Seagate 500GB ST9500420AS Problem

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Takeda · #1 Post by **Takeda** » Wed May 20, 2009 5:05 am

I just upgraded to the 500GB drives on my T60. They are faster than the Hitachi 200GB drives I was using, but I'm having trouble with them in my Ultrabay HDD adapter. If I hotplug the adapter with the drives (I ordered 2 of them) the drives aren't recognized. If I plug the adapter in, and then power up, the drives are seen. If I plug the adapter with the laptop in "standby", this also works. I also had to
jumper the 1.5GB/S pins on the drives. Has anybody else had this problem?

Takeda · #2 Post by **Takeda** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:54 pm

Anybody?

AvalonXIII · #3 Post by **AvalonXIII** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:25 pm

Sounds like the adapter doesn't supply enough power to the HDD on battery. If that's the case then I doubt that you can do anything about it. Maybe consider a 500GB with lower power consumption.

Takeda · #4 Post by **Takeda** » Sun May 24, 2009 6:17 am

AvalonXIII wrote:Sounds like the adapter doesn't supply enough power to the HDD on battery. If that's the case then I doubt that you can do anything about it. Maybe consider a 500GB with lower power consumption.

Thanks for your reply! The problem happens while powered with the AC adapter. The 500GB Seagate pulls less current than the 200GB Hitachi that works.

globalkiwi · #5 Post by **globalkiwi** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:54 pm

Takeda wrote:I just upgraded to the 500GB drives on my T60. They are faster than the Hitachi 200GB drives I was using, but I'm having trouble with them in my Ultrabay HDD adapter. If I hotplug the adapter with the drives (I ordered 2 of them) the drives aren't recognized. If I plug the adapter in, and then power up, the drives are seen. If I plug the adapter with the laptop in "standby", this also works. I also had to
jumper the 1.5GB/S pins on the drives. Has anybody else had this problem?

Hmm, this is a weird one. I do know that to use the Seagates in the UltraBay adapter you have to jumper them to limit them to 1.5GB/s - there's more on this in Seagate support base - but it sounds like you've done that. It seems like maybe these drives are just not hot-pluggable. I've ordered the same 500GB drive for my T61P which I hope will arrive on Tuesday. I'll let you know if I have any similar problems. If I don't then we know it's unique to your computer/drives but my guess is that the Seagates don't have hot-plug capability. If so, I wish I'd known that a week or so ago as I just ordered two as well!

Takeda · #6 Post by **Takeda** » Tue May 26, 2009 10:52 am

globalkiwi wrote: Hmm, this is a weird one. I do know that to use the Seagates in the UltraBay adapter you have to jumper them to limit them to 1.5GB/s - there's more on this in Seagate support base - but it sounds like you've done that. It seems like maybe these drives are just not hot-pluggable. I've ordered the same 500GB drive for my T61P which I hope will arrive on Tuesday. I'll let you know if I have any similar problems. If I don't then we know it's unique to your computer/drives but my guess is that the Seagates don't have hot-plug capability. If so, I wish I'd known that a week or so ago as I just ordered two as well!

Thanks! It will be interesting to hear how your drives worked. I have also found that the drive in the Ultrabay adapter will work, if you plug in the Ultrabay adapter with the laptop in standby mode.

globalkiwi · #7 Post by **globalkiwi** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:41 pm

Unfortunately, drives didn't arrive.

It sounds like you've lost the hot-swappable capability of your UltraBay - the only question is whether it is the drive or the machine. Do you have access to another drive? If it works with another HDD then you know it's the Seagates.

Takeda · #8 Post by **Takeda** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:53 pm

globalkiwi wrote:Unfortunately, drives didn't arrive. It sounds like you've lost the hot-swappable capability of your UltraBay - the only question is whether it is the drive or the machine. Do you have access to another drive? If it works with another HDD then you know it's the Seagates.

Before the Seagate 500GB drives, I was using Hitachi 200GB drives, and they hotplug ok. And both Seagate 500GB drives do the same thing.
I did find this statement in the Seagate 500GB product information, but I don't know if it has anything to do with the problem or not:

"Momentus 7200.4 SATA drives incorporate connectors which enable you to hot plug these drives in accordance
with the Serial ATA: High Speed Serialized AT Attachment specification revision 2.0. This specification
can be downloaded from http://www.serialata.org. This device requires a COMRESET from the host after a
hotplug event."

