my newly purchased (discount e-seller) 80Gb harddive has a problem, I think.

It's a western digital WD800BB-R. First thing I noticed was the bios description was a mix of printable + unprintable chars. In dmesg it shows up as:
hdb: ^WD^C ^WD800B^B-55
K^A0, ATA DISK drive

fdisk /dev/hdb appeared to work:

Disk /dev/hdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 155061 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 134 67376+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 134 5968 2940208 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 5984 6968 495808 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb4 7001 155045 74614552 83 Linux

but attempting to put a filesystem goes like this:

[root@diamond:/var/log]# mkfs.ext2 /dev/hdb1
mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
16848 inodes, 67376 blocks
3368 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
9 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
1872 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
8193, 24577, 40961, 57345

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 33 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@diamond:/var/log]# fsck.ext2 /dev/hdb1
e2fsck 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...
/sbin/e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdb1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

same for ext3. Didn't try reiser.

is there some low-level formatting i need to do or is this best returned? (it has a 90-day warranty period).

the rest of dmesg:
hdb: max request size: 128KiB
hdb: Host Protected Area detected.
current capacity is 156285104 sectors (80017 MB)
native capacity is 156301488 sectors (80026 MB)
hdb: Host Protected Area disabled.
hdb: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63
hdb: cache flushes supported
hdb: hdb1 hdb2 hdb3 hdb4

Finally, I took special care to make sure it's jumped correctly as slave.
TIA John

Why not go to the Western Digital support site and download their excellent Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (floppy or CD versions)?

DlgDiag: http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...n&pid=4&swid=2

The diagnostic routine will determine whether the drive is bad and will give you an error code that you can look up here: http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/errorcodes.asp

thanks, WhatHisName: i'm going to burn a cd with the diagnostics .iso. However since it's "for DOS" I may have to install something like FreeDos ...
http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
OTOH it may be a bootable cd...

OK, 1st of all the cd is bootable (Caldera DR/DOS or something shows up first)

But the diagnostic program can't see the problem drive (shows only drive 0 , i.e. /dev/hda)

I'm going to try later with only the problem drive connected (as stand-alone)

thanks, John

the 'problem' drive is fine. with it as the only drive on the cable the wd diag extended test showed no errors. now i've got it on the second controller with dvd slaved to it. I have no idea why it failed otherwise.

btw with the original /dev/hda on the ide cable and jumped as slave (pins 3-4 ) with this new (supposed problem) drive as master (jumped pins 5-6), the bios doesn't see the slave drive at all. problem with one connector on the ide cable?

nevertheless, now the new drive can be formatted and made available