Question New WD 6TB drives shows as 0MB in BIOS

[ironchicken]

Hi there,

I have a Shuttle XPC SX58J3 which came with a WD 1TB HDD. I bought it in about 2010.

I'm trying to replace the HDD with a 250GB SSD (for the OS and applications) plus a WD 6TB HDD (for the home directories).

I've successfully removed the 1TB drive, put it in a USB SATA caddy and verified that I can access the data from another machine. I've also successfully mounted the SSD and the new HDD in the internal drive caddy which had three spaces (one for the DVD drive, one for the SSD and one for the HDD).

I then booted up the machine and, after some time, I got an error about "3rd master hard disk error". I see the following:

Auto-Detecting ......Hard Disk:WDC WD60EFZX-68B3FN0
Auto-Detecting ......Hard Disk:CT250MX500SSD1 M3CR043
Auto-Detecting ......CDROM:HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH10LS20 1.00

3rd Master Hard Disk Error

In the BIOS configuration, I can see the WDC drive in Serial ATA 1 Channel and the Crucial SSD in Serial ATA 3 Channel.

But when I drill down into the details for the WDC drive it says:

Device :Hard Disk
Vendor :WDC WD60EFZX-68B3FN0
Size :0MB
LBA Mode :Not Supported
Block Mode:Not Supporrted
S.M.A.R.T.:Not Supported

Then in the Boot settings, it shows only the Crucial SSD.

I tried switching the SATA mode to AHCI. When I do this, I see the BIOS trying to detect disks with the message:

Auto-Detecting AHCI Port 0..Hard Disk:
Auto-Detecting AHCI Port 1..Hard Disk:
Auto-Detecting AHCI Port 3..CDROM:

AHCI Port0 Device Error

With AHCI enabled, in the BIOS configuration, it shows no disks the IDE settings. But in the Boot settings, it shows both disks.

I've tried using a new cable for the WD 6TB drive and also plugging that new cable into a different socket. The only thing that changed was the reported port that the WD drive was connected to. It still says it's 0MB.

My plan would be to install Debian Linux on the SSD and make it mount the 6TB HDD as /home. I've tried just continuing with the Debian installer and it offers only the SSD when it gets to the partitioning step. I guess this is expected. I also tried running fdisk -l in the installer and I can see that it only finds the SSD and the USB drive that contains the installer.

Any suggestions why this drive is showing as 0MB and is not visible to the Debian installer?

 

[fzabkar]

Does it spin up?

 

[ironchicken]

Does it spin up?

I'm not sure. The machine has a fairly noisy fan anyway so it's hard to tell just from listening. Is there any other way I can tell?

 

[kerberos_20]

your sata power plug has 4 wires or 5 wires?

 

[mdd1963]

If this is a 3.5" desktop drive(Wd Red, maybe?), you cannot power it strictly within some sort of USB cable-powered caddy alone....; does the caddy in question have an AC adapter connected to it? (It should , if it is going to function with larger than 2.5" drives)

 

[kerberos_20]

if im looking at it correctly, then sata power plug is using 5 wires, which means your drive will never spin with this kind of cable, that orange cable was never really used in the past, so any recent power supplies doesnt have it (only 4 wires now), on the oher hand NAS is using that 5th wire for remote drive sleep
NAS drive, such as yours 6TB drive, will stop working if theres power on 5th wire (orange wire), as drive will sleep

 

[WrongRookie]

From the specs of your device, it appears to support SATA 2.0

https://global.shuttle.com/news/productsSpec?productId=1389

I doubt if the Hard drive supports this port.

 

[ironchicken]

your sata power plug has 4 wires or 5 wires?

It looks like it has 5 wires: yellow, black, red, black, orange. The orange wire actually stops after one of the plugs and there's a plug further along the cable that has just four wires. However, the actual plug is different; it looks like it's a molex.

 

[ironchicken]

If this is a 3.5" desktop drive(Wd Red, maybe?), you cannot power it strictly within some sort of USB cable-powered caddy alone....; does the caddy in question have an AC adapter connected to it? (It should , if it is going to function with larger than 2.5" drives)

Yes, it's a WD Red. The USB caddy has a separate DC power supply and came with a power cable that I assume has a transformer built into the plug. (We have big, chunky plugs in the UK.)

 

[ironchicken]

From the specs of your device, it appears to support SATA 2.0
https://global.shuttle.com/news/productsSpec?productId=1389
I doubt if the Hard drive supports this port.

I was wondering if I could add a PCIe SATA controller that would support larger drives. But if the power cable is making it sleep then I guess it still wouldn't work.

 

[fzabkar]

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-in-White-Label-Disks-/

 

[ironchicken]

In the end, I just returned the 6TB drive and bought a 2TB one (WD Blue) which works fine.