2TB Samsung HD203WI not detected/working

[Goldfish92]

Hey,
Recently bought this HDD and on installing in a new build system it was not detected under bios. Booted the system up anyway into recovery console (using an old HDD) and loaded DISKPART in cmd to see if I could initialise the disc drive in there but had no luck as the drive didn't show up, only the one that I had booted off.

I then removed the drive from the system and plugged it into a sata-usb connector I had lying around and pluged it into a Windows 7 machine. Opened up the disk managment console and the drive was detected as new. I went to initialise the drive but repeatedly got the message 'Device not ready'. After around an hour of disconnecting and re-connecting the drive it allowed me to initialse it, GREAT. Copied some files across and replaced the drive in the new machine.

When I powered on the machine however the drive span up and began making clicking and grinding sounds. So I powered down the machine and came to the conclusion that it was faulty.
Got my parents to take the drive back to Scan where the drive was tested and found to be working fine but was replaced anyway as I had gotten the drive to work temporarily and the fault was possibly intermitent.
Installed the new drive, same problems. Not detected in bios and not wokring in an external disc caddie.

I've tried different power connectors, data cables, different SATA ports, another caddie and another machine all to no avail; I even flashed the BIOS to the most recent version in case it was not detecting the drive because it was large cappacity. Basically I am out of ideas and I don't see there being two mechanical faults with the same model HDD.

Sorry for the long post but I'm tottaly out of ideas. Two other drives are recognised fine on the same motherboard (two other disc drives from a previous machine) just this one that is acting up.#
*EDIT* Kinda want to get this fixed quick too cos it's my new WHS and I'm currently without all my media and music :S it's too bloody quiet around here without that

Motherboard : Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3
HDD : 2TB Samsung HD203WI Spinpoint F3EG

Cheers

[ehhhhhhh]

I believe someone (maybe Cat) mentioned in an other thread that this model has compatibility issues with certain amd chipsets...

here's a firmware update, but make sure it's for you drive

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=308

as the description says, it should solve your problem

"this patch code is released in order to solve the compatibilty problem between SB580 chipset and
F3 + F3EG model."

[arthurleung]

Buy a separate SATA card to run the drive? Or a USB caddy.

If the drive is acting up intermittently it is NOT a good idea to update the firmware, you could brick the drive if the firmware update is not complete.

You can also try running the drive in IDE mode. I have similar problem on some 1TB/1.5TB F2 which would randomly lock up for up to 90 seconds when running in AHCI mode.

[ehhhhhhh]

It seems to be the compatibility issue if scan said that the drive was OK...but then obviously you should update it in a different PC (with different chipset)

[12GaugeShotty]

Buy a separate SATA card to run the drive? Or a USB caddy.

If the drive is acting up intermittently it is NOT a good idea to update the firmware, you could brick the drive if the firmware update is not complete.

You can also try running the drive in IDE mode. I have similar problem on some 1TB/1.5TB F2 which would randomly lock up for up to 90 seconds when running in AHCI mode.

I have a pair of 1TB Samsung F1, and had a 1.5TB Samsung F2 and 2TB Samsung F3 all running in ACHI mode on my Asus P5Q Pro Turbo without a problem. Currently the 1.5TB Samsung F2 and 2TB Samsung F3 drives are in USB enclosures.

[Goldfish92]

Bloody hell quick response

Well that one about the firmware sounds spot on to me. I'll find another computer to canabalise to perform the firmware update and see how I get on. Can't beleive I couldn't find anything on that when I did a search myself though but glad I have a possible fix.
Thanks again guys

[arthurleung]

I have a pair of 1TB Samsung F1, and had a 1.5TB Samsung F2 and 2TB Samsung F3 all running in ACHI mode on my Asus P5Q Pro Turbo without a problem. Currently the 1.5TB Samsung F2 and 2TB Samsung F3 drives are in USB enclosures.

Forgot to state that it is an AMD specific problem.
The drives indeed work fine on Intel boards.

[Goldfish92]

Well you'll be glad to hear that updating the firmware fixed the issue

Samsung's instructions on updating the firmware however leave a lot to be desired, but then again I supose they don't expect Joe Public to have to do such thing, either way a link atleast to make a bootable DOS USB drive would have been nice...

Thanks for the help , just a shame a good drive got RMA'd in the process.

[GaryRW]

Well you'll be glad to hear that updating the firmware fixed the issue

Samsung's instructions on updating the firmware however leave a lot to be desired, but then again I supose they don't expect Joe Public to have to do such thing, either way a link atleast to make a bootable DOS USB drive would have been nice...

Thanks for the help , just a shame a good drive got RMA'd in the process.

For someone else trying to update the firmware, I don't suppose you can link to USB bootable drive instructions can you?

I'm on an Intel P35 chipset, but the drive doesn't always appear when the PC resumes from sleep. Weird problem that I've never had with any other HDD. I was going to RMA to Scan before I saw there was a firmware update. The instructions on the samsung are rather minimal, and my first effort at a bootable DOS CD failed miserably...

[ehhhhhhh]

I'm glad it worked.



Hawker1986: on many occasions I have done my bootable usb stuff following the instructions on this site:

http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm

hope it helps

[Repressor]

For someone else trying to update the firmware, I don't suppose you can link to USB bootable drive instructions can you?

This is a good idea. I think I'll be needing a fix for this soon and I have only a vague idea of what I'm meant to be doing. Also, nowhere else has a good guide, just more people moaning about samsung's instructions leaving alot to be desired!

[Goldfish92]

Ok well kinda stumbled upon this method by accident trying to get a portable OS to boot from USB, but basically you need 2 things which I have made available here

http://tinyurl.com/34dpc6d

That is basically an HP disk tool to format your USB drive and then make it bootable along with the neccessary MS-DOS files that the program need to make the drive bootable. Just extract the files and run the HPUSBFW.exe . Select the 'Create a DOS startup disk' option and point it in the direction of the extracted 'boot files' folder.

After that just wait and your USB should be all ready to boot off Put all the bios/firmware files on the pen drive in the root directory and note down their filenames so you can execute them easily, common sense really...

Hope that helps someone anyways and my WHS in fully up and running now

[thedwarfer19]

trying to do the firmware update, can't get it to boot from a cd, do i just put the exe file from the zip on there or what?

[fuxwyndowz]

Has anyone had success with Intel chipsets? running an Intel H67, Samsung 2t has intermittent connectivity, and almost always phazes out during a large file transfer. WTF? Three days into this one...

Thanks,
m4t