Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[Cantbecanit]

This is me breaking in a 3TB Cuda XT and I am writing it up so others can avoid any mistakes I'm about to make, so see this as a guide written by the blind returning from the PC shop to play 3TB's for the first time ;->

FOR EFi & STORAGE SET UP'S GO TO PAGE 4 HALFWAY DOWN.

PLEASE SEE THIS AS HELP TO GET YOU INSTALLED I'M STILL PLAYING WITH SETTING ETC RIGHT NOW AND WHAT I FIND OUT I WILL UPDATE HERE.

Machine is

3TB Seagate Barracuda XT FW CC43 NOW INSTALLED IN 140MM FAN COOLED BAY @ 24 DEGREES. 18 Today 10-06-11
Intel Q6600 Go Stepping @ 2.4GHZ not clocked.
Gigabyte GA -EP43T-USB3 bios F4 sata 2 3Gbs NOT Sata 3 6Gbs

WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM 32 BIT SP2.
8 GB Gskill PC1600 DDR3 Ripjaws running @ 1066 bus and SHOWING 8.0 GB in Vista 32 SYSTEM PAGE????
Nvidia 9800GT 512

Soundblaster X-Fi Music PCi
OCZ 600w Stealth X Stream PSU

ANTEC 900 GAMING CASE

THIS REPLACES THE STUFF POSTED PREVIOUSLY ON HOW TO SET UP THE 3TB DRIVE ON A 3GB/s PORTED MOTHERBOARD USING THE MBR FORMAT.


You are going to love this, in doing it I've identified most if not all the pitfalls that you are likely to come across and believe me when I tell you the stupid things are there to trip you up.

Ok lets start at the begining with a list of things NOT to do.

1 - Don't - Install Diskwizard until I tell you to.
2 - Don't mount the drive in docks,externals or racks.
3 - Don't set your bios to AHCi/Raid yet.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU USE A RACK DOCK ETC

Things you must do I will list as and when I get to it.

Ok this is the process for loading an O/S to be bootable and get the whole 3TB capacity available to you, less the drive tax that all media suffers from anyway.

So we install the  drive in the PC, I recommend you have it in slots 0 - 3 and as the master, JURY IS OUT ON THIS, I INSTALLED USING PORT 3, SWITCHING TO PORT 0 LATER HUNG THE PC

Next we insert our O/S setup disk in the CDrom and boot off.

Now hit DELETE and enter the bios, set any AHCI RAID settings back to IDE for now.

So save and restart.

Enter setup as Windows, (Vista Home Premium 32 this time) loads and you arrive at the options, I always delete the partition here and make a new one, you don't have to it's an old habit in my case, a wee format and were ready to install Windows.

Jump forwards and you now have the Windows welcome screen in front of you, uncheck the box and tell the nagging little so an so to be gone for good.

Now install your motherboard chipset drivers, I always start with the supplied disk ones and then update to later versions as and when they are released.

HERE COMES CRUCIAL BIT NUMBER ONE.....this is for Vista btw, Win 7 doesn't give you the SP headache.

Install Vista SP1, I did SP2 as well but thats up to you to decide, but you must do SP1 or Windows will nag you time and again for a driver that it will then simply reject.TRY JUST SP1 TO START WITH AND WATCH WHAT WINDOWS UPDATE WANTS TO INSTALL AFTERWARDS, I'M GETTING A SLIGHT PAUSE THAT I DIDN'T NOTICE BEFORE THE UPDATES WENT IN, IF YOU USE A GIGABYTE BOARD AND IT HAS THE TURBO MODE ETC, SET THIS TO STANDARD AS IT SEEMS TO HAVE HELPED SO FAR, BUT I'M NOT CONVINCED IT WAS ME HAVING TO HACK THE REGISTRY THAT MAY HAVE DONE IT, DRIVE RUNS FINE IN IDE MODE THOUGH, I'LL UPDATE THIS WHEN I KNOW MORE.

