Anyone had seen SATA drives intermittently fail?
Discussion
(eta - erk, brain grammar fade in title, sorry. Bunged up with lurgy)
I have three drives in my main PC and one of them has started "randomly" not appearing at BIOS, then obviously not in Windows either. I've checked the cables, rerouted them to make sure they're not kinked, swapped cables with another one that isn't failing (identical model), and I still can't determine a cause, or any common scenario where it works or doesn't.
The controller is onboard on the mobo, but I would have expected all 3 to exhibit odd behaviour if it were a problem with that.
It's powered on when it's misbehaving (I can feel it thrumming).
Thankfully there's nothing irreplaceable on it, but it is a pain in the arse. I would guess it's about 3 years old.
Bit stumped really. Does the circuity on the drive itself go bandy? I've never come across anything other than total death with regard to (IDE at any rate) hard drives.
I have three drives in my main PC and one of them has started "randomly" not appearing at BIOS, then obviously not in Windows either. I've checked the cables, rerouted them to make sure they're not kinked, swapped cables with another one that isn't failing (identical model), and I still can't determine a cause, or any common scenario where it works or doesn't.
The controller is onboard on the mobo, but I would have expected all 3 to exhibit odd behaviour if it were a problem with that.
It's powered on when it's misbehaving (I can feel it thrumming).
Thankfully there's nothing irreplaceable on it, but it is a pain in the arse. I would guess it's about 3 years old.
Bit stumped really. Does the circuity on the drive itself go bandy? I've never come across anything other than total death with regard to (IDE at any rate) hard drives.
Edited by Famous Graham on Thursday 18th February 18:59
Famous Graham said:
Does the circuity on the drive itself go bandy? I've never come across anything other than total death with regard to (IDE at any rate) hard drives.
No reason why it couldn't. Could be some sort of loose connection inside the HDD itself.Edited by Famous Graham on Thursday 18th February 18:59
Is there no pattern to it? I.e. when warm, or when cold, etc?
Edited by killsta on Thursday 18th February 19:55
When you swapped the cables around, did you just swap the drive ends around, or did you also swap the motherboard ends around as well? If you did the latter, try the former to rule out it being a problem with one specific SATA port. Did you also try swapping the power cables around? If you remove the power cable to one or both of the other drives, does that stop the intermittent BIOS detection issue with the iffy drive?
twister said:
When you swapped the cables around, did you just swap the drive ends around, or did you also swap the motherboard ends around as well? If you did the latter, try the former to rule out it being a problem with one specific SATA port. Did you also try swapping the power cables around? If you remove the power cable to one or both of the other drives, does that stop the intermittent BIOS detection issue with the iffy drive?
I had a very similar problem and it was the stat power cable playing up.Most of the time the disk would be picked up in the bios but it would intermittently stop working.
Cut the cable off the PSU and soldered on a new one and its been fine ever since.
It took me a long time to work out what the fault was.
Rather than jumping straight at a cables issue - cables tend not to come loose 3 years after first inserted and everything working just fine and as expected - I'd be checking out the drives with a SMART checker, and see what's reported.
Also, what free space is available on each one?
Have you ever defragmented, and deleted all the temp files Wonders stores up, for f
k knows what reason! Gigs have been "lost" to that bks, without most people ever being aware.
Also, what free space is available on each one?
Have you ever defragmented, and deleted all the temp files Wonders stores up, for f
k knows what reason! Gigs have been "lost" to that bks, without most people ever being aware.Mattley - "thrum" was the wrong word. I meant I could feel it spinning. Certainly feels consistent.
Twister - yep, totally replaced the data cable - both with a new one and a known good. Also switched around power cables
Smiler - EV shows nothing. As far as Windows is concerned, the drive doesn't exist (given it's not even showing up in the POST, that's not suprising)
PJ S - no SMART diag yet, will be doing that tomorrow. However, free space etc is a pointless exercise given it's not even THERE in Windows thanks to BIOS not even seeing it. As it happens, it's one of my lesser used drives
Ta for the suggestions thus far, folks.
Going to up the delay in the BIOS for a bit, see how that goes (beyond increasing boot time). I suspect the drive's on the way out. Which is annoying, given i can't afford a replacement and have 4 x 250GB IDEs doing nothing but with no spare IDE connections.
Twister - yep, totally replaced the data cable - both with a new one and a known good. Also switched around power cables
Smiler - EV shows nothing. As far as Windows is concerned, the drive doesn't exist (given it's not even showing up in the POST, that's not suprising)
PJ S - no SMART diag yet, will be doing that tomorrow. However, free space etc is a pointless exercise given it's not even THERE in Windows thanks to BIOS not even seeing it. As it happens, it's one of my lesser used drives
Ta for the suggestions thus far, folks.
Going to up the delay in the BIOS for a bit, see how that goes (beyond increasing boot time). I suspect the drive's on the way out. Which is annoying, given i can't afford a replacement and have 4 x 250GB IDEs doing nothing but with no spare IDE connections.
Edited by Famous Graham on Friday 19th February 01:17
Famous Graham said:
Twister - yep, totally replaced the data cable - both with a new one and a known good. Also switched around power
FG, I think you msunderstood Twister's suggestion. Swap the sata cables round at the mobo end. So connect the problem disc to a socket currently used by a disc that is not having problems. That should rule out something else at least. Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff