WD Scorpio Black really slow... is it broken?

[amdrocks]

Hi, I was trying to upgrade my hard drive on my 2009 15" MBP 2.53GHz to a 7200RPM WD Scorpio Black 320GB BEKT I had.

The WD HD had Leopard on it, but when I swap the HD into the machine and boot it up, the machine just hangs and the Apple sign won't even show up.

Then I plug in the original HD to the machine as a external device, and boot up the machine with OPTION key to select OS. It properly show up the partition I had in the WD HD and the external HD. When I click boot from the WD HD, it hangs again.

I then switch back the HD and use my original HD to reformat the OS partition I had in the WD HD, then swap the drive back again.

I boot it up and enters the Snow Leopard installation disk and begin installation process. It took forever to finish the installation. On my original HD, it only took 21 min. to do a clean install. Now with the WD HD, it took 33 min. to get 10% of the installation process done.

I then took out the WD HD and did a surface scan on it, but no bad sectors were found.

Is this a compatibility issue? or HD hardware problem.

 

[gr8tfly]

Is it partitioned using GUID? Unless you changed it, it probably comes from the factory with MBR. Just a thought, anyway.

I have the exact same drive in my 17" UB MBP (actually, the BJKT, but I did have the BEKT too at one point). Neither drive gave me any problem.

 

[amdrocks]

Is it partitioned using GUID? Unless you changed it, it probably comes from the factory with MBR. Just a thought, anyway.

I have the exact same drive in my 17" UB MBP (actually, the BJKT, but I did have the BEKT too at one point). Neither drive gave me any problem.

Yes, it was partitioned by GUID...

 

[iLog.Genius]

Try putting the old HDD back in. If performance improves, might be the new HDD.

 

[amdrocks]

Ok, so I RMA the WD HDD and got the replacement; however, still having the exact same issue. It seems like the machine couldn't read and write the HDD properly. I use the WD HDD on Santa Rosa MBP, and it works perfectly.

I use the Leopard restoration disk, and it's ridiculously slow as well. So, it shouldn't be the disc problem.

It shouldn't be the optical drive neither, because it works fine with the original HDD and other CD/DVDs.

It couldn't be the internal cable link problem, because everything works fine in original HDD.

Now, I'm really frustrated...

Any suggestions?

 

[LedCop]

I'm assuming you have the June 09 15" MBP?

As you mentioned in your first post, it could be a compatibility issue.

I think it's the infamous EFI 1.7 issue with hard disks.

 

[amdrocks]

I'm assuming you have the June 09 15" MBP?

As you mentioned in your first post, it could be a compatibility issue.

I think it's the infamous EFI 1.7 issue with hard disks.

Yes, it's the June 09 15" MBP...

So, no solutions right now?

This is really depressing...

 

[LedCop]

Yes, it's the June 09 15" MBP...

So, no solutions right now?

This is really depressing...

Well, I'm not sure how much of a solution this would be, but if I were in your place I'd downgrade the EFI firmware to 1.6.

Your 320GB WD Black won't saturate even 1.5Gbps SATA I so I think your WD with downgraded EFI would give you better performance than your stock 250GB HD with EFI 1.7.

 

[techos]

Yes, it's the June 09 15" MBP...

So, no solutions right now?

This is really depressing...

Did you ever solve the problem? I am having the exact same issue and I am now running externally from my old drive