2. I bought a WD1002FAEX recently and found during POST that the hard disk's speed was only 3GB/s. So I took this hard disk to Synnex yesterday and the technician helped me to 're-set' the hard disk speed to 6GB/s. I was told that the default speed is 3GB/s to prevent accidental damage in case the user's motherboard does not support SATA3.
So you'd better bring the hard disk back to Synnex for re-setting back to 6GB/s.
5. Managed to get a reply from Support. It appears that there were several batches of drives that were sold that had firmware improperly configured. This firmware problem seems to be very specific to the lots in question - mine happened to be 00Y9A0 which is one of 5 or 6 so effected.
WD has a batch file that repairs this problem. The provided solution willl not run in a DOS s** so you you will need to be able to get to a 32-bit command prompt in order to apply. It also appears that the solution provided only looks to find the target HD as Drive C, and in my situation would not find the drive when connected to a SATA III controller. This is also a known "bug" in some cases with certain combinations of motherboards and controllers.
IT was sent to me via email by WD support. I would suggest if you have this issue that you start a support case and they eill confirm that your drive is among those affected.
These are the models the console application works with, per the text file that came with the file I received.: