FTool Doesn't Detect WD 320GB - working, got some results.

Bobendren · Post by **Bobendren** » Fri May 09, 2008 3:14 pm

Hi there,

I've got a Western Digital SATAII 3200AAKS OEM drive. I'm trying to enable AAM but Hitachi's Feature Tool can't detect the drive. It says scanning for IDE devices and finds nothing. I initially had the drive set to IDE mode in the bios, but since then i've changed it to AHCI, but it still doesn't detect it.

Any ideas? I've got a Abit IP-35 motherboard, if that makes any difference.

Bobendren · Post by **Bobendren** » Sun May 11, 2008 3:22 am

I couldn't find out what the issue was, but I plugged my hard drive into my brother's PC and managed to enable AAM...wow, what a difference! At least half as noisy as it was before. I can barely hear seeks now, although it is suspended with elastic.

Some HD Tach results (average of 3 runs):

Without AAM
---------------
Random Access: 12.8ms
Average Read: 62.7 MB/s
Burst Speed: 201.5 MB/s

With AAM
---------------
Random Access: 18.1ms
Average Read: 62.3 MB/s
Burst Speed: 200 MB/s

Random Access suffers quite a bit. Average read and burst speed remains the same. Can anyone suggest some real world tests I can try?

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Sun May 11, 2008 8:22 am

Play a game that relies heavily on HDD. I noticed an improvement in Far Cry and Bioshock level load times after switching from an old .7 Barracuda to a 5000AAKS, for example. I think Crysis loads on the fly, so it's not as good a test.