I have a WD1200JB that is not recognized by any utility I have tried. I’ve tried MHDD, COPYR and WD Diagnostic Utility along with others but they all resulted in the drive not being found. The one utility I have not tried is PC3K. I have not tried this because I do not yet have it. The drive spins up normally. I can hear a normal sounding quick click followed by the normal sound of the heads engaging. I tried swapping the PCB with that from another WD1200JB, although not an exact match. This had the same results, the drive spins up normally but is still not recognized. I have my doubts that the problem is with the PCB however, I’m looking for a PCB that matches the drive to rule this out. I’m thinking it is probably firmware related. Are these characteristics indicative of a firmware issue? Any thoughts or input anyone can add would be appreciated. Thanks.

This could help us to figure out what happened:

http://mhddsoftware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4313

Dmitry, thank you for your quick response. I have followed all the directions provided in the documentation. The drive was connected to the secondary ide cable without any other devices connected. Being a WD I ran MHDD with the pins set as master and I also tried running the utility with the pins removed. Both methods ended with the same result, the drive was not recognized. All the methods perscribed resulted in the message "drive not ready". Any thoughts would be appreciated.

There are something about screenshot...
We really need it!

has the 120 gig drive worked in the computer before? if not it may be a bios issue. some older computers can not recognize that large of a hard drive.
also, since it is a Western Digital, you have to remove the jumper if its the only drive on the ide cable. Placing the jumper on the master actually means "Master with Slave Device Present". that may solve all your problems

Dimtry - This is from the scrshot.log file:

[PRE]
80 ERR INDX CORR DREQ DRSC WRFT DRDY BUSY AMNF T0NF ABRT IDNF UNCR BBK 00
[ ] [ --LBA-- ] [ ] [ ]


Drive is not ready.


þ Smart -> ATT
Getting SMART attributes... Error: Drive not ready















| Help : <F1> and command MAN | 22:45:18
[/PRE]

Blade - Thanks for you suggestions. I'm afraid it's more than just a bios issue. However, thanks for your input.

Ok. Now better

1. try removing all jumpers.
2. Run mhdd, repower the drive (while in mhdd), and look for green busy to go away. This may take 2-15 minutes. Then press F2 (detect). If you will see your hd serial number (compare with sticker) then you have system area damage. If you won't see SN, then this is something internal (pcb/heads/preamp).

Hi, DP,

It is interesting what U wrote, could U share the reasons of it?
And how'bout if the module containing serial number is defective?

thx,
pepe

Dmitry,

I did as you suggested but the drive does not come out of the busy state. I let it sit for a couple hours with no luck. I also tested the same process on another WD drive. That drive immediately comes out of the busy state. The WD1200JB also has issues when it is getting detected by the bios, obviously. It will hang the system indefiantely until I power it off. So, it's not crashing the system but it is hanging it. Have you seen anything like this before? It's making me crazy. I also tried connecting the drive to hff repair station to see if it could do anything. That was, not surprising, unsuccessful too. Thanks for all your help and suggestions. I appreaciate greatly.