first off, love the cd, it helps tons!

question / problem

was using ubcd to test a new western digital hd that seemingly has died (s.m.a.r.t. marks it bad)
the problem is that the WD DLG Diagnostic 5.04f does not seem to recognize the disk.

i figured it might have been some random driver issue since its on a newer GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s motherboard.

with the drive connected to the sata3 connection (Marvell SE9128 chip)
or with the drive connected to the onboard P55 (windows identifies ide/ata/ahci as series 5/3400 series)

ironically, other programs on ubcd, like SMARTUDM, work...

so i downloaded the WD DLG ISO from WD, burned it, and tested it.
same issue

pulled the drive and put it in our old tower (82801G (ICH7), i975x chipset) and it works for both the WD DLG cdr & ubcd

so, the question is, is there a way to add support to ubcd so that WD DLG will see sata drives on newer i3/i5/i7 mobos?

Thanks,

PS: i did try the drive on both the marvell & onboard sata controllers
i did set the bios to both IDE & AHCI to see if it was a legacy/emulation issue

That last phrase suggests that the problem is more related to the tool, than to ubcd.



This suggests that the problem is not so much related to the specific HDD, but to the controller

You haven't mentioned the specific HDD model, which should be at least displayed by the BIOS. If the BIOS can't display the HDD info (you don't mention this), then I can think of 3 possibilities. Either the specific controller is not supported by the WDC DLGDiag tool; or the controller needs some BIOS tweaking; or maybe the problem is hardware-related.

Can you run WDC DLGDiag on the HDD from the other system (82801G (ICH7), i975x chipset) ? Are you receiving errors from DLGDiag when ran from that system?

NOTE: Beware, you should back up your data FIRST, before running anything. Even though DLGDiag is a read-only tool, if the HDD is having hardware problems, you could run out of luck at any moment. AFTER making a backup, check the HDD with DLGDiag from your older system.

There is a possibility that the SMART errors you were receiving are coming from a hardware problem related to the controller, and not so much because of the HDD.



This is very strange, since other tools are older than the DLGDiag recently published at WDC website. Maybe they are using other methods to communicate to the HDD.

An updated Data LifeGuard Diagnostics tool was recently published at WDC website, so the tool included in the latest ubcd503 has to be updated for the next edition.

In any case, you can try posting the relevant info (including the specific HDD model, controller info, the HDD info displayed by the BIOS, and the BIOS model/version) at the WDC forum.

Please report back here, so the info can be helpful to other users too.

thats what i was trying to say, that their the WD DLG program (or its reliance on a sata driver) had a problem

the bios sees the drive, the drive works (and has for 6 of 8 that we have bought, 2 have failed pretty much instantly, within 2hr of starting machine) and we have RMA'd the 2 failed drives.

WD1002FAEX caviar black (1tb, sata3 / 6gb, 64mb cache, 7200rpm)

though you could be right, i highly doubt it. like i said we are building new machines for our office, 8 in total, 2 of which have failed. 1 had a click, click, click almost immediately and was locking-up during install/boot of windows. the 2nd failed drive BSOD on first boot with the same code that i have had for other machines that have had drive errors and or boot drive failure

the smart errors show up on same drive on both the P55 (i7) & i975x (core2duo) machines.

haha, the ISO download is 5.04F (2008), the DOS ZIP download is (2010)
i wonder if that is the issue...
of course a sata driver from 2008 would have no clue, nor support for i3/i5/i7 sata controllers, let alone new sata3 spec marvell chips...
ironic that they would update one dos program and not the other

The problem is not exactly SATA, but the SATA version and compatibility.

That HDD is a SATA III, or for the current name, SATA 6Gb/s (this name was adopted to avoid confusions with the previous SATA II, or SATA 3Gb/s).

Since the cables and connectors are the same between SATA3Gb/s and SATA6Gb/s, most probably your old system has SATA3Gb/s controllers, but you still can connect your SATA6Gb/s HDD's.

BTW, you should check the specific HDD manual for jumpers configurations. There are cases where you need to set jumpers to correctly connect a SATA6Gb/s HDD to a SATA3Gb/s controller. You should check your BIOS settings too.

The standard for SATA6Gb/s was not available when DLGDiag 5.04f was published, but SATA3Gb/s HDD's and controllers are compatible with that DLGDiag version. That's why in your older system DLGDiag 5.04f can at least recognize that the HDD is plugged in.

Additionally, you mentioned that 2 out of 8 HDD's had problems. This may point to some other problem, maybe when the HDD's were transported or something else. So it is possible that, even if not all of the 8 HDD's failed (yet), they were not correctly handled (this is just one example of many other possibilities).

