WD Cavier Green in PIO Mode 4 (Windows 7)

[kman82]

Hi. I'm having trouble with my second hardrive. After windows restarts or resumes from sleep the Hard drive goes into PIO Mode 4 which is making the machine unusable. I am able to change the IDE controller and click 'Enable DMA' which does temporarilty solve the problem but each time i restart it resets to PIO 4.

Here's what i have tried so far:

Contacted WD support - absolute waste of time, they have referred me to a specialist but i am still awaiting contact from him.
Run WD lifeguard extended scan - no problems.
Run disk defrag - 0%
Run scan disk - no problems.
SMART details all seem ok.
I've purchased new SATA cables with clips.
Tried different SATA ports.
Tried different power cables - all seem ok (C drive still runs perfectly after swapping)

MY computer specs are as follows:

Windows 7 professional 64bit.
Asus Crosshair III Formula AMD 790FX PCI express DDR3 mother board
AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor.
ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics
6GB DDR3 Ram (Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800 1600Mhz
650W Corsair power supply.
1 x WD 500GB Velociprator running OS.
1 x WD Cavier green 1.5TB (problematic)

I have run a backup to external drive.

I guess my questions is, Should I be looking at binning this hard Drive and buying a new one? It is over 5 years old now.

Many Thanks in advance

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, kman82!

I'm truly sorry to hear about your annoying issues with the WD Green drive. 🙁 Really amazing job with the troubleshooting though!
In order to determine if the issue is really with the HDD, I'd suggest you to connect it to a different computer and see how it will get recognized there.
Another thing that could help is to check your motherboard manufacturer's website and find your model's drivers. I'd re-install the chipset/SATA drivers but before that, I'd suggest you to reset BIOS and see if that will get you anywhere with the proper detection of the WD Green. Here's a link that explains the procedure: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS
This, however, will get your BIOS settings back to factory defaults, so you'd need to know how to re-configure them afterwards.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD