broken harddrive

i have been using a WD3200KS hard drive in my old computer for ages and it worked a treat, but now that i've put it into a new computer it doesnt work as well. I cant boot from it, and when i use it for data storage the computer sometimes freezes when shifting data to and from the drive.



anyone know why?



I've run the WD diagnostics software (from their website) and each time i run a test it tells me theres a problem with the cables, but the cables are brand new and ive tried a few different ones.



i kinda need this drive working, and cant afford to buy another one...

Does it have an operating system on it? If so, it may only work with the original hardware? Also what file system?

If need be, you could format it to FAT32 and it should work with any system. This will delete everything though.

i backed up everything onto my new 500gb drive, so i've already formatted it.



i have tried installing XP pro on it, and as soon as the computer restarts and tries to boot from the drive it gives me a 'disk read error'.



at the moment its partitioned into 2 x 150Gb parts, both formatted with NTFS

Designating one specific drive as the boot device when more then one is installed requires going into the bios not only to see the 1st boot device set to hard drive but also reuires bringing up the list of drives detected in order to move one to the top of the list. That sets it as the default.

With more then one drive in a case especially when an ide model is present the Windows installer will place the boot information on the ifrst drive ide first then the first sata if no ide model is found. The boot information may have ended up on the other drive there while you had the 320 set as the default. That would explain why you couldn't seem to boot up with it.

For correcting some occasional goofs seen with Windows in particular XP not Vista go into the device menager and open the storage devices section and right click on the 320 listing there. Selecting the uninstall option and restarting the system can often correct drive detection problems even if a drive is still seen but not responding well.

yeah i know to tell it which drive to boot from. i even unplugged the 500gb hard drive to make sure.



nup, i unplugged the other hard drive when i tried instaling XP pro. and they're both SATA anyway.



ok, i'll give that a go...

does you new computer fit the HDD.

yep, its plugged in and my new computer can read the contents fine at the moment, but when i try and shift data it freezes.







if it helps, i'm using Vista 64bit on the new computer.

when attempting to install XP Pro on the drive in question, i am using the same computer, but unplugging the 500Gb drive (the one with vista on it).

Here I run two satas with one of the two ide drives use in the last case here. When unning that one XP Home was on the first ide with Vista replacing XP Pro on the second 250gb later seeing Pro go on the first of the two 500gb sata drives still in use on the new build.

Here I wanted some better then typical flat ribbon type cables to insure integrity of file transfers as well as being durable. Yet even with all 3 versions being multi booted you could see slow downs at times when going to simply browse one drive while booting from the other.

The question now would be was the 320 the only drive in the last case where it simply stood alone? As the single OS drive in a case read access would be like lightning while having multiple drives will tend to see longer delays in browsing as a rule at times.

sorry mate but that was difficult to read and i couldnt really see the relevance...



my 320gb has never been used as a boot drive before, and when i try to use it as a boot drive it is the only hard drive in the system.

I have never made or tried to make a multi-boot system.

All my drives (hard drives and cd/dvd) are sata.

I was simply pointing out what is seen often when having more then one drive installed. The read access time can slow down at times depending on a few things like how much is being moved or copied from pne place to another and what is running in the background when going to simply browse another drive.

Being sata not ide makes life easier when setting drives up since the only time a sata drive sees a jumper setting change is on the Sata 1 type where the mode not cablle postition is changed. That would be things like disabling the ATA150 capability. Yet eveb though the sata bus is faster you are still limited by the ATA100/133 to the greatest extent.