Hitachi DeskStar Catch-22 (rant)

[CitizenOfDreams]

So, I'm trying to install a new 2TB hard drive I bought few hours ago. You would think installing modern PC hardware should be easy and seamless - no jumpers, no DIP switches, no IRQ conflicts, no config.sys editing; some brand name computers don't even need a screwdriver.

WRONG!

You see, the SATA controller on my motherboard does not work with SATA300 drives. I was perfectly aware of that fact, and I knew how to get around it: SATA300 drives have a special jumper that switches them to SATA150 mode. Western Digital drives have that jumper, and Maxtor drives do, and Seagate disks work in the same exact fashion. And I'm sure if Micropolis was still in business, their products would feature the same exact jumper.

But apparently, Hitachi engineers blazed their own trail. There is no jumper on their drives. Instead, there is a software utility that changes SATA interface settings. Problem is, for the utility to reconfigure the drive, the drive must be talking to the SATA controller. And for the drive to talk to my controller, it needs to be reconfigured. A classic catch-22.

So, tomorrow morning I'm going to head back to the store and waste $30 on a SATA II controller card which I will only use once. :steamed:

[CitizenOfDreams]

P.S. What kind of a moron writes configuration software for a XXI century hard drive in the form of a ******* DOS program on a bootable floppy disk? :steamed:

[CitizenOfDreams]

Well, I bought an SATA controller card. Problem is, I could not resist the temptation and also bought a second 2TB hard drive. :embarassed:

So now I'm enjoying a four-terabyte stripe RAID and my credit card is half way maxed. Damn you CompUSA! :rant:

[JimmyN]

Look on the bright side.

Since your credit card's only half maxed out you'll still be able to get a floppy drive so you can keep up with current technology.

There's always a bright side though sometimes you have to look real hard to find it.

[CitizenOfDreams]

Since your credit card's only half maxed out you'll still be able to get a floppy drive so you can keep up with current technology.


Oh, I had a floppy drive all along, I just haven't used it in the last 5 years or so. I even managed to find a floppy disk with only 2 or 3 bad tracks. The problem was not the floppy per se, but the primitive DOS-based configuration software that doesn't even recognize any USB disk controllers.


There's always a bright side though sometimes you have to look real hard to find it.

Yep, sometimes you have to search for it with a flashlight.

[Pierre!]

Should be fun backing up 4Tb of data... I'll bet that the first 4Tb back will take longer than a day... :rofl:

The fun part is filling the drive... :supergrin:

[CitizenOfDreams]

The fun part is filling the drive... :supergrin:

The first law of high speed Internet: hard drives of any size get filled up in the same amount of time. :supergrin: