maxtor SATA drive problem

[shniflbaag]

hey all, I've finally given up and gone out for help.

I have a Maxtor diamondmax 9 SATA drive on my computer, and it worked fine for a long time. However, upon routinely turning it on one day, it eventually gives me the message: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\windows\system32\config\system"

pretty self explanitory, it then tells me to insert the windows XP disk and press 'r' to use the repair button, makes sense.

I restarted and inserted the windows disk, but upon pressing 'r' setup tells me that no hard drive is detected, even when during the boot process before the error you can see it is there, the disk has no jumper switch in it at the moment, but that's how it was when the computer passed to me and it worked fine for a long time, I even tried it with the switch set to master and there was no change, help?

[Leonardo]

If not already performed:

With the computer off and disconnected from power, remove both ends of the hard drive SATA cable, reconnect, and try again. At least with P-ATA drives, sometimes the cable will vibrate slightly loose after a couple years of use. I haven't seen this happen with a SATA cable, but I suppose it's possible.

[shniflbaag]

yea I've done that several times, and on that thought I decided to check the plugs more closely and there doesn't appear to be any sort of damage to any of the plugs on the cable, motherboard or drive

[ardichoke]

Sounds to me like the drive may be toast. I've never had much faith in Maxtor drives. I'd suggest grabbing a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD from http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ it has some drive diagnostics programs. If those don't see your drive or declare it bad, I'm afraid your SOL. If they deem it good... well... I'm not entirely sure.

[shniflbaag]

yea I guess I'll try that, the wierd thing about that is that I put the drive into a friends PC and it read fine, however it wasnt running windows from my drive it was running from the other one
s original drive

[ardichoke]

In that case... it's entirely possible that your hard drive controller is flaking out. If you can't get a clean test out of it from UBCD you might want to try testing the drive in another computer using UBCD.

[shniflbaag]

well I tried this, and upon beginning to run a seatools dignostic the program told me that the drive was too hot, which seemed somewhat odd, there's no clogged fans or the like clogging it as the case is currently open. I booted from the CD again to try and run another maxtor diagnostic program, had to shut it down early and now the computer refuses to boot from the CD anymore, I'm trying to find another computer available that I can run the tests from, but it definetely didn't seem like the drive should've been overheating at all.

[ardichoke]

Is your optical drive a SATA as well? If so, this is starting to sound like a SATA controller failure. If not it may be a southbridge or some other type of motherboard failure.