WD15EADS grinding - hardware or firmware??
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From: BD on 14 Dec 2009 18:32 I recently bought a WD15EADS 1.5TB 'Green' disk made by Western Digital. I plugged it in, on a SATA docking unit that I use. I did some writing to it. After the write activity stopped, the heads kept on grinding. Even after I did a soft-disconnect of the drive and just left it plugged into the dock, the grinding continued. I did some digging, and found a forum post in which the poster described similar symptoms, and actually recorded the sound the drive makes. This is pretty much exactly what I'm hearing: http://boomboost.com/example/wd15eads_bad.mp3 I don't know whether this is a firmware issue and can perhaps be fixed with a firmware update (can I even flash the firmware on these drives??), or if it's a hardware problem requiring an RMA. Opinions or insights would be appreciated!! BD
From: Rod Speed on 14 Dec 2009 22:23 BD wrote > I recently bought a WD15EADS 1.5TB 'Green' disk made by Western Digital. > I plugged it in, on a SATA docking unit that I use. > I did some writing to it. After the write activity stopped, the heads > kept on grinding. Even after I did a soft-disconnect of the drive > and just left it plugged into the dock, the grinding continued. > I did some digging, and found a forum post in which the poster > described similar symptoms, and actually recorded the sound > the drive makes. This is pretty much exactly what I'm hearing: > http://boomboost.com/example/wd15eads_bad.mp3 > I don't know whether this is a firmware issue and can perhaps > be fixed with a firmware update (can I even flash the firmware on > these drives??), or if it's a hardware problem requiring an RMA. See what WD has to say about it. > Opinions or insights would be appreciated!!
From: Arno on 15 Dec 2009 15:15 BD <robert.drea(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I recently bought a WD15EADS 1.5TB 'Green' disk made by Western > Digital. > I plugged it in, on a SATA docking unit that I use. > I did some writing to it. After the write activity stopped, the heads > kept on grinding. Even after I did a soft-disconnect of the drive and > just left it plugged into the dock, the grinding continued. Do you have any indication this is a problem? May just be an automatic selftest. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno(a)wagner.name GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
From: BD on 15 Dec 2009 20:04 > Do you have any indication this is a problem? May just be > an automatic selftest. Only by comparison. I do not have any other 1.5TB green drives, but I have 2x1TB Greens and 4x650G Blacks. None exhibit this behavior. I have another new 1.5T Green in my hot little hands. Will confirm its behavior this evening.
From: BD on 16 Dec 2009 17:08
On Dec 15, 5:04 pm, BD <robert.d...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Do you have any indication this is a problem? May just be > > an automatic selftest. > > Only by comparison. I do not have any other 1.5TB green drives, but I > have 2x1TB Greens and 4x650G Blacks. None exhibit this behavior. > > I have another new 1.5T Green in my hot little hands. Will confirm its > behavior this evening. Follow-up - I ran another 'new' 1.5T disk, and it did not behave at all the same. The continual accessing of the heads was evident only on the one drive. That drive is going away... Cheers, BD |