Western Digital Drive w/ 8MB Cache - Huge Wipe Times

A

Anonymous

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Hi,

I am using a Western Digital 120 GB WD1200JB harddrive with an 8 Mb cache. When I run DBAN .5 on it it takes 7 days to get to 40% on the full wipe.

Having wiped other drives in the 40 Gb range with smaller or no cache, they usually take about 24-30 hours. Therefore DBAN should take from 72 to 90 hours on a 120 Gb drive. What gives? Is it the cache size?
Does DBAN have problems with the WD1200JB?
I assume that DBAN knows how to handle drive caches when wiping regardless of the size.

Any help is appreciate.

Thanks.
 
When I run DBAN .5

There is no such version of DBAN. If the DBAN screen is black, then you are probably running dban-0.4.0. If the DBAN screen is blue, then you are running dban-1.0.0.

Having wiped other drives in the 40 Gb range with smaller or no cache, they usually take about 24-30 hours. Therefore DBAN should take from 72 to 90 hours on a 120 Gb drive. What gives?

By default, DBAN tries to use DMA access, but it will silently fall-back to PIO access if there are I/O problems, which is much slower. Perhaps your IDE cable is inadequate. Send the log file to me.

Does DBAN have problems with the WD1200JB?

Prior to you post, there have been no problem reports involving this disk.
 
Thanks for your reply,

Your right it is version 0.4.0. I will try verion 1.0.0 and if the problem continues I will email you my log file. What is your email address?

Gratefully Yours.
 
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