Intermittent SATA problem

[Akulya]

Hi,
I have recently (jan '09) installed a 500GB SATA Hitachi HDD to my XP SP2 machine, to upgrade from two 70Gb seagate barracudas (not-RAID). Installation went smoothly, 500GB drive was partitioned into three unequal parts; one for the OS, two for data, and I kept one of the original barracudas as a seperate physical drive for archiving backups (as acronis .tib's) and the missus threw the other one away (a usual trend...)

Now the real fun began.

After two weeks of error free and hearty daily use, I got an error on boot up saying a file was missing, I forget which one now and it's not important, as after a little troubleshooting it transpires that somehow my BIOS had decided to change the boot order and look in the wrong place - the barracuda (an IDE drive, incidentally set to slave on the same ribbon as my master DVD/RW).

Then the next day I realise why the boot order had changed, as it happens again. The SATA disk isn't being detected.

I understand they can require a little time to spin up from cold, especially as it is a big disk, so i set a delay in the bios (10s - just to make sure).

Now I cannot remember exactly what happened next as I was pressed for several deadlines, rather irritable and my PC simply wouldn't detect the primary HDD, so I went to maplins and purchased an equivalent 500GB hitachi drive but this time in IDE, reasoning that if I have a SATA problem, then I had better use a technology I know will work until the deadlines are over. I regretted the earlier loss of the second barracuda, but didn't even mention it.

Fast forward to now, and I have two nearly identical 500 GB drives a Hitachi SATA and a Hitachi IDE, plus a (lifesaving) 70GB IDE barracuda.

When I boot up, I may (or may not) have an eternal pause as immediately after the memory check the SATA disk fails to be detected. The regular IDE drives i.e. 500GB Hitachi IDE on IDE 0, and DVD/RW & 70GB Barracuda on IDE 1 are always detected without problems.

Sometimes, everything works perfectly and within windows I can move files around to my hearts content between both Hitachi drives. in fact at this very moment I am backing everything up (again).

I do not believe the SATA HDD is faulty, nor does it have any bad sectors (i've checked), and it doesn't have serious physical errors or it would not work at all. I've checked the cable (twice) and it is snug and clean.

I've flashed my motherboard (Nforce4-939) to the latest bios, and looked for drivers (but am unclear as to how the work with SATA).

So right now I'm out of ideas with a machine that can (and does) crash at any moment when it decides that it - and the SATA drive are no longer on speaking terms.

Thank you for your time, any advice or help is appreciated and no hint is too small. Especially if it fixes this seemingly unique problem.

 

[Grenage]

I would personally suspect either the drive or the board's SATA controller.

If the two Seagate drives are SATA, I would assume it was the controller. Try the drive in another computer, if you can.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[Akulya]

Sorry if I was unclear, only one drive is SATA - and the seagate is IDE. The M/bd has four SATA sockets (i've tried all of them with similar results) ever heard of an on board sata controller going kaput while the rest of the M/bd is OK?

 

[Grenage]

I haven't personally, but going by those symptoms, that's what I would lean towards.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[Akulya]

Any idea's on how to resolve the issue? If the onboard SATA controller was gone; then I would think the drive would never get recognised at all. As it is, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. I understand that SATA drives are hot-pluggable so if it were a loose connection type problem then my OS should remain stable when the drive stops. As it is, if I'm in windows and it decides to stop playing then I get a system freeze; where num lock works, but neither caps nor scroll lock do, and ctrl-alt-del has no effect either.
Thanks for your help so far though.

 

[Grenage]

I would try the drive in another computer or try another SATA drive in your current machine, if you can borrow one. That should allow you to know for certain where the problem lies.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[oisnds]

Look in the BIOs and see if the boot preference can be set to SATA and remove the option for IDE, should work.

 

[Akulya]

@ Grenage - The drive works fine in another machine. Guess my M/bds onboard SATA controller is blinking...

@oisnds - I've got the boot order correct in the BIOS (see OP) the problem is that sometimes the disk is detected and works fine, sometimes the disk is detected and crashes during use, and sometimes the disk isn't detected at all - freezing the system directly after a memory check (specifically hanging on the line DETECTING IDE DRIVES...).

Thanks for your advice though, I would rather not replace the motherboard but can't think of any more ways of trying to fix the SATA controller other than flashing the BIOS (which I've already done) or adding a PCI card one, which would mean taking something else out...

 

[Grenage]

I can't think of anything else that would explain it, especially if the drive is appearing and disappearing at the BIOS level. Sorry I have nothing quicker and easier to offer!

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer