Topic: Mobile rack problems.....

[Centurus]

Hey all.  This is a post I made on another forum.  Since I don't wanna retype everything, I'll do a cut and paste.  If anyone knows of what's going on, please let me know. 

Hi all. This is my first time posting, so if this post is in the wrong place, please forgive me. I read the rules and all relevent threads, so I'm pretty sure i'm in the right place.

Anyway, on to my problem.

I recently built a brand new system, and I installed my existing mobile racks into it. Whenever I tried to boot up the hard drive, it wouldn't boot. I thought it was the mobile racks and trays, that they had gone bad, so I bought some new ones and the same problem happened. I plugged the hard drives I have one at a time straight into the new system without the mobile racks, formatted them, installed Windows, and they work fine. I my last computer, I never had these problems, and these are the same hard drives I had before. I always do a clean format when I build a brand new computer.

The new system is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ installed on a Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G motherboard. The memory is a Kingston DDR2 PC6400 1 gig chip (getting another gig in about a month). The power supply is an Antec Trueblue 2.0 480 watt power supply. The mobile racks are SanMax InClose MDA-96I-BLK. Current operating system is Windows XP Pro w/SP2.

Also installed in the system are the following components:

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4, Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink, EVGA nVidia 7300 GT PCI-E graphics (given as a gift but upgrading later on), Sony Dual Layer DVD burner DRU-800A, Iomega ZIP 250 ATAPI internal.

All my hard drives are Western Digital hard drives since I've never had a problem with any of their drives in the past. I currently have 3x160 gig drives, and purchased a brand new 250 gig drive. All the drives are IDE, 7200 RPM, 8mb buffers.

I use mobile racks because we have one main computer for several people in my house, so each of us having our own particular hard drive with our own programs and applications comes in handy, since there's almost no danger in one person losing someone else's data.

One thing to note though. I also have an old 80 gig and 13 gig hard drive, also western digital, and the odd thing, they work just fine in the mobile racks. I looked at the labels on the hard drives themselves, and noticed that on those drives that work, the 12VDC is labeled to around 0.45A and below, while the 160 gig drives and the 250 are labeled 0.90A.

The 160 gig hard drives always worked perfectly before with the mobile racks in my last computer system, so I can't for the life of me figure out why they're acting like this now.

Any ideas? If this isn't enough information, please let me know and I'll try and post more information. Thank you.

Oh, just in case, below is the system specs for my last system.

AMD Athlon XP 2600+
1.5 gigs of Kingston PC2700 DDR ram
380 watt Antec trueblue power supply
ECS K7VTA3 6.0 motherboard
Same hard drives and mobile racks as before.

[Javora]

If the system is able to boot when the drives are directly connected to the hard drive then I'm guessing that it is some type of Bios/configuration issue between the system and the mobile racks.  Can you give me a link to the type of mobile rack that you use so I can do a little more research?  In the mean time, check out the documentation in both the motherboard and the mobile racks and see if there is a connector or something that need to be done to get drives back in order.  One other thing you can do is take a look in Bios when you boot and see what is and is not recognized by the system.  This may help track down your issue.

[Just plain old Punisher]

Try loading failsafe defaults in the bios.

[Centurus]

No documentation ever came with any of the mobile racks.  Best I can give you is the model number and manufacturer.  The hard drives are being detected by BIOS even when inside the mobile racks, but when they're trying to boot, they just sit there.  I'll give you the link to the mobile rack manufacturer.  In the poist I copied and pasted, I listed the manufacturer and model.

http://www.sanmax.com/products/index.cgi?display=item&part=MDA-96I-B

As I said before, the mobile racks never came with documentation.  They don't require any settings or jumper settings either, since they're not like an additional connection, but more like an extension.  The only thing ever really needed are hard drive jumpers, and since I don't have 2 hard drives installed, running simultaneously, the hard drives never need jumpers.  Keep in mind, I use Western Digital drives, so if they're the only drive being used at the time, a jumper isn't needed to set it as master.

I've read the motherboard manual and look the BIOS over through death.  Can't figure out what's going on. 

Oh, one more thing.  Nothing is over clocked in my system.  I don't believe in doing such things.  I like to make sure that my components will last as long as possible.  :-D 

I do have a couple theories though, both I feel are just really stretching now, since I've been bogged down with problems from day one.