Oaklodge · #9 Post by **Oaklodge** » Tue May 26, 2009 3:29 pm

I have this problem with the seagate 320GB drive too.

globalkiwi · #10 Post by **globalkiwi** » Tue May 26, 2009 4:16 pm

[censored]. Sounds like the Seagate drives aren't hot-swap compatible with the TP's. Why is it you only discover this stuff *after* you've ordered them?! I will experiment with mine on my machine - when & if they arrive - & let you know how it goes. But I think the little clause about the comreset is the key to the problem.

Oaklodge · #11 Post by **Oaklodge** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:38 pm

Any news, did you try yet ?

awolfe63 · #12 Post by **awolfe63** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:28 pm

I tried to use this drive on my W500. (I was using the 5400 RPM Seagate 500GB drive.) The drive seems fine on USB - but I can't get the system to boot using this drive. I get an immediate error message.

Has anybody used this as a boot drive?

hellosailor · #13 Post by **hellosailor** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:14 pm

FWIW I just went though four Seagate Momentus 5400.6 (500GB) drives in order to get one good one. First one was making bad noises within two weeks, two hot swap replacements didn't pass diagnostics before I tried to install them, and drive #4 (which took a month overall to arrive on the '48 hour' program) was the first one to pass diagnostics.

In 25+ years of dealing with Seagate and other vendors I've never had so many problems with a new drive. (And the 3 replacements were remans that, in theory, are 100% qc tested before shipping back out.)

If nothing else makes sense, I'd say you have to suspect problems with the drives themselves. Test them in another application, see if they'll operate and pass Seatools diagnostics.

globalkiwi · #14 Post by **globalkiwi** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 4:57 pm

Oaklodge & Takeda, Sorry for the long delay, I've been traveling & didn't have the chance to try the drive in my machine. Very early results are that, jumpered for SATA 1, it works fine. I did notice that in Device Properties (right click on the relevant drive in Device Manager), under Policies, there are options to *either* optimize for quick removal or for performance (the default on mine was Optimize for Performance). You might want to check whether changing this setting makes a difference. I'll post again when I have had a chance to work with it a little more. HTH.

hellosailor · #15 Post by **hellosailor** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:07 pm

" there are options to *either* optimize for quick removal or for performance "
I'm not sure how the defaults are set now, but IIRC an "internal" drive will be set for performance, while a "removable" device will be set for quick removal. This is the legacy of problems in older versions of NT.
"Performance" means using write buffers in system memory, instead of writing directly to the drive. If the buffer memory (either in the computer or in the drive) has not finished writing before a removable device is removed--you get data corruption and upset users.
An NTFS formatted drive may also take just a little longer to complete right operations, as NTFS is a "journaling" file system which actually compares the data after it has been written, to what was supposed to have been written, in order to validate the write operation. Making NTFS drives more reliable thanFATxx drives overall, but sometimes a tad slower.

There is at least one other thread discussing the need to set drives to SATA1 when they are used in the bay, apparently the "SATA" adapter for the bay still gets translated into a PATA bus at slower PATA speeds, if I understood the crux of the problem.

globalkiwi · #16 Post by **globalkiwi** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:31 pm

Yes, the SATA 1 speed restriction is not the issue here - if you read the thread the question Takeda posed was about hotplugging, which is why the quick removal option is relevant.

mklym · #17 Post by **mklym** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:14 pm

I have two of those Seagate hdds, one is the main and the other is the Serial Hard Drive Bay Adapter. They both run in the rig in my sig. While posting this I removed the DVD burner, put in the backup drive, waited for it to be recognized, ejected it, installed the burner again, then repeated the whole thing twice. No problems, no errors. I never had to deal with jumpers. The Bay Adapter drive is set for performance in Device Manager. All I did was buy the drives, open the anti-static bags and install. I have updated to the latest BIOS before starting to use the drives. Maybe try the BIOS update.

Oaklodge · #18 Post by **Oaklodge** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:27 pm

That's good to hear

I've just had two 500GB drives replaced and my system board ... so myabe I'll try replacing the drive bay adapter next - I think my T60p has some good life left in it yet

awolfe63 · #19 Post by **awolfe63** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:14 pm

Interesting.

