Odd HD failure 1

[RollinTech]

3 yr old Dell, 40GB WD IDE HD on primary channel (non-SMART capable, unfortunately). On boot today, bios reported "unable to locate fixed disk" or some such similar verbiage.

I checked the connections, swapped to a new 80-wire cable, tried switching the jumper from CS to Master. Tried swapping to secondary IDE channel (where a CD is properly being identified currently). No change - BIOS still reports no fixed disk found in all of these configurations.

I swapped the CD to the primary channel and it is identified ok, so I think that proves the primary IDE channel on the MB is ok.

So...I figured the drive was dead (it does spin), but before I pitched the drive, I hooked it up to a USB adapter and found that the drive was recognized when I plugged it into my laptop. I was able to copy all of my files to the laptop that way, and ran HD tune's hard disk diagnostics with no errors.

I couldn't run WD's diagnostics since they apparently require a floppy and my laptop is without one -- plus, I doubt it would work with a USB-attached drive.

I've never seen a drive that was not recognized by the BIOS be ok over a USB connection. Am I missing something here? SHould I try harder, or just be grateful I saved my files and replace the drive?

Thx!!

Tuner

 

[funkytunaa]

Well firstly yes you should be thankful!

Good form on saving the data!

When you have been changing the drives around have you been using the same power and ide cable?

If so it could be either the cable or the power that is coming from the PSU.

Hard drives use 2 types of power, the red and yellow wires coming from the PSU. The 12v runs the motor where as the 5V (I think it's 5Volt) runs the board. If the 5 volt is screwed, then it won't be able to detect or read but it will spin up because the 12v line is still running.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Chris

 

[RollinTech]

I did try different connectors during the initial troubleshooting, but hey, it's easy to test the PS...

Well, the 12 volt rail tests at 12.08, the 5 volt is 5.25, the 3 volt is 3.36. I think the PS must be ok. There is only a single optical drive and integrated video, so there really isn't much load on the system.

I replaced the drive (120GB Seagate 7200 for $50, no rebate - a rare good deal @ BestBuy) and was able to install XP just fine, and move the data back over from the laptop. In fact, I hooked up the suspect drive as a slave on the primary channel and XP could read it - definitely weird.

I'll see if I can find some sort of torture test to run on the thing, but I think I'll write this one off as a NSF (non-specific failure).

Thanks for your help!