Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

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olex126 · #1 Post by **olex126** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:20 pm

I'm planning on purchasing some of these for upgrading some TPads.. anyone have any user experience with either this model or WD Scorpios' in general?

Western Digital WD2500BEVE Scorpio 250GB Mobile Hard Drive - ATA-100, 5400, 8MB, OEM

P.S. Price is $109 Cdn. thru Tigerdirect.ca

Thanks. Regards.

Dave

oskidbear · #2 Post by **oskidbear** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:21 am

I recently updated the hard drive in my wife's T42 with the drive you list below. Although I had a difficult time restoring the image on the drive (A set of RnR 3.x recovery CDs didn't work! Luckily the set of Rapid Restore Ultra recovery CDs made just after purchasing the laptop from IBM worked!), the drive is noticeably faster, though I do hear it click from time to time.

Just one drop in the bucket of experiences.
Cyrus

olex126 wrote:I'm planning on purchasing some of these for upgrading some TPads.. anyone have any user experience with either this model or WD Scorpios' in general?

Western Digital WD2500BEVE Scorpio 250GB Mobile Hard Drive - ATA-100, 5400, 8MB, OEM

P.S. Price is $109 Cdn. thru Tigerdirect.ca

Thanks. Regards.

Dave

#3 Post by **Johan** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:57 pm

@ Dave:

There are quite a few posts on this forum with user feedback about the WD2500BEVE drive, so I kindly suggest you simply Search this forum for WD2500BEVE - and many useful threads will come up, incl. Hitachi website - 7K100, 100 GB PATA HD is unavailable (see the posts towards the end) and WD Scorpio harddrive = Better battery life - just to name a few!

@ Cyrus:

With respect to the Western Digital Scorpio HDD clicking noise (a known "phenomena", reported by many WD Scorpio users), I suggest you see the thread Having quite a bit of difficulties cloning my new HD and especially the reply by pakman in his post of Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:57 pm pointing to WD knowledge base: Solution to "Intermittent clicking occurs with WD Scorpio 2.5" hard drives when installed in various laptop computers".

Please share if you update your HDD FW (firmware) with this fix... and let us know if there is any change? Thanks!

Johan

TTA · #4 Post by **TTA** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:37 am

I have one of those drives in my t42p and even with the updated firmware it still clicks when moved.
I'm certain it's the active shock protection of the thinkpad and the WD drive not playing nicely.
I picked up a 2nd one to see if it's any better but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

#5 Post by **schen** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:01 pm

I put one in my wife's R52 and it works fine (of course it gives the 2010 error, but doesn't effect the function). The size is great and the speed isn't noticeably different than the 7200rpm in her old A31.

Ralf Hutter · #6 Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:08 pm

I've had one in my T42p for a white now and it's been working perfect. Dead quite, no clicking and runs cooler (using my calibrated palm on the palmrest

) than the previous 7200rpm OEM Hitachi that was installed. I like it so much that I bought a spare. I have a feeling PATA 2.5" drives aren't going to be very easy to find in the future.

olex126 · #7 Post by **olex126** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:17 pm

Hi All.

Based on the input received here, I purchased 4 of the WD2500BEVE 250 gig and 2 of the WD1600BEVE 160 gig Scorpio drives.

I found a better price than TigerDirect's $109 (Cdn). Canada Computers.com has the 250's marked down to $98, and the 160's are priced at $73.00. Total savings on the six drives, taxes and shipping amounted to $68 over buying from TigerDirect.

(As an aside, I sent a polite email request to TigerDirect.ca outlining my proposed purchase and asking if they could match their competitors pricing. I have been a fairly regular customer of theirs for the last six years. It turns out that means "squat" with them, since I received a very blunt "NO, We do not price-match outside of the U.S." Fine, suit yourself Doorknob, I'll save myself 70 bucks and take my business elsewhere.

All the drives arrived today

( next-day flat-rate Purolator shipping of $6.99 for all!!:D

), so I'll be busy in the next few days doing the clone/install routine. I'll report back after a few days of having them up and running.

Many thanks for the opinions voiced here by current users.

Regards.

Dave

#8 Post by **Harryc** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:53 pm

The larger WD's are at the top of the heap for replacement laptop IDE drives these days. They also have a very nice exended warranty. It's a no brainer. Good luck with them.

