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IDE drives "disappearing"

F

Flapjack

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Apr 29, 2000
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You all know the problem... I bet there is at least one other person who has dealt with this.

Every once in a blue moon, some of my IDE drives just disappear. I run windows off a SCSI RAID 0 stripe, so it never actually crashes, but I do lose my e-mail folders and desktop stuff, etc... because I store all that on my D: (IDE) drive which serves as my personal data drive (makes for easy reformats).

So I shut down, unplug and plug back in all the IDE cables, reboot, and it's fine for a few more weeks.

This happens no matter what cable I use. I'm wondering if there is anything I can put on the pins to keep that from happening?

I was thinking a little dielectric grease, but that really does nothing for conductivity...

A wiggle of the cables isn't usually enough, I usually have to unplug them and plug them back in for the fix to last more than a few days.

Am I the only one with this crazy-ass problem??

(damn shitty IDE...)
 
I was running SCSI-RAID 50 for a long time with Seagate 15k's- and then drives started dropping off-

NBD, RAID right? Well, 5/7 dropped off one day and I was at ground zero. I replaced the cables, and it worked great for about 6 months. Started happening again; am using a new IDE drive now until I finish my new system.

I know how aggrivating it is- I ended up gettting everything back; after a faulty Win Backup file I had on another drive screwed me, I put everything back together with half-ass burned CD's, DVD's and DVD-RAM's.

Lesson Learned- I spent the entire Christmas Break cleaning everything up and getting organized. Burned a new, fully complete backup with Ghost and stuck it in a safe. 19 DVD's- ~99GB.

Then, I burned a music set; pictures set (35,000 pics- have had a digicam for a while) and a documents set.

Better planning=less aggrivation.
 
hi,

i might be having the same problem.. in my case how ever, i got the windows message saying that the device (the ide drive) has been disconnected just like disconnecting a firewire drive. this happened with a hard drive and recently with a dvd-rom drive.
i was suspecting the ide cable but maybe, just maybe, the pins on my power molex are a bit loose after i sleeved my psu cables. This didn't happen before the sleeving and i did need to unplug and replug the molex the last time this happened.
since i've lost because of it before, now i run only scsi hard drives leaving the ide for optical drives. I plan to put my ide hard drive on an external firewire box.
 
I don't get any error message. In fact, since it's not the SCSI RAID setup which Windows off of, I don't even know until I try and open something that's mapped off the IDE drive.

I have one IDE drive (D:) which hold My Documents, Desktop, OE mail folder, etc... The E: drive holds all my programs, mp3s, movies, etc...

So usually I'll come back and all my desktop stuff will be gone.

If I'm using it, it just hangs for a bit, then I get the generic "file not found" error message.

It has to be something physical, because the only resolution is to unplug/replug in the cables.
 
I had that same problem with one of my drives.
The drive is in a heatsink cage with 2 fans on the front and I had the power wire go to the fans and then to the drive.
a month ago, that drive would just disappear from my computer so I thought it was going bad and I took it out.
Well, I needed some files from it, hooked it back up and noticed that the fans were spinning really slow since they were clogged with dust. Unplugged the fans and ran the power wire straight to the hard drive and haven't had a problem with the drive since.
I am thinking that maybe the fans were pulling too much power and the drive would lose a bit of power and windows would remove it from the list.
 
Is the IDE drive connected to the built-in southbridge controller Flapjack, or is it using an add-in controller?

I'd say offhand you might want to investigate driver updates either way, since I've never experienced such a problem with a southbridge controller.
I have had such problems with SCSI and EIDE controller cards, but not with XP.
 
Just an idea maybe PSU problem ?

My system was running way close to max on power and when I added another drive it would boot up ok but only last a few hours in windows then do exactly what you are describing. Might be worth a look.
 
PSU problem would be my other suspicion as well in your case and mine. But if it is, it should affect the SCSI drives as well.
 
I'd guess loose Molex connectors. That's given me trouble in the past. I tighten up the female pins using needlenose pliers, YMMV, do at your own risk, etc.
 
SATA and the 7 Deadly Sins of Parallel ATA
Fancy IDE leads - The Terrible Truth
ATA Not So Frequently Asked Questions Or: Why Ribbon Cables are unsuitable for RF transmission of data

"The following article was written by snn47 to address some of the issues associated with standard ribbon cables and the use of e.g. removable drive racks as an attempt to share some insight into factors that can adversely affect the life or reliability of of desktop Hard Disk Drives. Specifically, issues like why some drives are working in some systems and not in others, the impact of cable routing and why is it that the drive manufacturers always recommend using their own cables (if supplied with the drive).

There is a ton of data in this article, some of which are of interest only for the EE-crowd or else some nerds but there is also some stuff of why sometimes simply rerouting the cable can solve the problems at hand. "
Click to expand...

there is a very good reason the whole industry is switching to SATA
if not the root cause of your problems, its probably a contributing factor
 
I'm using the built-in IDE controller on the board. The motherboard is a K7D Master-L, dually AMD. But like I said, I've had this problem before.

Originally posted by leukotriene
Is the IDE drive connected to the built-in southbridge controller Flapjack, or is it using an add-in controller?

I'd say offhand you might want to investigate driver updates either way, since I've never experienced such a problem with a southbridge controller.
I have had such problems with SCSI and EIDE controller cards, but not with XP.
Click to expand...
 
I ruled that out with several PSU upgrades. Actually, the problem affects both devices on one cable. Everything else is fine, and it doesn't happen all that often.

Originally posted by elneckio
Just an idea maybe PSU problem ?

My system was running way close to max on power and when I added another drive it would boot up ok but only last a few hours in windows then do exactly what you are describing. Might be worth a look.
Click to expand...
 
Cardboard Hammer:

That's a good idea. I think I'll try that next time I work on the system. I usually unplug them while I'm at it. That may be the cause.


Ice Czar:

Excellent links. I'm still reading them. I wish they were SATA, but unfortunately, I need to work with what I have until dually Athlon 64s are feasable.
 
Originally posted by Flapjack
I wish they were SATA, but unfortunately, I need to work with what I have .
Click to expand...

those are primarilly about PATA\IDE cables and some of the steps you can try to regain data integrity

until dually Athlon 64s are feasable.
Click to expand...

those would be called Opterons :p
 
Yeah, but right now there is not a whole lot of options Opteron-wise. I'm patient... my system still flies. I just ordered a gig of Crucial PC2100. Selling the old chip in the FS/FT forum.
 
well I like my Tyan K8W w\ 2x244s and 4x1GB PC2700 (Crucial) :p

may not be alot of options, but there are still some good (if expensive) choices ;)
 
if the drives work fine, you shut down cold... then turn back on again to find drives not working. what happens when you shut down cold and start up again without unplugging anything... do the drives get recognized--- sometimes or never? if they sometimes get recognized, then it might be a grounding issue with your board - causing the wrong bit to get stuck somewhere in start up. maybe try reseating the motherboard and making sure all riser screws are installed and making good contact to the ground rings.

if you ALWAYS have to remove connectors and resecure them to make things better again, i'd tell you it is likely a power supply issue. i've seen people have problems with bad molex crimps, shoddy psu's not able to handle amperages they are specified to handle, etc... all resulting in problems simlar to what you're experiencing.

i doubt it's a software related issue, but it is nonetheless possible. have you tried different drivers for the hd controllers?
 
sackowitz:

I haven't tried anything other than just restarting windows. Once that doesn't work, I reseat the cables and they come up again.

I'm certain it's not the PSU, I've been through 3 I think. I picked this one because it had the best voltage on all the rails when I checked it with a multimeter.

I'm sure it's not a software issue.
 
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