Why Western Digital HDD keep crashing on my R32 notebook ?

[Wiking]

Hi
I have WD HDD 250GB IDE 2,5" WD2500BEVE with 250GB amount Hard disk bought. After a month of use it crashed suddenly (at startup black screen).
I thought that because I bought it on EBAYand something is wrong with it. So I bought exactly same new HDD from local store.
After a few days it also crashed. I don't know why. I thought that this is my Windows XP Pro related problem so I installed a fresh copy of XP from hidden partition but still, after a few day it crashed.
May be my R32 can't run big size HDD ? Strange to me because now it run great with 160GB Hitachi.
Anybody had this problem ?

[sojourner]

I'm not familiar with R32's but looked on Lenovo's web site for BIOS updates and saw updates current enough to lead one to think it supports 48-bit LBA (ie 250GB HDD should be no problem). Assuming that is true it also would be very unusual for two HDD's to be factory defective so soon!

What could be the problem?
First, the 250GB is a WD HDD (problematic)
Second, the 'good' HDD is an Hatachi
- does the BIOS not like WD's for some reason? (unlikely, but it's an immediate obvious difference)

You did a fresh install of XP, but what version? Original release did NOT support LARGE HDD's. You need to install SP1 minimum for proper large HDD support. Is this the problem?

Lastly, the usual "did you check for malware, viruses etc?

I had a boot sector virus about 15 years ago. They can be quite troublesome. Have you THOROUGHLY checked the WD's for no malware, viruses, hijackers etc?

BTW, you can stick the WD's into a USB enclosure and check (scan) it that way. If the drive which gave a black screen at boot does not appear (or appears corrupted) when in a USB enclosure, let us know.

[Wiking]

At first, I did clone from my old 80GB HDD to a new WD 250GB HDD. After about a month it crashed. I did this clone again and after about 2 weeks it crashed. Then, I clone the old HDD (with the hidden partition) and made a factory restore and updated it with SP1 + SP2. After few days it crashed again. So, I bought excatly same WD from local store and did clone again. After about 5 days it crashed. I returned the local store WD and took a Samsung 160GB instead (I did a mistake when I wrote hitachi). Since then it working great for about 4 months without any problems. My Bios version is the latest (1MET97WW (2.16)). I checked for viruses and found nothing + I formatted the both WD's before I cloned.
At last, for now I made a clone from Samsung HDD to the first WD for the reason that if somehow the Samsung will fail, I will still get all info on my WD. As backup HDD, the WD work great (when I connect it by USB with external case to a working PC).
I really can't understand what wrong with the WD.
Thank you.

[sjthinkpader]

I have 4 of the WD 160/250GB drives in use in T42/T42p/T43p since last summer, no crashes at all. There are still two more 160GB sitting on the bench.

Try what sojourner suggested.

[Wiking]

I don't understand what he suggested.

[sjthinkpader]

Sorry, I see that you've tried everything in his reply.

I don't believe there is any quality issues with WD drives. It could be some issues such as your machine has slightly lower Vcc and the other brand has a wider Vcc variation tolerance. You can check the USB port and see the 5V condition of your machine.