HERE COMES CRUCIAL BIT NUMBER TWO.....ONLY DO THIS IF YOU FAILED TO INSTALL THE SATA DRIVER EARLIER

Windows registry to get that all important AHCI enabled, you can see if there is a file to download to do it, but I've yet to find one that works on an existing install, here's how you do it.....

Set the bios back to IDE mode, then when Vista or 7 has loaded, do these steps to allow you to move over to AHCI:

    Exit all Windows-based programs.
    Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
    If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
    Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Msahci
    In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
    In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
    On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

Next up we need to reboot to freshen things up

Hold delete and enter the bios, re-enable any AHCI/RAID settings you need or have.

Save and exit and boot back into Windows, you should now have the taskbar installer going mad loading drivers, let it complete and re-boot if it asks.

Now we need some tools, so open the browser and get these files.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/chpsts/imsm

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=218619&NewLang=en

Latest update that seems to have it running 100% is this, when you get the RST driver get the Infinst Autol one as well, and install both, I put the Autol one in first btw.

Now install the Intel RST driver

Re-boot and when loaded up open disk management by right clicking on My Computer icon on the desktop and select Manage.

You should now be seeing you drive listed as 2TB and an unallocated 756GB partition, you'll notice it's not responsive to any commands other than properties etc, all others will be greyed out.

Now it's time to install Diskwizard. YOU MUST USE ONE OF THESE TWO.
(http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/discwizard/DiscWizardSetup-14355.en.exe OR http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/downloads/discwizard/DiscWizardBoot-14382.en.iso)

Once that's installed you should find once open your drive is listed in two partitions and the option to turn off the small non bootable partition.

Now go to Disk Management again and and format and assign the 756GB partition a drive letter.

You should now see both partitions active in My Computer.....Just like this.......

NOW A VERY IMPORTANT STEP -> CHECK ALL YOUR DATA LEADS, CONNECTOR LEADS USB,eSATA,FIREWIRE FOR FULL INSERTION, IF LIKE ME YOU'VE PULLED THE PC IN AND OUT IN THE PROCESS ONE OF THESE MAY COME LOOSE AND IT WILL PLAY HAVOC WITH THE END RESULTS, IF YOU ARE USING A 32 BIT O/S AND HAVE MORE THAN 4GB OF MEMORY INSTALLED AND ARE HAVING SLOWDOWN/PAUSING ISSUES REDUCE THE MEMORY IN THE PC TO 4GB MAX, I'E TAKE THE REST OUT.

TIME TO FILL HER UP :->

Make sure you have AHCI/RAID settings enabled in you bios before installing Vista or W7, XP needs a slipstreamed boot disk or you will get BSOD.

Make sure you have all connector's secure, guess who didn't but thats the downside of doing things by 5w bulb @ 3am.

If you want to split it up into say 4 partitions, do it before you install with Diskwizard.

New test results to follow now I think I have it set up correctly, ignore the ones in the following posts, they aren't any good anymore, proper valid test start on page 3 of the thread.

(AlanM edited to add DiscWizard v13 links)

[VeganFanatic]

I suggest finingt a new motherboard that supports UEFI so that you will not have isues with the larger disk sizes.

The problem is the MBR limit of 2TB tht is at issue.

[Cantbecanit]

Thats why I've got one bud, to identify the pitfalls on all front's, I'm due an i5-7 upgrade sometime, but for now I'm doing this so the fellow 775 etc users can have somewhere to go when they get railroaded, I'm currently working it in Vista 32, but I will be doing XP32 and 7 32 and 64 to see how things progress and if the drive stands up to it without relocating etc, the drive has been kindly supplied by the company with AlanM at the front of it for me to real world test, I will be giving it typical user use like gaming and intensive video work, hopefully it won't be any different to any other Seagate/Maxtor drive I've ever owned in the long run, but if it is a duffer I have been allowed to say so, there is no gagging order, they simply want me to rag it and see where the numbers stack up at the end of it, the benefit of this is as I'm not employed by the company I'm totally neutral in this, I don't expect to have to say anything bad about the drive tbh, I think it's a simple case of adapting to progress, right now I have Vista 32 loaded in but I'm showing a 3TB HDD with only 2TB in Windows, tomorrow I will be studying the process to add the remaining 746GB's as an effective slave partition, prior to this other users have posted threads with why is my 3TB only showing 746GB's, and that's another reason for this, for me to write it up simple so others can simply hit 5 clicks and a download and get it working, no doubt there will be pitfalls along the way, but that is the whole point to land a bare drive on someone whose never seen one before and let him work it out.

