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Hard drive problem?

D

Davidelmo

New Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2007
Messages
330 (0.05/day)
System Specs
Processor Intel i7 920 @4.20Ghz
Motherboard Gigabyte EX58 UD5
Cooling Titan Fenrir
Memory 6Gb Patriot 1600Mhz
Video Card(s) ATI HD4870 1Gb
Storage 2x250Gb Seagate Barracuda (RAID 0) plus 2B storage
Display(s) Samsung 22 inch Widescreen
Case Coolermaster HAF 932
Audio Device(s) Auzen Prelude 7.1
Power Supply PCP&P 750W Silencer
Software Win7 beta
Specs are to the left <--

Basically, I keep having problems where my system will hang, crash and then refuse to boot windows for no apparent reason.

It will work fine, and will suddenly freeze totally. I then restart and it will hit the first splash screen and freeze dead. The only solution is to wipe the RAID array and start over.

However, this happened last week but when I went to re-install Vista 64, the install showed NO hard drives present in my machine. I went back to the BIOS - SATA was switched on, the RAID array was built and healthy etc. I've re-installed quite a few times before and never seen this problem before.

I used www.ultimatebootcd.com and ran the Seagate hard drive test. The RAID array appears as one drive and the test failed almost straight away.

So, I decided to do away with the RAID configuration and install windows onto one of the hard drives. I disabled RAID and then restarted. However, the BIOS is now only showing 1 of my 2 hard drives.

I go to reinstall windows and only one hard drive appears there too. Windows installs and is up and running fine, but only one hard drive is shown in my computer. The strange thing is that Device Manager shows two hard drives, but the BIOS only shows one.

I then tried physically unplugging the 2nd hard drive. The BIOS looks the same, Windows shows only 1 hard drive in My Computer and Device Manager.

I then tried physically unplugging the 1st hard drive and running the 2nd hard drive only. There are no hard drives shown in the BIOS and the windows finds no hard drives.

I tried swapping over the two SATA cables and power cables in case one port was dodgy or not recognised, but the machine boots fine with the 1st hard drive, and shows no hard drive with the 2nd.

I'm pretty confused and at a loss about what to do next.. is the 2nd hard drive dead?
It's SATA, so I don't have to fiddle with jumpers or setting master/slave etc, right?
It should just appear in the BIOS, but at the moment it looks like this:
SATA 1 - STxxxxxx (1st hard drive)
SATA 2 - AUTO (should be my 2nd hard drive)
SATA 3 - my DVD drive
SATA 4 - my 2nd DVD drive
SATA 5 - AUTO
SATA 6 - AUTO
It's like the 2nd hard drive doesn't even exist.. yet for some reason windows detects it is there in device manager.. wtf
 
I may have misread but from what i understand, it does sound like the hard drive is dead, or at least near it
 
Yeah - I know it's confusing but I just wanted to explain the things I have tried to rule out other factors.

I just want to be sure that I'm not being stupid somewhere or that there will be some setting in the BIOS which is disabled.
 
Move the drive to a different port. If that doesn't work, try going to another computer and putting it in that one. I've had mysterious problems with my new sata drive like that. I formatted it, copied to it, and then next restart it said it wasn't formatted.
My dvd drive on the other hand doesn't show up at all. I'm not sure on that one.
Another computer is probably your best bet though.
 
Try putting disc 2 on port 1,which you know works coz its detected your no.1 disc,and see if it detects disc 2.
 
I tried swapping them over and it doesn't work

Looks like a dead hard drive, right?

I also used the hard drive tests on www.ultimatebootcd.com and the 2nd hard drive failed with >100 errors in 30 minutes
 
You have went into yor disc management and initialized the second drive have'nt you?
 
In windows,I.E. control panel-administrative tools-computer management-disc management!

Initialize then format uknown drive!
 
You might also try different SATA cables, you wouldn't think they would be an issue but I've had a bad cable mess up an HD and make me think the replacement was jacked as well, but it was the cable.
 
Right - I used disk management to add the 2nd hard drive. However, during the adding process the computer COMPLETELY locked up. The mouse was frozen - the numlock/capslock key lights not responding.

I just restarted and the new HD is STILL not shown in the BIOS, yet it now appears in my computer.

It also doesn't explain why it is failing boot up diagnostic tests though...
 
disable raid and see if the drives show up, also try reinstalling the latest raid drivers, the drivers you installed may have become corrupted somehow
 
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