Hard Drive Failure

RaynorRaynor
edited April 2008 in Hardware
I had a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500gb fail (2 out of 2 so far), this time however I have information I want to keep on it. Just because it won't boot doesn't mean all the data is gone.

So, I got a replacement drive, and installed Vista 64.

The problem:

When I boot my computer normally, it detects my harddrive and goes on with it's business. However, when I connect the bad drive, it fails to recognise that any harddrives are connected and gives me a "BOOT DISK FAILURE" error. Disconnecting the bad drive, it boots just fine again.

While the bad drive is connected it takes two or three minutes to post (ending in a boot disk failure), when it isn't connected it takes more like 10-15 seconds.

Any ideas?

EDIT: In case I was not clear:

SATA 1 : DVD DRIVE
SATA 2: NEW DRIVE
SATA 4: OLD DRIVE

(Configuration where it fails to see either harddrive as connected)

Comments

  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited April 2008
    It might be:

    1) trying to boot off the old drive, in which case your boot priority in the bios should solve that, or...

    2) the drive's onboard controller has failed in some manner and is causing the entire sata controller to go belly up when it's connected. I see this quite often, and there isn't much you can do without a full recovery kit to access the platters and retrieve the data (usually costs thousands to get that done right).
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    onboard controller has failed in some manner and is causing the entire sata controller to go belly up when it's connected
    Oh! I hadn't heard of that one. A new troubleshooting/symptom to file away in the brain. I don't have that much SATA experience yet. I'm letting all my (numerous) P-ATA drives get replaced by SATA mainly through attrition. I haven't actually ever had more than one SATA drive in any one computer at a time.
  • RaynorRaynor
    edited April 2008
    stoopid wrote:
    It might be:

    1) trying to boot off the old drive, in which case your boot priority in the bios should solve that, or...

    2) the drive's onboard controller has failed in some manner and is causing the entire sata controller to go belly up when it's connected. I see this quite often, and there isn't much you can do without a full recovery kit to access the platters and retrieve the data (usually costs thousands to get that done right).

    1. If both drives are connected, when I go into the BIOS it doesn't see either drive.

    2. That's what I was thinking... and since I haven't seen any better explainations =\

    I'm gonna hold on to the drive for another week in case someone comes up with something interesting to try... but I think you may be right.

    I'm also gonna burn a live linux CD and try to see if I can confirm or deny the sata failure.

    EDIT: Although I just thought about it, the CD drive I'm using is also sata... and it still functions (I can try to install Vista, then it says I have no drives to install onto =\)
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited April 2008
    Does your board have two sata controllers? Asus usually has 2 for boards that have six ports, I'm pretty sure Intel does too, they're usually separate colors. But if you do and the drive that failed was on the separate controller, try it on the same one that your Sata DVD drive's on.
  • RaynorRaynor
    edited April 2008
    I've got 6 ports labelled 1-6.

    1 has the CD drive
    2 has my new drive
    4 has the old drive.

    I haven't played around with that order though.

    I'm using a Foxconn MARS mobo.
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