WD Data Lifeguard Tools?

[truiz9902]

I just installed a new WD 120GB HD on a newly built system and was wonderinfg if the "Data Lifeguard Tools" should be installed or if it's not necessary? I've been up and running for about a week now and just stumbled across the Lifeguard floppy.

and fwiw, the HD has already been partitioned, loaded with OS etc,,,,,

any input appreciated

regards

truiz

 

[khha4113]

It is a software to diagnose your WD harddisk, and it only runs in floppy disk.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[GhostKat]

Actually I noticed that what WD is presenting some piece of software that will actually backup your hard drive to I guess a site that WD owns over the net. It was installable in Windows. I looked at it and thought, yeah right and didn't install it. *shrug*

GK

OOoo Look I'm a member! Do I get Privleges now? Where's the secret decoder ring?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ghostkat on 07/21/03 12:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Toejam31]

Short answer: no. And be glad that you didn't find it necessary to use the Tools to partition and format the HDD, which is sometimes necessary if the BIOS has difficulty recognizing the entire size of a larger hard drive.

Two lousy things about this collection of disk utilities:

The use of the Data Lifeguard Tools automatically installs EZ-BIOS. This supercedes the default BIOS settings, which makes it impossible to use any other method to partition and format the HDD. In addition, this means the BIOS setting which determines the boot order of the devices is rendered basically non-functional.

In other words, once EZ-BIOS is in place, partitions created without the Tools cannot be assigned a drive letter in Windows.

To make a bad situation worse, the way the DLG Tools writes the partition tables causes compatibility issues with various programs, such as Partition Magic, Drive Image, and third-party defragmenting software like Diskeeper and PerfectDisk. None of these applications will work correctly until EZ-BIOS is manually removed, which usually causes at least one partition on the drive to be corrupted and/or the free space within the partition to become unallocated.

Removing EZ-BIOS is not an intuitive process, either ... as locating information about the removal within the WD Knowledge Base requires a little searching. Because of this, I'll post a link to save someone else the trouble:

<A HREF="http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=X*N*5BEg&p_lva=&p_faqid=824&p_created=1037384345&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTgmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1SZW1vdmUgRVpCaW9zJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9NCZwX3Byb2RfbHZsMT04JnBfcHJvZF9sdmwyPTY1JnBfY2F0X2x2bDE9fmFueX4mcF9zb3J0X2J5PWRmbHQmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=" target="_new">How can I uninstall EZ-BIOS using Data Lifeguard Tools</A>?

The only time I'd use the DLG Tools is if the hard drive appears to have errors that render it comparatively useless ... and in that situation, only to zero out the drive, to "mark" bad sectors. Use of the Tools is not necessary to receive an RMA number for replacement of the device, so if the drive is clicking, or cannot be detected in Windows due to damage, I'd just send it back through the WD website, and disregard using the Tools for error checking.

Toey

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[Loztsoul]

I did the same thing installed my WD hardrive with zero problem and had it running stable and then realized I had the data lifeguard floppy....I am really glad I read this post and will probably never use data lifeguard thanks for the heads up.