• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

SATA Controller card headaches

R

Retne

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
240
I picked up two SATA 200 GB Mator DM10's on a B&M Fry's deal. They refused to work properly in windows with my motherboard. So I went out and picked up a SATA Controller card with a Silicon Image chip. After doing so the problems stopped. I was able to format and store media on the drives. I thought my problems were over.

Low and behold about half a week into having the controller card one harddrive (the one i decided to store all my media on) just wouldn't be written to. I thought it a fluke and rebooted. The card didn't detect the second drive on boot. So I shutdown checked to make sure the connections were solid. Booted up and it detected the drive again. Now I'm having the same problem again. Except now after checking the cables the card still doesn't see the hard drive.

I'm about to shut down and switch out the cable that came with the motherboard for a generic SATA cable that came with the drives and came with the controller card. I will post back here to let you know if it helped or not. Even so please give me your opinion on what else could be causing this problem.
 
Maxtors diagnostic CD won't completely boot on my system.

I switched SATA cables and that did nothing. Perhaps I should switch from using that molex to SATA power converter and use the SATA power cable that came with my NeoPower?
 
I just switched which port the hard drives were connected to on the controller card and it still picked up only the one HD that has been working. I changed power cables and that didn't work.

Is my HDD going bad after having it for under a month and only getting it to work properly for 3-5 days?

If not then what do I do to make it work??? I've just exhausted every thought I have had to fix it. I'm at a loss. Anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: The Controller card is a CompUSA Silicon Image Sil3512 chipset card. I just noticed I hadn't posted that. Specs are in the sig.
 
Yep. Sounds like your drive is dead. If the working drive works on both channels, then it isn't the controller/cables. It should be under warranty, have them replace it.
 
Have you checked your bios versions on your mobo? I had a problem once with a raid array that would corrupt after two or so days and a bios flash fixed the problem. I was in the same boat as you and got a controller card, and after the flash I took that back. Check the bios on your mobo and maybe the card (if it has a flashable bios)

Oh i missed the part about one drive working on both channels. Well I would still try the bios as a last ditch effort.
 
Just got off the phone with Maxtor support and he said "What you are describing is a faulty or dead drive". I'm inclined to agree. So I guess it's back to Fry's with dead drive in hand. I hate dead drives :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top