Stereodude
Not really a
There are a lot of people hoping for a $60 Black Friday deal.
Samsung 2 TB, eco-5400 rpm
- Thread starter Santilli
- Start date
I don't know how reliable the vendor is, but here is the F3 at a decent price.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
We live in interesting times ... I just paid US$86 for the F4 today. In Oz.
Stereodude
Not really a
They're solid. I bought several of my last batch from them. I paid a little more though.
Stereodude
Not really a
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
That might have been the issue that people were complaining about when I was looking in to buying a bunch of 5400rpm 1.5 or 2TB drives.
I have 3x 2TB and 4x 1.5TB Samsung drives sitting around, and 2x Seagate 2TB. I want to do something with them but somehow that collection of drives does not give me any kind of warm fuzzies.
On the other hand, an array built on 12x 1.5TB Barracudas (last year's firmware boondoggle) has been rock solid for me.
I have 3x 2TB and 4x 1.5TB Samsung drives sitting around, and 2x Seagate 2TB. I want to do something with them but somehow that collection of drives does not give me any kind of warm fuzzies.
On the other hand, an array built on 12x 1.5TB Barracudas (last year's firmware boondoggle) has been rock solid for me.
So what do I do with them?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Sell them to me so I can fill them up with movies of naked chicks who are making out and, uh, stuff.
Stereodude
Not really a
Wait for a firmware update and avoid reading the SMART data while writing data to them?
I'm not using the hdpharman or other funk tools. In that case it should not happen in casual use, correct?
Stereodude
Not really a
I would think it should be pretty rare in normal use. I have only one 2TB F4 in use and I everything copied to it is verified (read back & compared) which would catch it.
Stereodude
Not really a
It looks like the fix has been posted.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Can I just say how completely freaking obnoxious it is that so many flash utilities still need DOS.
Most of my students, people taking classes to obtain Microsoft Professional Certifications, would buy a new drive before they'd do something in DOS.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
How do they do at a *nix console or even with PowerShell?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Last time I tried one of their diagnostic tools which needed DOS, it wouldn't work for some unknown reason. I can't imagine I'd have any better luck with this. I also don't have a floppy drive to boot from or a USB pen drive...meh.
Stereodude
Not really a
C'mon now... Everyone should have a USB floppy drive in their arsenal.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I have a FreeDOS boot CD but I haven't had any luck making a working pen drive boot to DOS. Hiren's Boot Disk has a pen drive version, but I don't know if that's clean enough to use for BIOS flashing purposes.
I do have a USB floppy drive, but every time I plug the thing in I feel like I'm giving up as a tech.
I do have a USB floppy drive, but every time I plug the thing in I feel like I'm giving up as a tech.
Stereodude
Not really a
I've been able to make a USB flash drive boot to DOS. It wasn't very hard as I recall. I used the HP tool.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
As I recall, that didn't work when I tried it. As I recall the PC acted like there was no drive present and when straight on to trying a network boot.
Stereodude
Not really a
They don't work on all motherboards. I've had a mixed bag of results trying to boot from USB devices on various systems. Older systems that claim USB device boot capability seem to be the most problematic whereas new ones work well.
BingBangBop
Storage is cool
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
- Messages
- 667
I tried that HP tool just once! It killed my flash drive making it totally non-formated and non-formattable. I just swore never again...
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I was working with a drive that I've used to boot before and I was working with an Intel branded board.
Booting from pen drives is definitely inconsistent. My ancient-ass Thinkpad 560 can boot from USB but I've found Gateway desktops that won't detect my TrueImage boot drive.
Stereodude
Not really a
I tried it yesterday on two different laptops and found the Windows version uncooperative. In both systems it incorrectly identified the flash drive that was plugged in. For example, the flash drive was a 256MB Sandisk Cruzer Mini (old school). It was assigned D:. However, the HP program showed it as "Sandisk Cruzer Mini Z:\ 100MB" Z: is my 100MB RAMdisk on that system. In the other it was the Z:\ pagefile partition that confused it. I didn't try the program to see which drive it would really format and configure though.
However, the DOS / command line version (HPUSBF.EXE) worked fine. :scratch:
Stereodude
Not really a
Back on topic, has anyone tried this yet?
I personally have not. I do a verify on everything written to the one I have in use (as an external backup drive) so I know I haven't had any problem with data loss, though I will probably apply the fix soon if I don't read any horror stories.
I have not had a problem with Windows version 2.0.6.0 in ~6 computers and they all have a RAMDisk. I have not tried it with Win 7 yet, if that is a potential source of the problem.
Stereodude
Not really a
Mine were both XP x86.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I tried but unfortunately my M/B is so old that any SATA drives can't be seen in native DOS mode.
Stereodude
Not really a
Odd, I wouldn't think any SATA controller in AHCI or RAID mode could be seen in a native DOS mode. :scratch:
FWIW, I just did the update on both of my HD204UI drives. I left the BIOS in RAID mode (did not change it to IDE), booted from a USB drive with Windows XP's DOS files on it. It found the drive on the ATI SB700 controller and updated it. I then powered off and repeated the process with the 2nd HD204UI (still in an eSATA enclosure). That also worked without any sort of issue.
Stereodude
Not really a
Probably is aside from perhaps trying to boot from a USB flash drive.