320 GB WD in a m7700/d900k ?

Hey all!
I tried reading a lot of posts and threads, but didn't find an answer, so I figured I'd start a new one.

I am upgrading the 80GB HDDs in my brother's m7700 and decided to go with the WD3200BEKT drives. These are the Western Digital 320 GB 7200 SATA II drives. Most SATA II drives will run on a SATA 1.5 controller, but these are not being detected in the BIOS. I have updated the BIOS to 1.00.07 (latest on the Alienware site...and Eurocom asks for a logon for the 1.00.09). I tried the drives in my PC to verify they are good and they pop right up.

Any help is appreciated.

 

Ok, so I think I've realized my ERR.

I mistakenly thought that the WD2500BEVS my brother put in was SATA 3.0 and assumed that 3.0 drive would work. The fact is that it is only SATA 1.5.
I realize this because I returned the 320s thinking it was a size limitation and ordered the 250 GB same WD SATA 3.0 drive. It doesn't work either.

I knew that some SATA 3.0 drives would work on a 1.5 controller, but it appears the controller on these d900k boards doesn't support it.

Hopefully this helps some others out and saves them some money on restocking fees..

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears the d900k will only work with SATA 1.5 drives.

 

On some SATA2 drives, you have to jumper the drive to force it into SATA1 mode. Not 100% sure about those drives (never seen one yet) but that would be a good place to start.

 

correct.

you need to set a jumper in a SATA-300 HDD to work in a SATA-150 system.

Thats what I did with my new 250GB Seagates.

 

I've got the 320 7200 WD in my Sager 5793 rig and no problems at all. Love it.

Joe

 

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, excellent suggestion. I actually did try setting the jumpers on these drives, but these WD drives only jumper for SSC and RPS as shown here:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2526&p_created=#jumper . Neither of these worked. I even tried jumpering the middle two for the hell of it.

Joe, I'm pretty sure the Sager 5793 uses a different motherboard than this, which could explain why it works on yours with no jumpers.

It didn't look like the 1.00.09 BIOS would help at all here. Since I can't see a way to bump these drives down to the SATA 1.5, I'll have to stick with replacing them. I went with the HITACHI Travelstar 7K200 because they are actually SATA 1.5.

Thanks again for the replies.

 

I am currently using the same notebook with SATA-II (300Mb/s) Seagate drives.

I had to set the jumper on the back to get the notebook to fully recognize and support the HDDs.

Here is the pic in the Seagate Momentus manual:


I think the WD 2.5" SATA-II drives might not have the settings... from what I gathered by reading their manuals.

I have a WD Passport enclosure.. which works fine with USB... but I did not try to stick it in my notebook.

 

Yeah, I didn't see a jumper setting either. I even contacted their support with about as much luck as I get with any tech support...end up explaining more to them than they really know.

Appreciate the help. It looks like drives will work on the d900k if they have the jumper to bump it down to 1.5 or are 1.5 to start.

I'm good to go now. Thanks