TikaC · #9 Post by **TikaC** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:25 pm

I have that same drive in my system. I get the clicking that was mentioned so I am going to read the suggested links. I also sometimes get a "hard drive initialization error" if the computer was turned off for awhile, then I moved it and then turn the computer back on. I just turn the computer off, wait a few moments and turn it back on and everything works fine. I don't know what is doing that. I'll have to: a. research it and b. be very sure I put the connectors in right (I'm of the belief that I did install it correctly). That last error started after I used Norton SystemWorks Basic's Wipe utility to securely wipe two files I had (I was working on some personal data files I made) and then it just does that every so often (drive initialization) before it even boots. Which makes me think it's NOT a software problem. I also see that Norton's Disk Doctor's security area after a scan thinks the drive's "vitual bitmap" or whatever is corrupt or something's wrong with it. This is after the wipe of those two files.

But other than that, the drive is great! I love it!

Lots of room. And I also back up daily all my files I was working on or added/removed, etc. to my WD My Passport 160GB USB hard drive I just got.

I always liked WD drives. I have two Caviar's in my Tower System (which I put in the closet for now as I'm using the T61 laptop as my main computer now). The tower system works great still.

I'd recommend WD drives for these computers. In fact, I recommend WD drives. Period.

TikaC · #10 Post by **TikaC** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:28 pm

Update: I called WD tonight and they said it was a corrupt file system. I called my local computer Wizard (friend of mine) and since this error is occurring BEFORE the ThinkPad logo is shown, he thinks that it could be something with the drive. Though we agreed that applying the firmware update for the click problem from WD and then writing 0s to the drive using the DOS WD utilities and then reinstalling everything should fix the problem, since it does seem odd that the problems started after I used Norton's Wipe to wipe out two files off the disk.

I won't be doing this stuff until maybe next week because I don't want to loose my ability to use the vmWare virtual machine (which my ThinkPad 600 doesn't have as it is too slow to run it) as I need it to do some testing for work this week. But after that job is done, I will then work on the T61 (as things I need to do after that can be done on the ThinkPad 600 until I get the T61 updated and fixed up).

Meanwhile, if it acts up, I'll just turn the computer off and back on - it usually fixes it and boots up fine.

And since I do nightly backups to the USB hard drive, I won't be losing any data.

lostdude · #11 Post by **lostdude** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 4:05 am

I just got one of these western digital scorpio drives today, 160gb.
This was meant to be a replacement for my x31's 40gb hitachi. However after imaging my old drive onto the new one and then swaping the WD into my x31, i couldn't stand the significantly louder noise and worst of all, my palm rest vibrates pretty badly.

. So bad infact that i took the drive out and put my original back in

.

TikaC · #12 Post by **TikaC** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 2:52 pm

Well, I managed (don't ask how as I'm not even sure) to get a bootable USB device going, booted from it and ran the WD firmware update. It ID'd my drive ok but said no drives need updating. And my drive still has the intermittent clicks.

Don' t know what I'll do next. I'll try WD's site or something again.

TikaC · #13 Post by **TikaC** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:49 pm

Ok, backtracking my steps, here is how I made a bootable USB flash drive:

1. Download Virtual Floppy Drive 2.1

2. Extract this to a directory on your hard drive and set it up. You will need to read the instructions and start the driver to get a floppy drive to show up in Windows Explorer.

3. Click on the floppy drive and format, making it a system disk. It will copy the system files over.

4. Download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from Bootdisk.com - Scroll down to the page to Method two. Be sure to click on the right download link. It's version 2.0.6 (not the link that says "Download").

5. Install the HP utility and plug in your USB flash drive. Right click on USB drive in Windows Explorer and format as system disk. Note this *DOES NOT* copy the system files over! You'll have to select all the files from the virtual floppy drive and copy them over.

6. Copy over the Western Digital update files (WDUPD020.EXE and all associated files, text and all) to the USB flash drive.

7. Restart the computer.

8. On a ThinkPad T61, when you see the ThinkPad logo, press the F12 key. This brings up a screen that asks what you want to boot from. Choose your USB flash drive.

NOTE: I don't know if F12 brings up the boot menu for all Thinkpads or not. I don't think older Thinkpads can even boot from a USB device. You'll want to get into the BIOS (on my T61, you press F1 at the ThinkPad logo screen on bootup, for example) and check to be sure.

Czechnology · #14 Post by **Czechnology** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:53 pm

Any experience with the new WD Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT (500GB) drives?
(seems I'll never have enough disk-space

)

#15 Post by **Johan** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:12 pm

Czechnology wrote:Any experience with the new WD Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT (500GB) drives?

Google has quite a few hits

- e.g. Notebook Review and Newegg customer feedback. Some report a bit of clicking noise while others don't?!

NB: The WD5000BEVT is a SATA HDD and hence not usable in e.g. R5x/T4x ThinkPad's. See the specifications for the HDD here.

Johan

Czechnology · #16 Post by **Czechnology** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:36 pm

Yeah, google knows "everything" but I kinda trust the advices from the local thinkpad gurus

I have the 250GB Scorpio in my T43, so I've thought about the bigger SATA brother for T400

sunnyl · #17 Post by **sunnyl** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:19 am

Long time lurker, but first post

My T43p had a 40GB, which I changed to an 80GB Samsung I had sitting around. I always keep my drive clean and organised so theres very little clutter. I put up with it for a while, but running HD Tune I get an average transfer speed of just under 30MB/s - can anyone with the WD2500BEVE (and maybe even in a T43p) run a test with HD Tune and check back?

pianowizard · #18 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:25 am

On my R50p, I upgraded its original 60GB 7200rpm Hitachi to this WD2500BEVE. I ran a PCMark2002 benchmark on both and the 250GB 5400rpm WD scored much better, something like 920 versus 620. BUT, for some reason the 7200rpm Hitachi felt a little faster, which I suspect is simply because I'm now storing much more stuff on the 250GB than I used to on the 60GB drive. What I really dislike about this 250GB drive is it has a pulsing noise that's mentioned by at least one reviewer on Newegg. It's not very loud, so you probably won't hear it if your laptop has a loud fan. But my R50p's fan is very quiet, so this hard drive noise is sometimes quite annoying.

NorrisCell · #19 Post by **NorrisCell** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:29 am

Another happy WD customer here. I can see what some people are saying about light noise, but it's VERY light. If you want a silent drive, this is not it. If you want a very very very quiet[/] drive, this is the way to go. I actually posted recently in the marketplace forum because the drive has dropped to $79.99 shipped on NewEgg. I'm going to pick up another one for my X32 I am getting.

For those considering this drive, it has served me well so far. I did not notice a speed decrease going from a 7200 RPM Hitachi I had prior to it.

sunnyl · #20 Post by **sunnyl** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 5:48 am

NorrisCell wrote:Another happy WD customer here. I can see what some people are saying about light noise, but it's VERY light. If you want a silent drive, this is not it. If you want a very very very quiet[/] drive, this is the way to go. I actually posted recently in the marketplace forum because the drive has dropped to $79.99 shipped on NewEgg. I'm going to pick up another one for my X32 I am getting.

For those considering this drive, it has served me well so far. I did not notice a speed decrease going from a 7200 RPM Hitachi I had prior to it.

Would you mind running HD Tune (http://www.hdtune.com/) on your T42 and show off your results here?

#21 Post by **Johan** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:48 pm

pianowizard wrote:<snip>
What I really dislike about this 250GB drive is it has a pulsing noise that's mentioned by at least one reviewer on Newegg. It's not very loud, so you probably won't hear it if your laptop has a loud fan. But my R50p's fan is very quiet, so this hard drive noise is sometimes quite annoying.

Did you note the post in this thread (of Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:57 pm) saying:

With respect to the Western Digital Scorpio HDD clicking noise (a known "phenomena", reported by many WD Scorpio users), I suggest you see the thread Having quite a bit of difficulties cloning my new HD and especially the reply by pakman in his post of Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:57 pm pointing to WD knowledge base: Solution to "Intermittent clicking occurs with WD Scorpio 2.5" hard drives when installed in various laptop computers".

It might help? If so, please report back here...

Johan

saint · #22 Post by **saint** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:03 am

Hi Guys,

Lucky thing I found this thread. I got a WD Scorpio PATA 250Gb but it will not boot with my A31p. Any clue?

Thanks.

#23 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:13 am

Please, lets contain the A31P problem to one thread.

saint · #24 Post by **saint** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:22 am

Harryc wrote:Please, lets contain the A31P problem to one thread.

ok, sir. Sorry.

Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

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Re: Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

Re: Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

Re: Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 5400 Hard Drives..Any Opin

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