Precision 7920 won't spin up add-on internal HDD unless exiting from the BIOS

Question

I have a peculiar problem. My 7920 was ordered with 6 internal HDD bays. They are all occupied with magnetic disks, 5 that came from Dell and another that I've added (a WD Gold 12TB). Strangely, the computer will only spin up the drive I added when exiting from the BIOS. At all other times (resuming from sleep, restarting from Windows, booting completely cold), the add-on drive doesn't spin up.

I already sent my initially purchased disk back to WD under warranty, thinking it was bad. But the replacement WD Gold is showing the same behavior. I am convinced the problem is with the host system.

Any ideas? At the rate things are going I'll end up leaving the computer on continuously so that I can access the additional storage. -BGU

blakeu · Accepted Answer

This is the OP following up with the solution. After escalating to the third level of WD's tech support team (still in India), they seem pretty confident the WD Gold 12 TB I bought does not have any PWDIS feature. I also found a WD document on the Web that seems to substantiate this:

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/collateral/tech-brief/tech-brief-western-digital-power-disable-pin.pdf

That makes sense, since I went through the whole exercise with ordering Kapton tape: covering up the third pin had no effect on the Precision workstation's ability to spin up the drive. Only when exiting the BIOS menu does the disk spin up. At the end of the day, I have no explanation for this. The best theory WD offered was that the WD Gold has a higher power requirement (7 volts) than the WD Blue disks that shipped with the machine. Needless to say, that is silly.

The solution I went with was to order an external enclosure. It is not my preferred approach, but (with the notable exception of the external enclosure's aggressive power saving spinning the drive down all the time) it works. I went with one of the units mentioned in this review:

https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/best-ssd-and-hard-drive-enclosures

Good luck,

BGU

Chino de Oro · Answer

Have you try to swap one of Dell's drive to test functionality of that drive bay.Also testing the WD Gold in one of the 5 working drive bay.The test will determine if there is problem with the host.

blakeu · Answer

Yes, when switched, the Dell disk spun up and the add-in failed to spin up in the other bay.

mazzinia_ · Answer

Hello, at this point feels like the firmware of the wd Gold hdd is having some glitch with the bios. Feels similar to the PWDIS causing a disk not spinning up.

Chino de Oro · Answer

@blakeu​ , with simple deduction and as mentioned by other poster, the spin-up issue is not with the host.  Check the HDD settings and turn off any kind of power saving features for testing purposes.

blakeu · Answer

I agree with Mazzinia. Looking on the Web for 'PWDIS,' I see this article that describes the problem exactly:

The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

However, the suggested workaround (Molex-to-SATA adapter) is not very practical in the case of a Precision 7920, which, as far as I know, has no Molex connectors, and wouldn't easily snake them into the front drive bay, even if it did. Any creative alternatives?

Thanks for ID'ing the problem. -BGU

Chino de Oro · Answer

Re:  Any creative alternatives?@blakeu​  just cut a small piece of Kapton tape and cover the third pin of HDD SATA power (counting from the signal pins).  That would turn off the low power 3.3v.

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Precision 7920 won't spin up add-on internal HDD unless exiting from the BIOS

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