RJT>JH>I was recently trying to use the WD Data Lifeguard diagnostics diskette
RJT>JH>to try and wake up a HDD which FDISK could not detect.

RJT>JH>Here's the strange part - - per its label, the Drive is a WD Caviar 5.1
RJT>JH>GB,  Model AC35100,  CHS of 10672/15/63 (LBA Translation 667/240/63?).
RJT>JH>But my mainboard autodetects it as 11184/15/63, and recommends an LBA
RJT>JH>translation of 699/240/63. When I run the WD diagnostics, it detects the
RJT>JH>HDD as 5.4 GB, WD Model AC35400L.  The WD utility "write
zeroes" seems
RJT>JH>to work on it, but takes a loooong time - a couple hours to get thru the
RJT>JH>first couple percent of the drive.  FDISK still wouldn't work after
RJT>JH>that.

RJT>JH>My only SWAG so far is that the Make, model, chs etc. of the drive are
RJT>JH>stored on a PROM or EPROM chip on the circuit board, and that someone
RJT>JH>swapped circuit boards on this drive, in hopes of making a Frankenstein
RJT>JH>and bringing it to life.

RJT>JH>Any other guesses/insights/advice will be appreciated.

RJT>JE> Jim, considering the low prices of HDs now days, it hardly seems
RJT>JE> worthwhile to expend too much time and energy on only a 5.1 Gb HD -
RJT>JE> dubious at best. I'd just look around for a good price on a new HD.

RJT>OTOH,  of the _four_ machines currently running here I have only _two_ drives
RJT>in the whole mess,  out of 7 or 8 in those boxes,  that exceed that in size. 
RJT>And of the fair pile of HDs I have on hand here,  only _two_ of them exceed
RJT>that in size.  Got one 10G drive I'm fixing to put in to the main linux box,
RJT>after having tested it,  and one slightly larger that I need to try
with a SCSI
RJT>card and see how it works.

But I think you missed the salient point. The drive in question doesn't
seem to be properly operable. Why expend too much time and energy on
something like that when bigger better drives are so economical?

If the drive/s you have and are using are good it makes good sense to
keep/use them.

Jay
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 þ OLXWin 1.00a þ Hors de Ourves:Sandwiches cut into a lot of little pieces