I had a hard time testing some new Seagate ST31000340NS drives recently, and here is what I learned.
- Always test new drives ASAP so you can return defective drives within warantee period, and avoid lots of wasted work/installs/reinstalls.
- Download the Seagate SeaTools (also works for Maxtor) DOS ISO for drive testing, and burn the CD (I downloaded v2.13B on Jan-7-2009).
- The SeaTools Windows version doesn't generally work in Vista x64 (Known problem). Though a certain hack/fix (from this discussion) might work for you in Vista 64 bit. It worked better for me, but I think my hardware hindered the drive detection.
- Connecting the SATA drive externally via eSATA works great for drive testing (I used a Rosewill eSATA enclosure).
- My A7N8X Deluxe based computer would not boot with the drive attached. After drive detection, the machine hung.
- My P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP based machine booted from the SeaTools CD no problem.
- The SeaTools software must have a floppy disk in the A drive (possibly writeable) or the long test will not complete. After the test, the floppy disk was completely empty. I put the CD and floppy in, then booted.
- I ran the Short Test, the Long Test and the Acoustic Test, taking a digital photo of the results of each.
- I also photographed the drive. The photos are for my inventory and testing results.
-AAron
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