WD dilemma

[carnageX]

Whenever you have sata cables on drives lag like that.
Its a sure fire way of saying the cable is going soon and to grab another one.

I wouldn't say it's for sure a cable... lots of bad sectors or a dying HDD can do that, and is usually more likely to be the cause as well.

Yes I already pulled it out from the enclosure however the machine lagged when I inserted one of the drives using a sata cable. I used the optical drive cable because I didn't have any spares.

Try booting off of a Linux LiveCD such as Ubuntu with the drive(s) directly connected via SATA. Windows absolutely hates bad sectors and lags like crazy when a drive that has a lot is connected. Linux can usually get around them a little easier. You just won't be able to copy any of the files that are located on bad sectors - you can still copy around them though.

If there's any important data on the drive(s), back it up, and then try running a chkdsk, either from Within Windows (if you can), or via the Windows pre-boot recovery menu.

Via the command prompt, do: chkdsk X: /f /r
where X: is the drive letter

 

[-RockMan-]

I wouldn't say it's for sure a cable... lots of bad sectors or a dying HDD can do that, and is usually more likely to be the cause as well.

I'll keep that in mind for next time but I'm blaming the cable first.
What he's describing sounds like a old cable that can't do much anymore.

I've seen it happen with my computer, mums and a few others I know in my area.
Until he replaces that cable we don't know if the drive has errors or faultywiring to blame for non read by his computer.

Yes I already pulled it out from the enclosure however the machine lagged when I inserted one of the drives using a sata cable. I used the optical drive cable because I didn't have any spares.

Thanks for info anyway.

 

[carnageX]

I'll keep that in mind for next time but I'm blaming the cable first.
What he's describing sounds like a old cable that can't do much anymore.

I've seen it happen with my computer, mums and a few others I know in my area.
Until he replaces that cable we don't know if the drive has errors or faultywiring to blame for non read by his computer.

Yep, could be either cable or shoddy drive; and we won't know until more troubleshooting is done.

Reason I suggested the LiveCD first is because most people already have blank CD's or a spare USB drive that they can use to put Ubuntu on, and boot off of it - no extra cost required.