I've been saving forever to buy another green 2 tb hd for my htpc to do raid1. I finally found a deal on a 2 tb external drive. I cracked it open and put the hd in and what do you know, windows home premium does not support the mirroring feature.
 
Long story short, the drive formats and I look around for soft or hardware to do raid 1 but decide to get windows ultimate (I also want to do remote computing so it was worth it) I also spent money on a ssd drive for it. I get it installed, add the 2 drives and windows is slower than ever, almost a full minute to load. I go to initialize the drive and it will not because of some i/o error and it is saying my drive has bad sectors.
 
How would this have happened when it was fine before the upgrade? Is there anything to do to fix the disk or is it bricked? I am 99% sure that western digital isn't going to do anything because 1, I bought it off some assface on craigslists and 2, I took the external apart to get to the drive. I disconnected the bad hd and windows loads and runs like a champ. ugggg!
 
*Also to note that my internet is way to slow for any type of cloud back-up to be an option and I do have a 1 tb external (bought from the same guy so it better keep working) that I backed up most stuff to.

have you tried setting it back in the external enclosure and reformatting it like that its a long shot but might work

I could try that I suppose. Anything is worth a shot.

i actually had that work for me once i have a old raptor that has the same issue and it sux
 

The reviews on a brand new one are horrible. 25% failure rate and no manufacture response on any of the bad reviews. I will try that when I get home. I was almost done too.

Did you run HD Tune to confirm the bad sectors?

Yes, blocks of red right away and then it was starting to lock up. I just don't get it because it worked before and it never left the case. I used some sea tools or something for seagate drives and it reported no smart errors so I dunno. I tried to reseat the connections just in case but no go.

it might have been the sata cable you used

That would be a cool fix. I will swap that when I get home and pray.

yeah, first try a different sata cable or even another sata port on MB.
 
once it works, don't forget to update the firmware! some old revisions were very buggy and affecting the read/write speeds greatly (no bad blocks though), latest is v5.0.2 and it can be updated from within Windows even if it s a system drive - also make a full partition backup before you start the update though, it's recommended by manufacturer, however I never experienced any kind of data loss on my end:
http://www.mushkin.com/Di...SDs/MKNSSDCR120GB.aspx

Green + mirror = ?
WD did have RE-series in their Green model line.
I've seen a mess with people using Seagate 3TB green so maybe part of the same "batch."
When Seagate lost some of their cooks that serviced their firmware, like any good establishment if you lose your cooks your goose is cooked.
I'd have looked for a case with built in mirror (done from the drive case bridge).
Windows 8 has Storage Spaces which will gladly (it it can mount and use a drive of course).
I thought you were going to use Intel RST for mirror at first.
Intel RST will also use additional drives if you allow to be part of a recovery set. that might actually do what you want, or use Intel RST to build mirror rather than from BIOS level.
 

green + mirror = ultimate fail.
 
never put green (non-RE) caviars in any raid array ... I tried that in mirror setup and it was locking up and lagging like hell, it won't work especially if you start moving big files or making it read a lot of small ones.
either get black caviars or enterprise class caviar RE4 drives for raid, they run best.

I just wanted some sort of redundancy with low power to save all my files. I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the word to keep using an external back up. I've lost to much over the years due to hard drives failing and now this just strengthens my beliefs.

yes, mirroring is a very good solution to rpevent physical hard drive failures, I agree on that 100%, used to run 2 mirror arrays on former system.
 
it's just not gonna run right with caviar greens ... that's all... try it and see. I know it was a failure for me.

Would it be stupid to buy two new black 1tb drives and mirror those and keep the working green in there? I don't NEED to back up every singe movie I own and pics and music don't take that much space. It's just hard because it seems that all the reviews are showing what looks to be like a ton of bad batches with failures all over even on the black drives. The 1tb are wayyyy cheaper too.

that what i would do myself to be safe right now i just have a 500gb a 1.5 tb and a 2tb for all my junk i wanna raid my 2tb when i get the money but that can wait till after new gpu

I read that some recent black series are cursed, the last time I bought a lot of them for company use was a year ago and none of them shows any trouble.
 
you might try, but first google the model number before purchase to see if any trouble threads come up, especially be on the lookout of issues getting replicated among different users.
 
I keep my 1.5TB caviar green still in system, solely for Acronis IT (free WD edition) backups only, I just do them manually from time to time...

