been unplugging my computers almost every other night it seems due to all the thunderstorms.