Anyway, this is what I thought up of when I was sleeping today.  If the IDE controllers on the motherboard are just dead set not to work with the mobile racks I have installed now, then I have one of two options.  I can either buy a new brand of mobile rack and see if it'll work, or I disable the IDE controllers on the motherboard, buy an IDE controller card, and see if that does the trick.

Reason I think these are crazy solutions is if it was the mobile rack brand, then why did my old 13 gig and 80 gig work without problems while my 160 gig drives and new 250 gig drive work, and if it's a problem with the onboard IDE controller, then why are my hard drives booting up and operating normally when connected straight to the motherboard.

Any other info anyone needs?  I'm more than willing to give it.

[Sirgod]

Before going to all that expense, Is your Bios the most recent? I know Flashing your Bios can be scary, but most MB makers, do it pretty easily now, almost completly automated.

The other thing you might try, is systamticly adding drives to the rack one at a time. It might be a faulty Drive, and IF so, for some reason, It might be locking up the Rack=PC connection.

Stephen

[Centurus]

The BIOS version on the board was F5 when I finally got the system running.  The one main problem I had in trying to get the computer running, with any hard drive no matter how it was plugged in, was the damned memory chips I was using.  Turns out a bunch of other people had the same problem with the same brand of chips.  FYI, OCZ are not good memory.  Bought a gig of Kingston memory and within a day got a fully working drive up and running, and I flashed my BIOS.  I've updated BIOS versions before and never had a problem.  Current BIOS version now is F6.

As I said before, my 13 gig and 80 gig work fine in the mobile racks, but for some reason my 160 gigs and a brand new 250 gig won't.  The 160 gigs and 250 gig work without a problem when plugged directly to the motherboard.  This is my problem.  I can't figure out why.  My drives themselves are working perfectly.

[Centurus]

P.S.

To everyone that's tried to help me so far, +1.

[Nemesis]

As I said before, my 13 gig and 80 gig work fine in the mobile racks, but for some reason my 160 gigs and a brand new 250 gig won't.  The 160 gigs and 250 gig work without a problem when plugged directly to the motherboard.  This is my problem.  I can't figure out why.  My drives themselves are working perfectly.

I'm assuming that the drives are all Parallel ATA not SATA.  When you plug them directly into the motherboard are you using the same (data) cable as connects to the racks?  If not then you could have a master slave conflict with the DVD or the Zip drive. 

Do the HDs use the same power connection when plugged directly in as they do when in the rack?

Is your BIOS set to autodetect the HD each time or has it set itself the first time the rack was connected for the drive that was in it then?   

Just some guessing as I've never used the removable racks.

[Centurus]

As I said before, my 13 gig and 80 gig work fine in the mobile racks, but for some reason my 160 gigs and a brand new 250 gig won't.  The 160 gigs and 250 gig work without a problem when plugged directly to the motherboard.  This is my problem.  I can't figure out why.  My drives themselves are working perfectly.

I'm assuming that the drives are all Parallel ATA not SATA.  When you plug them directly into the motherboard are you using the same (data) cable as connects to the racks?  If not then you could have a master slave conflict with the DVD or the Zip drive. 

Do the HDs use the same power connection when plugged directly in as they do when in the rack?

Is your BIOS set to autodetect the HD each time or has it set itself the first time the rack was connected for the drive that was in it then?   

Just some guessing as I've never used the removable racks.

Yep, all IDE drives.  Haven't tackled SATAs yet.  I've swapped the data cables on both the first IDE channel and second IDE channel several times, even switching them around, so the cables aren't the problem.  I keep hard drives and CD/DVD rom drives on separate channels, with hard drives always being on the first IDE channel, so there would never be any conflict. 

As for the power connections, yes, they use the exact same ones when connected directly as when connected via mobile racks, and yes, my BIOS is set for auto detect.  Saves me headaches.  That's the first thing I check for when I build a new system.

In the past I've never had problems with mobile racks.  When problems would occur, it was due to a moble rack bay going back, so replacing the bay solved the problem.  In this case, I've used my old bays and trays, and new ones.  Nothing. 

[Sirgod]

It goes without saying your using XP right? I know that win 98 had problems with large drives.

Damn, I wish you lived closer, this looks like the kind of tech problem, I'd love to dig my hands into.

Stephen

[Dracho]

Sometimes those things require the drive to be set to "cable select", even if there is only one drive.  If the drive is set to master it might not work on some models.

