Weblog » 2008 » March

I think I’ve finally found out what has been causing the bizarre hangs that my new computer has been experiencing. It turns out that Western Digital has a Firmware Update for my hard drive to fix what is, in essence, an infinite loop within their on-board diagnostic routines.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?
p_faqid=1493&p_created=1168299631&p_sid=J5W_Lywi&
p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&&p_li=&p_topview=1

The most unfortunate part is that the symptoms of the problem in this writeup are not very clear. At work, we call these write-ups APARs, and writing poor APARs is one of the worst things a technician can do. I now have a good sense of what our customers must go through.