OK, here is 1 other solution.  You could use Microsoft Backup to copy the 1 backup drive/drive in use to the GREEN drive you bought.  If the Green drive is good (use WD tool to do a low level reformat) then run the MS Windows Backup daily.  IMO you do not need a mirror drive, just a second backup.   Good Luck.

The problem with any kind of online back up is that I get 700 down 100 up on a GOOD day. My dsl sucks and there is no better where I live. Maybe if I could do something that would work automatically during the wee hours of the night that would work. By some miracle, I can watch netflix although it looks like pixel puke (especially on a 65" screen) but if my wife even checks her email, I am stuck in buffer city. Maybe I will try to find some free back up storage online that allows scheduling. That would be cool but I doubt I will find much.

Windows 8 is free, it has File History that works hourly and keeps file revisions. There are other programs, maybe some free, but I never liked any of the ones I've tried using (Acronis, Ghost, Paragon has more than a few). 
Also if you have multiple computers File History can be shared and used by any other PC on your LAN.

Mac_vista64


Windows 8 is free, it has File History that works hourly and keeps file revisions. There are other programs, maybe some free, but I never liked any of the ones I've tried using (Acronis, Ghost, Paragon has more than a few). 
Also if you have multiple computers File History can be shared and used by any other PC on your LAN.

I thought W8 isn't out till October? Is there a way to get a beta somehow and is it stable?
 
I've spent so much money on this stupid htpc/back up system dream that if I was pmed a link to a shady interwebz site where a 1 armed man in a black cloak sold a jedi version of windows 8, I'd probably not give a squirt at this point.
 
Bought htpc but can not do windows remote on w7 so I spent a crap load on kvm set up  and longer vga cables then issues with DNLA and tv don't work so I had to run flat hdmi under the carpet, stuttering with hi def video because the onboard is not enough so I had to buy a gt430, got second hard drive but w7 home premium doesn't do mirroring, got w7 ultimate (which fixes remote issue ) and now the hard drive is broke and now windows 8? UGGG!!!! I hate computers

public previews. Yesterday was the 3rd (Dev Preview, Consumer, now Release Preview)
And yes it seems to me have been for all three better response and performance than 7 had been on same 3 PCs.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download
 

WOW, just watched the preview for windows 8. It was like 1 minute and 24 seconds of a facebook OS. It boasts about saving time but I would waste more time with that social crap. I use computers so I DON'T have to interact with people as personally, LuLz. I will look into some free programs for now and keep using my external.

OK, Windows 7 Has a Built in Backup program that I have been using since it came out.  Very Successfully, I might add.  I have restored (due to my mistakes/adding bad programs or incorrectly installing them) my OS boot disk and my DATA very well.  I have it programmed to back up my stuff every night, in my case at 8:00 p.m. Sometimes I am using the PC at that time, but the backup Windows backup software just chuggs along as does the backup.  It can do this as it makes a virtual copy which eliminates any issues with a program you are using Locking a file.  
P.S. I know many people do not trust backup software they did not pay for, and I was one of them... but this really works well. 

I never "see" Metro except once, when I boot, and again when I restart.sleep.shutdown.... seriously. 
File History is even less intrusive than Windows 7's backup that would interfere or affect other operations (hard to believe but was not impressed). 
It is hard to "sell" without glitz probably - show people doing family photos and such. Most people I know have itunes while they work which I find crazy (and I avoid Apple s/w like plague)

Mac, I do not understand your sentence structure. " What is 'File History' is even less thant window 7's backup?  "   As I said Windows 7 backup DOES NOT interfere or affect othe operation PERIOD!!  You should try it for 2 years in daily operations with No problems what so ever. 

Ok, I tried changing ports and cables but it is not happening. Windows 7 instals drivers for the disk and it shows up but will not initialize due to i/o error and hd tune shows red and locks again. Removing it I saw this....
 

 

 
 
 
 

 
Is it me or does that look toasty and burnt? Would that cause the errors I am getting? Could it just be a board?
 
Also, Why does wd put a warranty sticker on the hd if they won't honor it. I am assuming since I bought it used, don't have a receipt and the fact that I opend it up from inside an external my book case, I am SOL?
 

Western digital let me register it and says the hd warranty is still good. But it shows up registered as a mybook external drive so I am going to have to somehow try to put this brick back together....
I guess it's worth a shot.

If you open a drive you might have voided the warranty.

just the external encloser was opened not the drive itself but I will see what I can do.