I have to service some machines all identical, built with integrated mobo. and HDDs MAXTOR 6G160E0 SATA, firmware KA101V00 (the entire TLA is 6G160E002A21A).
These machines suffered from strange lockups and malfunctioning right from the start (out of the box). After in-depth checkouts of timings, ram, mobo and power supply for ripple or switching RF on DC (all OK) , as an attempt I changed the HDD with another brand/type and the machines now work perfectly (note : running MHDD on original HDDs or other diagnostic shown no errors or flaws).
Seems an incompatibility (another one !) with the SATA controller, it's an nForce.
NO SW patches are available for the OS (WinXP) or mobo, I have only to change the HDD or fix them.
Do some of you have a FW update for such drives before asking directly to Seagate ?
Probably in other non - nForce machines these drives are OK but a FW update makes it sure.
Many thanks.