As you say the limits are Intel based, but until we hit a point where most users have up to date HW there will be the need for this.

I thank you for your productive reply btw, the more knowledge gained the fewer the problems.

I'll update the thread as I go along.

[Cantbecanit]

Here is the temps today, drive is installed in Antec 900 case fan cooled drive bay, fan setting is #2

[Cantbecanit]

Todays Bench 11-06-2011

Much better results all round.

Here's a comparison with my Samsung Spinpoint 1TB sata2 drive, this one is only storage btw.

As you can see the Samsung is just below 90 where the 3TB is is knocking it in at around 130 - 140

[VeganFanatic]

Given I use AMD I see that new boards are now out supporting UEFI so booting one of the 3TB disks is not a problem when using WIndows 7 x64

Right now my HD is on RMA, so the netbook is my workstation as usual. No problem, machine is new Q2 so it should last a while.

I plan on upgrading my CPU next to a quad-core unit so that I can use one of the new motherboards.

[Cantbecanit]

I must admit, I fancy seeing it running 6GB/s, but that's gonna be £300 to get there right now

[fzabkar]

Many thanks for your efforts so far. I have several questions, so I wonder if you could indulge me. :-)

(1) Could you upload Hard Disk Sentinel's "Raw information"?

Here is an example:
http://joooe.uw.hu/(1)Hard%20Disk%20Sentinel%20Report%20-%20SAMSUNG_SP1604N.txt

The above information includes the Identify Device information block, which in turn contains Advanced Format information bytes.

(2) Could you tell us how HD Sentinel and HD Tune report the drive's cache memory size?

(3) Would you mind saving HD Sentinel's SMART report on a regular basis? I ask this because the drive's Hardware ECC Recovered attribute is of particular interest to me. In fact it's the first time I've seen any numbers in the uppermost 16 bits of the raw value for this attribute. Your feedback would be most helpful in deciphering how this attribute is calculated.

(4) Would you consider connecting your Nokia CA-42 cable to the drive's Tx/Rx pins and uploading the result of a Ctrl-L sign-on command? This will give us a great deal of internal information about the drive.

(5) Would you consider removing the drive's PCB and uploading a detailed 1200dpi scan of both sides? This would be of immense benefit in future DIY repair efforts. I would also like to add the chips to my public HDD IC database.

[Cantbecanit]

1 - 3, sure, I would prefer to e.mail them to you though for now, so check your message box late next week and I should be able to send you a few days worth so you have something to compare figures on, if you've not had any by Friday give me a nudge.

4 - 5, I can do, but I think out of respect I will have to clear it with Alan first, I've no problem with it because if it gives someone a chance out there to spot and fix hurdles that can only be a good thing, but the company might not see it that way so I need to clear it first.

[fzabkar]

Thanks very much.

Unfortunately HD Sentinel's report didn't include the important Identify Device data. :-(

Could I ask you to use CrystalDiskInfo instead? CDI has a "Text Copy" function that captures the same data. These raw data are important because they tell you what the drive is telling the software. Instead, all we see is the software author's interpretation of the data, which in some cases is wrong. For example, HD Sentinel is reporting N/A for the drive's cache memory size, whereas the drive's product manual suggests that it should be reporting a value of 400h in word #21 of the Identify Device data block. Strictly speaking, HD Sentinel is correct (because word #21 has been retired from the ATA standard), but OTOH Seagate appears to have redefined the word for its own use, in which case any software which is aware of this would be able to report the correct cache size, ie 64MB. A photo of the board would also confirm this.