Weird SATA problem

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nitefallz

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 15, 2000
Messages
2,366
Not sure of the correct forum for this... but here goes.

Problem: SATA drive not being detected at boot up. Used to work fine.

Background: Booting up worked fine originally. The motherboard was powered by a normal ATX PS. All was well. I then wired up my Opus 90 watt to the motherboard and my ATX PS for internal testing. All was well. I then assembled an acrylic case for everything and the first boot was fine. Subsequent boot ups failed to detect the SATA drive. Occasionally letting the system power down for awhile seems to work, once or twice. Now it won't detect the drive at boot at all.

Notes
  • Twice in Windows XP I saw the BSOD when transferring/installing files to the HD. After the BSOD the drive was not detected
  • Ran CHKDSK, fine.
  • Swapped the drive with my laptop drive. Same results. Laptop powered on fine with the other HD and the CarPC did not detect the laptop drive.
  • Thinking it was a power related problem I connected the drive to an external power source not connected to the Opus 90 watt, same results.
  • Drive works fine when connected as an external USB drive via an adapter, to my laptop.
  • Temperatures check out fine.


Specs
  • Via EN15000G
  • 80gb Hitatchi SATA 2.5 drive
  • Opus 90 watt PS
  • 1 gb 667 ddr2 ram

The only other thing I can think of, and will test later today, is that there's some kind of power drop that for whatever reason is causing the SATA connection to hang. I'll test this by connecting the motherboard back to a normal ATX supply.

I feel like I've proven the drive is fine and the motherboard is otherwise working properly. It's weird how it worked and then went intermittent and is now just bizarre.

Any ideas?
 
It could be static build up taking a while to dissipate as your case is not an earth (static will dissipate faster if surrounded by conductive surfaces).
Alternatively, if you dont work with an antistatic wrist strap (or similar precaution), you will be generating and carrying static while working with a non metal case and discharging against anything that is metal (ie electronics). You may have allowed a static flash to hit the hard drive.

This can damage electronic hardware so the drive could be permanently damaged if the above applies to you.
 
I've taken the necessary precautions.

I'm betting faulty MB. It fired up the system again and it worked fine, for maybe 30 minutes or less. I was doing something in Windows and tried to save a file and it locked up and reset. I didn't even see a BSOD this time. Then the drive was undetectable. I left the system off for awhile and then it worked when I turned it back on. It's like this on either SATA controller on the motherboard. It's annoying.

I ordered a PCI sata controller but I didn't bother to check if I could boot from this. Anyone know?
 
You should be able to boot from a sata card.
Always check the first level in this case the cable for the sata disk then hard drive (which you already did)
 
wrap the SATA connector (not the power connector but the SATA cable) in aluminum foil.

i don't know what generation your SATA drive is, but i had one of hte earlier generation ones and it was working fine, and then started messing up. they didn't shield the cables on those earlier ones.

i wrapped it up with foil and it's worked fine ever since.
 
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