Western Digital 120Mb eratic problems

I bought this well acclaimed HD more than a year ago I think (at 350 USD), and I did not have any problems. It is fast, silent, no data loss, formatted once or twice only.

Lately I started using pinnacle studio to make my movies on DVD and this involves some 16 hours of continous reading + writing to the HD. Maybe it is not related but my instinct says it has something to do with the error I am to report.


While making another movie, I noticed that the PC would either restart with no warning or lock. After several research I pinned it up to the Western Digitil Caviar SE 120Mb 8M buffer Hard Disk

When the error takes place, it does a combination of any of the following after a restart:

1) Sector could not be found error #48
2) A particular Partition not reckognized
3) Whole HD not reckognised after reset by the BIOS
4) Partition is reckognized but could not be used - saying partition needs to be formatted, on clicking yes then it says formatting is not possible
*) Sometimes, HD makes a funny click or tick


The strange thing is that if I shut down the computer (leave it for 5 mins or so) and restart it the HD works again perfectly, and keeps doing so for a long time (or forever) unless i use the pinnacle studio program which involves heavy usage of the drive.

Note 1): i already burned successfully some 5-7 DVD without problems. That was on Studio 8, recentely I updated to Studio 9 - but I dont think it has to do with the upgrade (it is just a chance)

Note 2): I use partition 3/3 (28Gb) for burning the movies to

Does anyone have come with a similar problem on his WD HD ? Can I do some BIOS settings / XP (SP1) settings to imrove thiis situation


Brief Specs
Abit Kt7 Raid, 900Mhz AMD, 384Mb Ram, Pinnacle Studio V9, XP (ServPack 1), well a 4 year old PC.

I wish someone have this problem and share his experience and solution if any.

Ｕｓｅ diagnostic tools from WD, XP try to continue the process ignoring trifling errors. That's the trouble. Perhaps as the programme conduct more severe use of HDD, XP cannot stand it.

From My Computer property > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > automatically restart <--(^^; (Uncheck here. You'll see fearful messages at each critical errors.)

I downloaded and tried the diagnostic tool and got this error message after about 10sec of smart test!!!

"06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 04 (Unknown failed test element), Failure Checkpoint = 64 (SMART Attribute Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!"



What the f*** is happening on my WD HD 120GB caviar SE???

more info:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0
Serial Number: WD-WMA8C2800832

(^^;?(This should be regarded as the revelation from God. )

"Your HDD will be broken before long, immediately take back-up and don't have reason to doubt it!"

Note: If you leave it alone, it would be unrecognized in time. You can low-level format it after back-up. And test it again.

Yes, that clicking noise is doom. Where do you live that that drive cost you $350 US? That's a lot of money. You can get a 120 GB SATA for $100 or less today. My advise, unless you have a good backup scheme, is to buy a new drive, make the old one a slave to it and trasfter all your data over. Then do the low level format and see if you can get the drive to work again or send it back to WD and they'll send you a replacement.

- - - - -

The very strange thing is that under 'normal operation' the drive do not perform badly. (still error unkown by WD diagnostic tool) Today I have been using it for 12 consecutive hours without any problems. However if I make some overperformance writing (studio 9 rendering, winzip etc) there is some click followed by a HD spin up, the computer freezes (not even task bar comes in) and if I reset the PC, drive is either not reckognized by XP (ok by bios) or a partition is not reckognized. If I switch off (for 10 secs) then the HD is back to normal.

For some reason I am hoping that it is something with the ide cable, mobo or PSU to HD!!


Well, I bought it from UK 16months ago. it was just released. I think I am not covered by WD warranty. Their site covered US and Canada only.

Is there a WD RMA or warranty service for other countries in the world apart US + Canada. I doubt that sending the drive with my expenses for transport by courier and paying the transport to WD for a new will be worthed !



So i will follow your advice and when I build my new PC with a new Maxtor I will try and revive it.


PS... What happened to Quantum brand HD???? I have a 1Gb (bought in 1996) for the Amiga still works fine, and another one of 30Gb, 4 yeasr old, C: partition on it and still perfect running.


I cant trace any Quantum drives!!

I was a fan of WD, but now I do not like this brand and advice anyone reading to buy other brand such as Maxtor.

(^^;(Ｇｉｖｉｎｇ other things over to Lennynj.)

For some reason I am hoping that it is something with the ide cable, mobo or PSU to HD!! <--(~~;( There's no reason about that. SMART means self-monitoring-analysis ? ?, in a word, self diagnostic function of HDD. it should not need high power supply, only 90 sec. or so, if it cannot accomplish even this basic test....)

Put the hard drive in the freezer for about 20mins. Whiles it still cold put it in. That should fix it.
Sounds crazy but i should wrk.!!!

I may try the freezer thing, but I am afraid of the moisture it might get inside and hence make things worse. Also I am a bit sceptical - what a freezing for 20 mins might fix in a HD.

Still need more support about this befor e trying

I hope this suggestion a serious one ???

(~~;(Put aside Kiwipride suggestion as the last resort for the time being. )

There are many other vulgar unofficial methods apart from this which sometimes make some effects According To Condition or Your Luck.

You shoud not go to extremities before phisical format is possible at this moment. But it is the matter of time the time will come in time.

If the problem with your hard drive is physical. i.e. the bearings are frozen and won't let the drive spin, freezing might free up the bearing and get things working again. And, if you never turned off the hard drive it might continue to work indefinitely. However, it is most likely a short term fix and you should plan for a new drive or fix the problem with the current drive. There is a problem and it will fail when the time comes.

Have you ran scandisk? If not, Run a thorough scandisk on the HDD you're having trouble with. It may have bad sectors on it which will cause problems. I know this because I just got through doing the same thing.