Re: HDD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Extended test won't run

Then that's a problem with the WDC website, because it was the only search that returned a hit for that part number.



It wasn't part of another WDC product or purchased second-hand. As I pointed out in my first post, it's the hard drive from my TiVo Series 3 HD DVR.



Bear with me here, because I obviously don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to SATA HDDs. Here are my attempts to answer your questions, as numbered:

1. That's a tough call. I honestly don't know. (see answer 2)

2. For testing I'm using a red SATA cable in a Dell Dimension 8400. The original bundled cable in the TiVo is also red, same pinout, but is combined with the power cable. In the Dimension, I used separate red SATA data and power cables.

3. I don't know what the controller in the TiVo is. In the Dell Dimension 8400, I'm using a SATA/150 PCI expansion card to interface to the WD2500BS. I'm not using the SATA controllers on the motherboard. You've raised a good point here. I'll figure out which of the MB controller SATA drives is the system drive, and replace the other with the WD2500BS. Maybe the change in controllers will make a difference.

4. See above. It's connected to the SATA/150 PCI expansion card.

5. There aren't any jumpers installed on this drive. Unfortunately, the label doesn't have any info about jumper settings. I checked the circuit card too because sometimes jumper labels appear there, but there weren't any. What I can tell you is that the drive as configured acted as a slave in the Dimension 8400 and didn't interfere with the operation of the other drives.

6. Argh! This one will take time to answer. I'm rendering another Blu-Ray recording on the Dimension 8400 and don't want to interrupt it to run the BIOS setup. I'll post the answer to this one sometime tomorrow.



See my responses above for details on the interface I'm using. I thought I should use internal interfaces exclusively for testing purposes, since the interface in the TiVo was also internal.



I have an EXE for the DLG diagnostics that may be an older version. I just haven't figured out how to get it onto a bootable DOS cd yet.



I noticed during runs of the DLG quick test (whether it was run standalone or as the first part of the extended test) that a lot of clicking was going on in the drive. However I didn't know if this was a normal reaction to the tests, or an indication of a dead drive.

When I booted in Windows to see what would happen, the OS detected the drive in the Windows Disk Manager. However it told me that I would have to initialize the drive in order to use it. That meant formatting it which I did not want to do.

What the hey, if I can't figure out what's going on with the disk in the TiVo, I may be able to use it as a spare in Windows. I really do want to try to recover the recordings on the disk though.



Keeping backups of a TiVo drive is problematic. They don't make it easy to access the data on the drive, at least not in the context of the TiVo DVR. The closest TiVo comes to providing backups is to include a sort of "Recycle bin" of previously deleted recordings. Where those are actually stored is ambiguous. They might be on the internal drive, on the external eSATA expasion drive, or both. In that sense they're not much good as backups.



I'll have to do some additional work on the SMART values and what they mean. There are other tests on this boot CD which are not specific to drive brand and appear to report the SMART status. But again, I have to wait for that Blu-Ray to finish rendering.

Hey, thanks for your patience in answering my posts. Keep in mind that I'm essentially ignorant, just barely able to get a driving license these days.