I have just installed a secon hard drive (a western Digital SATA 200GB 7200rpm) along side my Primary IDE 120GB Maxtor drive which holds windows.

Very bizzarly the hard drive appears from time to time in My Computer and then just disappears the next time I boot with no seeable pattern to the disappearing act.

I have checked all the connections and even replaced all the cables with no look. When it appears in My computer you can access it through XPs admin tools in Computer management but when its not being recognised then it cannot be found in the same admin tools. It also appears to be equally as tempramental in the BIOS and RAID utilities that can be accessed before booting into windows.

When it does manage to appear in windows I've managed to run Western Digitals Diagnostic tool (data Lifeguard) and ran some test on it and it comes up and says "Error 03 - Read SMART attribute command error". On top of this from time to time when accessing it in windows, a little ballon pop can come up and say there was a "Delayed file write error" on the new hard drive.

When I didn't have any data on it I did try to use Data Lifeguard to Zero the drive but it only took 2 hours to do the full 200GB drive which seems a little bit short to me so perhaps it didnt do it properly.

Has anyone got any ideas to get this drive working more reliable as I am wanting to stick Linux on it. Thanks

what are the specs of the rest of the machine.

Yea here are my specs:

AMD 64 3200+
Gigabyte GA-k8NXP-Pro/Sli

1024MB PC3200 RAM
Connect 3d Radeon X800XL
120GB Maxtor ATA (Primary)
200GB WD Cavier (SATA - the drive that doesnt work)

Got some other PCI cards like an AverMedia TV card but this isnt relevant.

Everytime is comes up with the file write error though it says that it was on this file "E:\$Mtf" - not sure if this helps?

I'd return the drive as faulty.

I was having the EXACT same problem with one of my maxtor drives....it would go in and out...and have the same Delayed Write Failure error...
I warrantied it out...they'll send you a new drive...just contact WD..

chaz d.

Apparently as the drive is OEM then it comes with no warranty but surely I can argue for "Not fit for its purpose" under the sale of Goods Act?

- Yeah just used the WD warranty checker to check my warranty and it just returns with "No Limited Warranty". I am guessing this is because it was an OEM drive.

Is there anyway of sorting this problem out without having to send it back as by the looks of it I can't send it back period!

i dunno dude....theres nothing you can really do about the drive....it is a hardware problem...so, you can either hope the drive works when you need it to...OR, (and this sucks) buy a new drive....
of course i guess you could argue your case to WD...but im not sure what they will be willing to do for you......

Good luck..
chaz d.