WD10EARS-00Y5B1 (SATA)  

That's my HDD, and it's what it used to say in the Device Manager.
I told windows to update the drivers and I installed the only one on the list.

Now it just says "disk drive" in Device Manager and unless it's just me I've noticed a decrease in performance.

All of this is really rather embarassing, I've been known to be a true computer nerd but at this simple thing I find myself being rather clueless.

What did I do and what has this done to my damn PC.

*sadface*

can you just uninstall the drivers?

scrooge

What do you mean?

Can you post a screen shot?

Just a hunch, but do you have SpeedFan or a similar installed? If so, go to the S.M.A.R.T. tab and see what it shows. I have a hunch that the SMART has failed, and if so, the drive probably isn't far behind.

I have CoreTemp.

What's the S.M.A.R.T tab? ._.

CoreTemp is of no use for the purpose I had in mind. Download/install SpeedFan, and you will understand what the S.M.A.R.T. tab is without me having to explain it. Either that, or download/install CrystalDiskInfo.

Vain said:

That's my HDD, and it's what it used to say in the Device Manager.
I told windows to update the drivers and I installed the only one on the list.

Now it just says "disk drive" in Device Manager and unless it's just me I've noticed a decrease in performance.

All of this is really rather embarassing, I've been known to be a true computer nerd but at this simple thing I find myself being rather clueless.

What did I do and what has this done to my damn PC.

*sadface*

What driver was it you installed???

Also hard drive drivers are built into the OS - they don't really need to be updated. Might you have updated the SATA/IDE drivers instead? Chipset drivers?

Also system specs might help.

Thanks.

I right-clicked on my HDD in Device Manager, clicked "Update Driver Software".
Clicked "Browse my computer for driver software" and then clicked "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" and then I chose the one called "Disk drive" which was also the only one available. Then the name of my HDD changed from WD10EARS-00Y5B1 (SATA) to simply "Disk drive".

Chipset drivers have recently been updated but that didn't have an impact. SATA/IDE drivers? I haven't updated them, but maybe I should. To be honest with you I'm not sure what it is.

I'm also going to download SpeedFan tonight and check out this S.M.A.R.T tab.

Vain said:

I right-clicked on my HDD in Device Manager, clicked "Update Driver Software".
Clicked "Browse my computer for driver software" and then clicked "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" and then I chose the one called "Disk drive" which was also the only one available. Then the name of my HDD changed from WD10EARS-00Y5B1 (SATA) to simply "Disk drive.

Why????? did you do this??? Because as you see..... it's caused you headaches.

Anyway you can either "Rollback" the drivers to an earlier date



Or you can try a system restore to before you did your driver update - System Restore

If you get this resolved I would suggest you leave hard drive "driver updates" alone.... Unless you absolutely have a problem that requires it to be updated.

BTW I can't say I've ever updated any of my hard drive drivers. And I'm driver update obsessive! In addition to that I've been using Western Digital hard drives since 1998.

Anyways Good luck.