Mine works fine as a USB drive. I can boot off of it, etc. No problem. If I put it in the main drive bay, I get a disk error before boot.

My guess is that it draws too much power.

Oaklodge · #20 Post by **Oaklodge** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:52 pm

But the specs for it say that it draws LESS than their 320GB drive .... so I doubt it's a power issue, I think their initial batch was faulty ....

globalkiwi · #21 Post by **globalkiwi** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:24 pm

I don't think it's a power issue either. I did have to jumper mine to use it in the UltraSlim bay of the T61P but otherwise it works fine. I have a second I haven't tried yet, if I can lay my hands on a another jumper, I'll give it a whirl.

Oaklodge · #22 Post by **Oaklodge** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:56 pm

OK, just got a couple of replacement drives from Seagate and I also swapped out the Ultrabay adapter.

Now everything works as expected ... not sure if the drives were bad or the ultrabay but its working

hellosailor · #23 Post by **hellosailor** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:13 pm

I recently (couple of weeks ago) order an "Ultrabay SATA-II adapter" from the Lenono web site that was supposed to be for my T61P, to put SATA drive in the drive bay.

After two weeks (China to Canada to US to UPS eventually) the box arrived and the docs said "only for these machines" specifically not listing mine. Well, there was one part number on thebox--and a different one on everything in the box, including the adapter which would not fit the bay.

Had to contact Lenono Sales to arrange for the wrong part to be picked up and credited (in two or three more weeks) to my credit card, then place a second new call to sales to ge the correct part (supposedly) shipped. When I explained this was their error, they find a way to re-apply the original coupon discount but, again, it looks like it will be two weeks to arrive. Whatever happened to "Gee, that's our mistake, we'll overnight the corrected shipment to you." Or at least, send it 2nd or 3rd day, not two weeks later!

They're slipping. In multiple departments.

From what I've read elsewhere, ANY Ultrabay SATA adapter for the T6x series will be a "SATA to PATA" adapter, converting to the PATA bus inside the computer, and as such limited to PATA and SATA-I speeds. I guess that gives me a week to find a spare jumper for the drive, or some tin foil? <G>

Oaklodge · #24 Post by **Oaklodge** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:19 pm

I'm running without a jumper - the drive auto switches and in most cases the jumper is not required.

hellosailor · #25 Post by **hellosailor** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:46 am

NT does some things automagically with drives and drive controllers, reverting back to slower speeds when the retry count is too high on write confirmations. It might pay to see what your system has set the drive to (and this may vary by the OS) or simply force the drive to SATA-I with the jumper, rather than letting the system waste time on retries and rate changes. IIRC, once the system has bumped a drive down to a slower speed--it never ups the speed again.

IIRC this was implemented starting in NT5 and is still being done to assure reliable data writes.

Rory · #26 Post by **Rory** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:57 am

Takeda wrote:I just upgraded to the 500GB drives on my T60. They are faster than the Hitachi 200GB drives I was using, but I'm having trouble with them in my Ultrabay HDD adapter. If I hotplug the adapter with the drives (I ordered 2 of them) the drives aren't recognized. If I plug the adapter in, and then power up, the drives are seen. If I plug the adapter with the laptop in "standby", this also works. I also had to
jumper the 1.5GB/S pins on the drives. Has anybody else had this problem?

I just put a Seagate Momentus 5400.4 (250GB) in my T61 using a genuine Lenovo ultrabay and had exactly the same issue with the drive not being recognised.

I may not have realised that it was hot-plug that was the problem if it wasn't for this thread.

I only needed to use the ultrabay to clone the drive so now that's done the machine is happily working with the new drive installed in its proper place.

Takeda · #27 Post by **Takeda** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:06 am

An update. I just upgraded from my T60 to a W500, and the 500GB drives will hotplug ok with the Ultrabay adapter (W500 uses a different Ultrabay adapter than the T60). However, I got an error with the Ez GIG II software I had been using: CHECK ERROR: INDEX CORRUPTED
on the new W500 160GB drive. I tried Ghost, and Acronis "clone" software, and both worked ok.

Seagate 500GB ST9500420AS Problem

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