Recently my system died (RIP) and I am left with a 120GB WD HDD that seems to have some problems. I have tried the HDD in another older system I had laying around (tested and working w/ another HDD) and when I put the 120GB HDD in, the PC won't even POST. No jumper so not that (no jumper for single drive, Master). HDD is 120GB but even if the old PC's BIOS doesn't support it, it should at least POST - but it doesn't. Not really sure what the problem is. :( Would really like to get sorted as I have just finished building my brand new PC and this HDD problem is the onbly thing keeping me from starting it up. :(

Western Digital has diagnostics available for download - free.

Boot the PC with the HD's power cable connected but the IDE cable disconnected, if it still doesn't post then the HD have have a short or some other fundamental error.

Also have you tried connecting the drive to another PC as a slave? that will also check if it's the HD at fault.

Darkman-

I'm having some seriously bad luck these days. :( I tried what you said above and got nothing. Just for test purposes I put the good HDD back in the old PC and now that won't boot either. LOL Gonna try one more thing ... If that doesn't work, I'm gonna put my old 20GB Maxtor in and setup my system, then put the 120GB in as slave as you mentioned and see what I get. 3 year warranty still has about 2.5 years left so it could be worse. Unfortunately, it has about 95GB of stuff on it. :(

Good news for me. :) I went to my parent's house, hooked up the WD as slave and was able to access the drive. Pulled the info I needed (forgot my fonts, oh well) and did a quick format. Then I installed in the new system as master and did a full reformat during the Win 2K setup. It seems to be working fine now. Looking good, will wait and see. :)

should still give it a test with the diagnostic software IMO.

No need. Drive is on its way out I see now. Reinstall of the OS and now it shows bad blocks all over the place. Sending it in for a replacement on Monday. :(