So, you should try:

1_ Using the latest DLGDiag version available (currently, v5.19) ;
2_ Checking the HDD manual for jumpers and troubleshooting;
3_ Once DLGDiag correctly recognizes those drives and controllers (in SATA6Gb/s mode with SATA6Gb/s controllers), run the full tests on all your HDD and keep the logs for future reference, in case you need RMA's in the near future.

In any case, after checking all the above, if DLGDiag doesn't support a specific controller, you should post at WDC's community forum and contact their support. If the controller's compatibility is the problem, there is nothing UBCD can do to resolve that

Again, it could be interesting for other users if you could report back your findings.

jumpers
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... 279#jumper

2 options (other than the default, no jumpers)
enabling PHY (aka run sata 6.0gb @ sata 3.0gb)
dont want to do, as p55 mobo has sata6 support and we are using the sata6 ports

enabling SSC (spread-spectrum clocking)
that reduces EMI out of the drive, but reduces performance

***
you are probably right, DLGDiag is using its own sata drivers / interface, that version 5.04f doesnt know how to deal with sata III / 6.0gb...

do yo use a link on the WD website for the v5.19 CD/ISO?
i only see it for DOS "floppy creator"
(dont have any floppies, nor floppy drives around)

About jumpers:

_ SSC is not an option you actually "choose" whether to use or not, but is more like the surroundings / environment imposes if there is a need to use it or not.

_PHY is needed if you want / need to connect that SATA6Gb/s HDD to your old system, where you have SATA3Gb/s controllers.

About DLGDiag 5.19 floppy creator, you have several options (not provided by WD ) if you don't have a floppy.

A) Using a compatible Windows System (XP for example),

A.1_ Use a virtual floppy software (VFD or IMDisk);
A.2_ Run the floppy creator;
A.3_ Save the floppy image from the virtual floppy as dlg519.img;
A.4_ Customize UBCD to add dlg519.img

Some tips:
_ both VFD and IMDisk can be installed or ran portable (not stealth).
_ read the relevant sections at UBCD website, like "customize", "tutorial", "FAQ's", "links".
_search this UBCD forum for additional info.
_when customizing, do not change dlg504f floppy image to replace it with the new dlg519 image, but make a new additional floppy image under the "custom" folder.
_ you could optionally gzip the dlg519.img to turn it into dlg519.img.gz, but you have to use the relevant settings for syslinux/isolinux and grub4dos menus.
_ after building the new customized ubcd iso image, test it under a VM before burning it.
_ for optimal compatibility reasons, try to use a burned CD (CD-RW or CD+RW if you want to reuse it) of the new customized ubcd iso image, instead of a DVD or UFD.

There are other options besides the "A)" mentioned, like for example:

B) using IZArc, ResHacker and Dynamite instead of VFD/IMDisk - that works also under other OS's other than the "compatible" ones;

C) turning the floppy image dlg519.img into a CD image dlg519.iso;

D) extracting the executables and testing them by replacing the previous versions with the new ones.

I think the "A)" option is simple enough to follow (and to write the relevant instructions ). BTW, I didn't write each and every step to follow, but a general procedure. Read the relevant sections at the UBCD website, the UBCD Wiki, and search this UBCD forum, for step-by-step instructions.

Report back if you need additional info (and to report the results ).

For extracting floppy images out of EXEs, you can try SfxAlyze:
http://reboot.pro/12255/page__st__50

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@Icecube,

Although it is possible to use SfxAlyze, there are some points to consider:

_ SfxAlyze is "alpha".
_ To successfully use SfxAlyze, you need to read the content and download several additional tools, successfully extract the correct files an put them in an "adequate" folder.
_ By reading that topic, you can see there are still some problems with specific cases.

The method A) I described above is going to work for this specific floppy extractor if the user has a "compatible" OS, and it only needs 1 download: either VFD or IMDisk.

SfxAlyze serves better a "recursive/iterative" situation, where you need to extract several floppy images or you need to do it repeatedly once in a while.

For extracting just 1 floppy image, using VFD/IMDisk is much simpler.

In case the user can't use a "compatible" OS (with DLGDiag floppy creator), the manual method (ResHacker + Dynamite) is still simpler for just 1 floppy image, and should work in those cases where SfxAlyze still fails.

I'm not saying that SfxAlyze shouldn't / couldn't be used. I just want to point to a simpler solution for each context.

For DLGDiag there is even a Windows version, but I wouldn't recommend testing a problematic HDD under Windows.