NASLite Network Attached Storage

Grumpa,

Well well, it seems you tried everything I would have tried.
Are you able to return the HD and see how you get on with another HD?
its bit of a puzzle, I guess you have given up trying to use it now with naslite?

Eden

No such luck Edeng, the drive is mine to keep, and it won't go into NASLite "just because". It has become an obsession. I am now running SpinRite v6 ... which also displays SMART monitoring ... and it reports NO ERRORS. So go figure ... ?

Hello again, Grumpa:

Yes, you certainly have gone "beyond the call of duty" in trying to get this WD1600 to work. These are the kind of challenges that keep life fun (for computer nerds ... like ... ME ?). If you don't mind hanging in there with us ...

I had the worst time with a Maxtor drive originally purchased around Summer 2000 installed as the main drive in a Compaq Presario 5900Z. Eventually I concluded (after trying just about everything you did) that the drive itself (and/or the EIDE controller on the MoBo) was Compaq-modified, and that the drive and controller were "paired up" in some special way. I don't have any experience with eMachines ... so I am wondering (for the benefit of other NASLite users out there taking used parts from proprietary systems) ...

Going back over your email thread ... you have already tried using this drive in 3 diff't MoBos. Three more questions:

1] Did you ever try installing this WD1600 with NASLite in the original eMachine it came in ? (If not, are you willing to test it ?)
2] Is the drive marked in any way other than the standard WD stickers ? Or is the original cable that connected it to the eMachines Mobo other than standard ? (Note: my Maxtor DID have a Compaq special sticker (barcode and replacement part #).)
3] Since it has worked successfully as a Windows external USB drive ... have you ever successfully used it as an INTERNAL drive in a Windows PC other than the eMachines ?

Georg

georg & edeng ... the drive has no special markings ... generic WD HD. I will try the other items you mentioned - SpinRite is now in it's 6th and final hour of tests with "all tests pass - no errors" - so far. I'll try and post answers to your questions sometime tomorrow ... again, thanks for the interest and ideas.

Hello Grumpa,

As far as I am aware the smartdisk in naslite gets the HD to self test and then the HD reports its status. All the other tests you done outside naslite report the HD as ok. This is the same drive that failed to format as well.
And you have two of these drives and both are problematic apart from when you run in XP.

I think you need a magic wand.

Eden

Edeng & Georg: No happy ending. The WD-160 is again a busy USB drive. Here are the results; the drive is a generic WD drive - no special markings ... when put in the eMachine it came with, NASLite reports the same read errors on immediately on boot ... when WinXP is installed on it, it boots and works fine ... finally every commercial hard disk utility I can throw at it, including WD's diagnostic and low level formatting, the drive reports NO ERRORS - ever - including SMART results. The back and forth copying of 150gb of video data resulted in no errors or corruption to any of the files. But after spending weeks on this (just because I've never lost a "patient" yet), I must move on with my life, and admit that I know no more now than I did when I first introduced it to NASLite. Farewell WD-160 ... USB awaits you ... so either SMART is indeed smart and knows something no other utility knows, or it is dumb, living in the past, and stuck on some old "read error". Thanks for all your help and great ideas ...

And Thank YOU for all your "patience" with this "patient", as well as reporting about it. So ... my Compaq Maxtor is just "special" and proprietary. But the eMachines check indicates your WD HDD is just standard but not trustworthy when paired with NASLite, something that should be exceedingly rare. Edeng is right ... you need a magic wand, and in this case you've found it: "USB" (and maybe a different new harddrive for your NASLite).

(I just checked my NASLite+ ... with two harddisks ... a modern MoBo with a 2.93Ghz Celeron (CPU/MoBo combination special for $70 at TigerDirect) ... no more errors (no SMART errors, no overruns, no frame or packet errors, no dropped packets ... reports "Uptime": continously since we returned from skiing 24 DAYS and 15 hours ago ... with giga-bytes upon giga-bytes of video, music and archived downloads transfered ... Thanks, ServerElements !)

An interesting learning experience. Thanks again, Grumpa.

Georg

Georg: You remind me of an important point that should not be overlooked. This was the saga of a wayward hard drive, not NASLite. It should be noted, that while I was running all these tests, my actual NASLite server was humming along just fine ... all 4 drives, all .5 Terabytes. Yes thanks you Server Elements.

I was searching for information on the seekcomplete error when I found this topic.

Sounds like you've done everything I would have tried, and more...

However, I do know that sometimes HDD installation or format utilities can make changed to a hard drive that the usual FDISK and FORMAT stuff won't touch. I recently read of a situation in which someone had a hard drive that refused to format to it's full capacity until he got a utility from the manufacturer that deleted some information placed on the drive during a previous installation. Once he used it, the drive could be reformatted the way he wanted.

I also recently learned of a small byt very powerful DOS low-level format utility called ideinit, that wipes a hard drive clean, but it's too risky to use unless the drive you want to wipe is the only one in the system. I found and downloaded a copy to have just in case I ever need it, but I have not used it yet. I may try it on some old drives I have that are either already flaky or too small to be of much use.

If you want to try it yourself, I can provide you with the link I used to download it, or the software itself.

-Ed