Hard Drive and 7

[Eltargrim]

Hey there, long time since I've been asking for help. My turn

I have a WD 500GB HDD that has been...temperamental since I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The issue is that 75% of the time Windows can't see it. It's recognized in BIOS, and when it is recognized by Windows there's no data loss or corruption.

There is another seemingly related issue. Occasionally when my computer is POSTing the SATA data is corrupted. For example, it will only recognize two of my four drives (On one SATA port pair) while not recognizing the other two (On another SATA port pair), and corrupts the data for my two IDE CD drives (NoneUNG Model Number Here and None-ON Model Number Here instead of SAMSUNG and LITE-ON, respectively).

So, in short it looks like I may have either an OS issue, a HDD issue, a motherboard issue (SATA controller?), or as a long shot, a PSU issue (I've seen enough cross-diagnoses to consider it). Anyone care to chip in as to how to thin the competitors?

[MasterOfMagic]

Well, to test if its the OS you could consider downloading a Live CD (I'd do a BartPE-ish windows one and a Linux one of your choice) to see if it has similar problems under another OS. If it doesn't, then its the OS, if it does, mark one off the list.

[Eltargrim]

Didn't know about BartPE, thanks! I've got an Ubuntu .iso on the download as we speak; gave my last copy away to a friend. Soon we shall see!

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Eltargrim

There is another seemingly related issue. Occasionally when my computer is POSTing the SATA data is corrupted. For example, it will only recognize two of my four drives (On one SATA port pair) while not recognizing the other two (On another SATA port pair), and corrupts the data for my two IDE CD drives (NoneUNG Model Number Here and None-ON Model Number Here instead of SAMSUNG and LITE-ON, respectively).

"Occasionally" here, meaning it's not consistent behavior, leads me to suspect the issue lay in the hardware, especially since you're talking about pre-OS loading. I would wonder if this is related to the OS not loading your hard drive as well, but running live CDs may help shed light there.

If possible, try connecting the drives in question to another board/machine and see how they post there and if they are seen correctly. I know this isn't always easy to do unless you just have machines lying around or helpful friends.

[Nikose Tyris]

I'm rolling dice here to say it's either a faulty SATA port or a Dying Hard Drive. Haven't seen a Faulty SATA port before but I'm sure they exist. Try swapping which cables connect where, see if you see an increase in POST issues.

[Eltargrim]

All right, I have an opportunity to run some tests now. In order, I will be doing the following:

1a) Running BartPE and see if it recognizes the drive
1b) If 1a) fails, run Ubuntu 9.10

If either of those are successful, it heavily leans toward an OS issue. However, I'll probably be doing some cable swapping anyway. I may have an extra working SATA pair; I'm not sure if they're only enabled by RAID settings. Hopefully they'll work.

2. Swap cables (Known working with trouble drive)
3. Swap SATA doublet (Honestly, I'm not sure if they're connected in any way, but given whenever I get my POST issue the other drive isn't recognized as well leads me to believe that they are)
4. Test on another computer (I have a friend who owes me a solid from when his PSU died. Shouldn't be too hard )

As to the POST issue: I've seen it before on my computer, and the last time I saw it my Samsung 1TB drive kicked the bucket. Into space. 1TB turned, in both OS and BIOS, into 32 MB. Seriously, tried every drive-recovery trick I could find. No luck whatsoever. Hurrah for warranties.

In any case, be back in an hour or so! Thanks for all of your input

UPDATE: Tried it with BartPE, no dice. Ubuntu recognizes it fine, however, so I'm copying my data off onto my TB drive. I'll try switching cables sometime tomorrow, but right now it is sleepy time for Eltargrim. More diagnostics to come in...well, anywhere from now to 48 hours from now

[Doc ock rokc]

You might also want to check out what SATA id it's on...if its the boot drive and it isn't one it sometimes has problems

[Nikose Tyris]

To be honest, I have not seen that issue appear as an OS problem ever before. My experience is limited to, well, what I've experienced, but I'm really putting money on the hardware itself.

That said, I should also mention that, for every computer I've repaired, 8/10 of them are the PSU. Consider it, but consider it last.

[Eltargrim]

Alright, I have a quick update. I copied all of my important data off the drive...and now Win7 recognizes it. Whether or not the drive is recognized seems to directly correlate to how long it takes for the computer to boot (IE to login page). Weird. I'll have more time to get some more diagnostics tonight.