[Centurus]

I haven't tried cable select for the larger drives.  Never occured to me.  I'll give it a shot and see if it works.  Here's hoping.

[Centurus]

Just tried using the cable select jumper settings on several drives.  No dice.  :-(

Earlier tonight I installed an ATA controller card and tried using that instead of the onboard IDE controller.  Nothing.  In fact, no matter how the card is configured and no matter how the hard drives are installed, they always crash.

There are only 3 other avenues of actions that I can think of that I have left.  One, replace the mobile racks with a different brand and model.  Two, replace the motherboard, which really isn't an option since this is the 4th board I'm on, but that's because I didn't find out till recently that the OCZ brand memory I had before was causing my problems.  Third and last, start using a different brand of hard drive. 

For now I'm just gonna manually swap the hard drives in and out till I can find the reason for this mobile rack problem.

If anyone can think of anything, please let me know.

If anyone needs my system info again, here it is, but a brief review:

Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G, socket AM2.
Kingston PC6400 DDR2, 1 gig, single channel
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
Antec 480watt Trueblue 2.0
Various western digital IDE hard drives, Caviar and Caviar SE; 3x160 gig hard drives, 1x250 gig hard drive (brand new, purchased in the past 24 hours).

The mobile racks are SanMax InClose MDA-96I-BLK.

An old 13 gig Western Digital and an 80 gig Western Digital, for some reason, work flawlessly in the mobile racks.  My other hard drives need to be connected directly to the computer in order to work properly.

[Dracho]

Any chance the power supply for this rig isn't putting out like it should?  If it's a few volts short you could be seeing this kind of problem.  Are the two old drives that do work 5600 RPM's and the new ones fast drives?  That leads me down the power path still.


Although... m y wife's system is a Gygabyte 939 AMD system and the IDE 2 channel just quit woirking.. just quit..

Though you said you've tried different boards.

[Javora]

Dracho has a good point, what is the Wattage on your power supply?  If it is below 450~480 than I would look into buying a new power supply.

[Centurus]

The 13 gig is I think 5400 RPM, and the 80 gig I know is 7200 RPM.  I thought about the power supply, but if it wasn't putting out the power it's supposed to, then why would the larger hard drives operate normally when plugged directly into the motherboard?

When in the mobile racks, there's power going through, but for some reason either the motherboard doesn't want to accept the data transfer through the mobile rack, or the mobile rack can't transfer the data fast enough to the motherboard's liking.

I could get my PSU checked I suppose.  I tried tonight a SATA mobile rack, just to see if it would work, but nothing.  Then again the SATA didn't want to work even when plugged directly to the motherboard.  So maybe either the PSU is faulty, or the mobo is screwed.

If no one minds reading a long post, I'll write my endeavour to build a new system.

Started out back during the summer.  I bought a Gigabyte board, same model as I have now.  Got a 3800+ single core AM2 processor, and 2 gigs of OCZ memory.  When I finally got the PSU, case, and a couple other things, I slapped the computer together, but the system would crash on it's own, sometimes as soon as it booted.  I double checked every single connection for nearly 2 days, and found nothing wrong.  I concluded the board was bad.  Returned it and got another one, but I had another problem with that one.  The Windows setup always hung up, no matter what I was doing.  Even plugging the hard drive straight to the motherboard wasn't working.  Turns out that with this second board, the problem was more than likely the OCZ memory, pure junk if you ask me, but I didn't know it at the time.  So, I returned the whole works, got my money back, and left.

Couple weeks later, I buy an ASUS board, another 2 gigs of OCZ memory (at this time I still didn't know the brand was sh*t, and I had returned the last 2 gigs I had), got a 3500+ processor, and attempted another build of the system.  Sure enough, wouldn't work.  Couldn't figure out why.  Spent a whole weekend and part of the following week looking over every single connection, every single component, and nothing.  When I managed to get Windows setup finished, it would crash, and one time it gave an error that the BIOS wasn't ACPI compliant.  Figured it was a bad BIOS.  Returned the board and processor, got an advertised mobo/processor combo, and installed it.

The board and processor I have now is that mobo/processor combo.  240 bucks for a dual core AM2 with a motherboard.  That's a steal.  I had the same problems as before, where I couldn't get Windows to even install, and where it would hang, even when the hard drive was plugged directly into the motherboard.  I did some digging around, researching the models of the hardware I had installed, and came across customer reviews with problems similar to my own, regarding the brand of memory.  It was then that I concluded the brand of memory was bad.  I returned it, bought a gig of Kingston, which I should have done in the first place, and now I've got Windows installed on several hard drives. 

Only problem now, my mobile racks don't work with my larger drives.  I suppose it could be the PSU, but I don't know how.  It's a 480 watt Antec.  Never had problems with Antec supplies in the past.  Dished out the power I demanded of it, and had other swear by them in times where power wasn't stable.  But then again at this point, I'm willing to re-examine every component.  I already know my IDE cables, mobile racks, and hard drives are working fine.  The memory is working fine.  Graphics, working fine.  My soundcard is working fine.  So it's either the motherboard, not wanting to work with mobile racks, or the PSU is faulty. 

I suppose the mobile rack would need to pull more juice from the connection than the hard drive would because of the power needed to run the fan to cool the hard drive.  The thought has crossed my mind, especially since when I looked at the hard drive labels, it says 12VDC IS .90A for my 160 gig hard drives and 250 gig hard drives, and the 13 and 80 gig hard drives are .45A and under.  I know my 160 gig drives work with the mobile racks because I had these same mobile racks and hard drives in my last system, and that PSU was only a 350watt Antec, and I know that PSU is still good and going strong.

Dracho, something you just said triggered off in my mind just now, about your wife's board.  I tried installing a SATA drive tonight, because I want to learn how to set up SATA drives.  I followed all the instructions to the letter that both the motherboard manual and hard drive manual told me to do, and when Windows had finished formatting the drive, during the file copy process, it crashed.  Didn't do anything.  This hard drive was plugged directly to the system.  I also tried using a mobile rack for it.  I think I mention this earlier in the post.

Does anyone think that maybe, just maybe, the motherboard brand, Gigabyte, isn't all that good, and maybe the board is the problem when it comes to getting my mobile racks working?  I know there's power going to the mobile racks, but for some reason, data doesn't want to be transmitted.  So I don't know if it's my motherboard or my PSU is faulty. 

If you guys had to guess, which would it be?

[Dracho]

Gigabyte boards are considered fairly stable.  You could have a bad one, but...I bought a Lan Party board for my last PC, but I don't think I'll go there again.  It's more of a tweakers board and there are just way too many bios settings, and it does not have a parallel port.

480 Watt power supply is not as much as you think.  You're running a dual core processor, a graphics card with a fan, no doubt, a dvd drive, and all your misc. stuff.  I'd like to see a minumum of 600 watts in a system like that. 

In your shoes I'd take the drive array with the big drives and hook it to a friend's PC.  Or, a cheaper alternative would be to just buy a big power supply and keep your current as a back-up. Your system sounds underpowered to me, even withour the array.   Hrm... here is how I would troubleshoot this, from cheapest to most expensive.

#1 Check all bios settings related to the HDD controllers.

#2 Remove everything from the PC except the video card and drive array

#3 Ensure the CD or DVD isn't on the same channel as the array.

#4 - Take the array to another computer and verify it works

#5 - Disable the APTI power management features inthe BIOS.  Sometimes it causes cause problems..

#6 - Disable the onboard drive controllers and try running it from a EIDE controller expansion card (that'll tell if it's the board"

#7 Upgrade the power supply if the array has functioned with a bare minimum or pull on your PS (i.e. when stripped)

#8 Change the motherboard for a different brand

[Javora]

The 13 gig is I think 5400 RPM, and the 80 gig I know is 7200 RPM.  I thought about the power supply, but if it wasn't putting out the power it's supposed to, then why would the larger hard drives operate normally when plugged directly into the motherboard?

When in the mobile racks, there's power going through, but for some reason either the motherboard doesn't want to accept the data transfer through the mobile rack, or the mobile rack can't transfer the data fast enough to the motherboard's liking.

I could get my PSU checked I suppose.  I tried tonight a SATA mobile rack, just to see if it would work, but nothing.  Then again the SATA didn't want to work even when plugged directly to the motherboard.  So maybe either the PSU is faulty, or the mobo is screwed.

I think that the answer to your first question could be added electrical resistance combined with a low watt power supply.  What I mean by that is that every time you use another set of connectors to plug something in causes electrical resistance.  That is why some power users don't like power supplies that have removable connector wires.  Your mobile rack creates an extra layer of electrical resistance due to the extra connectors needed in between the motherboard and the hard drives that your mobile rack requires.

I don't understand why the SATA drives don't work in your system.  Does your system require SATA drivers to be installed (F6) when you are installing Windows?  If so your drivers could be corrupt otherwise I suspect your motherboard is faulty or is does not have enough power from the power supply to run properly.  The problem is that sometimes you have to use trial and error method to track down a issue.  In this case your power supply maybe not be giving you the power needed to run the hard drives.

Given what information you have given us so far I would first check out the SATA drivers issue to make sure those drivers were installed correctly.  This may require a new install of windows.  Then would replace the power supply with at least a 600 Watt power supply.  If none of that works then I would see about replacing your motherboard.  I know replacing the power supply may feel like a unnecessary expense on the chance that it might solve the issue.  However the power supply you have now could be damaging (or has already damaged) your motherboard by not providing your system enough power to run.  So in this case I don't feel that replacing the power supply is a wasted expense.

Hope things work out for you, let us know.

[Dracho]

On the SATA thing... you positive you're not crossing ATA & SATA technologies?

[Centurus]

The graphics card doesn't require additional power for the fan, so that saves on power.  The DVD burner is always on IDE channel 1, while the hard drives are on channel 0, and I rarely ever have 2 hard drives plugged in at the same time, due to the fact that I hardly ever have to transfer large amounts of data from one drive to another.  Normally when I'm moving my stuff to a newer, larger drive.  But that's rare.

Aside from the case fans now being used, cause this is a new case as well, and also the heatsink and graphics, and obviously the mobo and processor, I've run all of these components with a 350watt.  Motherboard manual requires a minimum 300 watt supply.  Hell, right now I have only the DVD burner and hard drive plugged in with power, and have the fans unplugged, aside from the heatsink.  Even with all of that unplugged, problems still persist. 

I'll try replacing the power supply with a larger one.  Maybe I'll get one with modular cables.  Cut down on the cable mess in the case.

As for the SATA, as I had said before, I had downloaded the latest drivers for the SATA controller, and installed them properly, and the drive still stalled and stopped on its own.  The SATA hard drive that is.  And no, I am not crossing the IDE and SATA connections.  I take precautions against that.  Like I said, I hardly ever have 2 hard drives running at the same time.

I already know the mobile racks work.  They were working when they were in my last system, and they work when my older drives are plugged into them on this system.

I don't think the system is underpowered, cause I don't have enough components sucking power at the same time to even strain the PSU. 

Last night when the SATA refused to install after several attempts, and keep in mind this was an unused SATA drive so Windows was never installed, the Windows setup crashed.  Just refused to continue, and the drive was getting power.

I have tried using an IDE controller card.  I had an unused one that I tried, but the computer crashed when it tried to boot the hard drives, and the motherboard IDE controllers were disabled through BIOS manually.  I went and bought an Adaptec controller card.  The exact same thing happened.  I switched the slot that the controller card was put into, and still, same thing happened, and I followed the instructions carefully.  So trying a controller card won't work, cause the system refuses to allow it to work.  Just crashes.  Can't even install Windows with a drive hooked to the controller card.  Just dies before setup can even start.

So either my PSU is faulty, or, as you all are suggesting, just not enough, or it's the motherboard.  With the failed SATA hard drive installation last night, I'm leaning towards motherboard myself.

If anyone has any other thoughts, please, let me know.

My gut is telling me that the PSU is giving enough power to juice everything up, since most of these components were running flawlessly in my other system, and that had a 350 watt, barely a little more than what the motherboard said it required.

[F9th0mega]

the antec PSU he has is completely ample for what hes got... its not a high end graphics card, and dual core CPU's arent necessarily power whores... infact his is 65 or 89W TDP... (more likely 89) and the graphics card is very light too as its a 7300GT... Its not the PSU...

[Nemesis]

Try loading failsafe defaults in the bios.

Punishers suggestion is a good one. 

Once upon a time I was trying to install Linux on a highly tweaked system and it just would not install.  So I attempted to revert to Windows and IT wouldn't install either.  I then set the BIOS to defaults plus the minimum customizing (mostly turning off things that weren't installed or wanted) then both Linux and Windows were able to install.  You just may have some BIOS setting  or combination of settings that is fouling you up for the install.

You might  consider underclocking the CPU and memory just in case some component is running right on the edge.

[Javora]

the antec PSU he has is completely ample for what hes got... its not a high end graphics card, and dual core CPU's arent necessarily power whores... infact his is 65 or 89W TDP... (more likely 89) and the graphics card is very light too as its a 7300GT... Its not the PSU...

Didn't realize that, but then I don't think he listed his video card and I was thinking he was running in the high end.  That being the case, my focus goes back to the motherboard.  The only other thing I could think of is the data/power cables on the mobile rack but he already said that it worked with an older drive.  Have you tried contacting the motherboard maker?

[Centurus]

I loaded both the optimized and fail safe loadouts a day apart.  Problem persists.  In fact it's because of Punisher's suggestion that I attempted it.  As for underclocking the memory and CPU, they're already running at normal.  I don't think there are any settings anywhere in BIOS that will allow me to run them lower.  Although I have had some thoughts in the back of my head that the current technology may just not be compatible, either by design or by coincidence, with mobile racks.  Doubt that's the case though.

I think I still will get a larger power supply.  I originally intended to upgrade the PSU eventually cause I originally wanted a 550 watt, but could only afford the 480 trueblue 2.0 at the time.  But, like I said, my gut is telling me that my PSU isn't the problem.

Late Saturday night I sent e-mails to both the mobo manufacturer and the mobile rack manufacturer, telling them both exactly what was going on, and giving both my current system specs with model numbers.  Nothing yet.  I'm expecting them to contact me sometime either at the end of the week or middle of next week.

In the meantime, I think I'm gonna take my computer into a diagnostic place, and see if I can find someone who will actually consider the possibility that I know what I'm doing.  My mom works in data systems, and she's had to deal with a bunch of computer techs who always were big shots, like they were the best, and here comes my mom and shows them up and makes them look like idiots.  So I know how some comp techs act.  Maybe that's why I've been weary of taking my computer in, and doing the trial and error routine for figuring out the problem.

My last system had a VIA chipset, and this new one has nVidia.  I know VIA has been around much longer, cause I remember my old old OLD Pentium 166 MHz system having a VIA chipset.  Is it possible, hypothetically speaking, that the nVidia chipset technology just doesn't like having to work with mobile racks?  I have a feeling I'm just grasping at straws now.

[Dracho]

Just as a lark try disabling all the power management features, both in the bios and the OS.  I've had weird problems cause by those before and now, by default I keep it disabled.Also, on the ATA I did not mean crossing ATA and IDE, I meant ATA and SATA.  They are slightly different.. like USB 1.1 and 2.0.

[Centurus]

I do know the difference between IDE and SATA.  I've worked with computers long enough to tell what's an IDE connection and not.  That's why I said I take precautions against that.  Never more than 1 hard drive working in my computer at a time, and when I tried to setup the SATA hard drive, there were no other hard drives, IDE or otherwise, installed, and I installed the SATA drivers during Windows setup.  Also, my DVD burner is always on one IDE controller, and my IDE hard drive on another.  I had said this before.

As for power management, there aren't really any active.  Those that are are default and can't be changed, altered, or even turned off.  They're mainly power monitors making sure the vital parts are getting the proper current. 

[Centurus]

P.S.

ATA/PATA is IDE.  A computer connection of the same interface by any other name is pretty much still the same. 

[Dracho]

P.S.

ATA/PATA is IDE.  A computer connection of the same interface by any other name is pretty much still the same. 

Well now I'm confused.. My wife's PC will not run my SATA drives from my system, but it has a very small cable marked ATA that is similar to the SATA..what the hell are those things then?

[Centurus]

How old is your wife's computer?  Just recently have I seen PATA or ATA being used to describe what used to be known as IDE or EIDE.  It may be possible your wife's computer has one of the first SATA controllers that came out, when IDE was still called IDE.

[Centurus]

Oh, another name that IDE has been called by is Ultra ATA, but it's still IDE.

[Dracho]

It's a small connector, like my SATA connectors, but they are plainly labeled ATA 1, 2 3, & 4 and it will NOT run my drivers...


Er... hrm..   It's Gigabyte board with an Nvidia chipset that's about 2-3 years old.  It's running an AMD 3500.

Coincidence?

You know, for about $20 you can buy an IDE expansion board, disable the IDE controllers in the BIOS, and hook your rack to that.  If it's the motherboard, that should bypass the problem.

[Centurus]

I've never heard of a connection such as those that exist in your wife's computer.

As for the controller card, I've already mentioned at least 3 times that I've tried it, and it didn't work.  In fact, it crashed my system every time.  I first used one I had in storage that I never used, then I bought one from Adaptec, and the same thing happen.  Crashed the system.  And yes, the onboard IDE controllers on the motherboard were disabled.  The system constantly crashed.  I couldn't even install Windows cause it would crash before it could even boot from the CD.  I put the cards in different slots, and no, I didn't have the cards in at the same time. 

Scroll up about a few of my posts and you'll find the first time I reported having done this.

[Centurus]

I do know that for SATA drives, you need to run the drivers for that particular board.  Such things tend to be system specific.  You already know this though. 

As for the Gigabyte board in your wife's system and the Gigabyte board in my system being a coincidence, it could be, but I'm getting an even deeper feeling that it's not.

I got a response from Gigabyte today, and they asked if the drives are even being picked up in BIOS when installed in the mobile racks.  I must have been working on the problem too hard because I forgot to mention that they are being detected when in the mobile racks.  Hopefully I'll get another reply tomorrow.

[Nemesis]

A test you might try is to install one of the drives that is bootable directly to the controller and add one of the non bootable racked drives as well and see if windows can read the racked drive when booted from the unracked drive.  If it can in that situation read the racked drive then it is something in the boot process not a basic incompatibility with the drive.

One thing I would try (but you may not have the desire or resources to try) is booting a Linux live CD and seeing if it could read the racked drive.  Of course I'd also be installing Linux on the racked drive and seeing if it worked where Windows failed as that would remove the ability of the hardware to function together from being an issue if it worked.

In any case good luck and let us know the solution when you find it.  Hopefully Gigabyte (or the rack maker if they respond) will be able to find a solution if you don't beat them to it.

[Centurus]

I tried something similiar with the IDE cards.  I didn't even have anything connected to them, the system still crashed, again, with the motherboard IDE controlellrs disabled.

I'm hoping that I find what the problem is.

I don't know if this is an issue with Gigabyte boards in general, or just this series, or my motherboard specifically, or maybe nVidia chipsets don't like mobile racks.  *smacks his head against a spiked wall*   

So many possibilities.

[Dracho]

Does it crash when Windows is loading, or before then?

I'm wondering if replacing all the MOBO drivers might help, or flashing the BIOS.. sure sounds more and more like the board is choking.

[Centurus]

The IDE controller card caused the board to crash about a couple seconds after the card initialized, before it would try and boot the hard drives.

I already flashed the BIOS when I was finally able to get Windows installed and working the very first time.  This was a couple weeks ago when I finally got the memory I needed to get this rig stable.  It's the hard drive I'm using now, which is plugged directly to the IDE cable.

I wouldn't be surprised if the board is choking.  Like I said, the first board I had of this model crashed on it's own, without a hard drive even installed.  The second one wouldn't let me install Windows, but knowing what I know how about the OCZ memory, I think it was the memory that caused the second board to crash.  This third board, if it was 100% working fine when I got it, there is a possibility that the bad memory modules caused some damage that is manifesting itself in these unusual problems.  Then again, there's a chance the whole brand is bad.  Don't know though. 

If I return the board and get another one, since I purchased a service plan with the board, and I install the board and get the same problems, then I'm writing it off as the entire series, if not brand, that's bad, and dishing out the cash for another board.

I just wish I knew if these problems are related just to this particular motherboard, or if the technology has advanced so much that this is a permanent problem, regardless of motherboard, regardless of manufacturer.  Just frustrating now knowing.

Oh, and anyone gonna go see Man of the Year with Robin Williams?  If he were running for president for real, I'd vote for him.

[Javora]

Do you have Windows drive connected to the mobile rack?  If so try connecting it directly to the motherboard and have data-only drives connected to the mobile rack.  Then see if you can get a stable boot this way if you haven't already tried this.  Also see if those drives are recognized correctly when in Bios.  Are any of these drives unformatted?

Let me know exactly how Bios lists these drives as(including boot order), if there listed at all.  Now that I'm thinking of it, when you install Windows were all the drives connected at the same time during the install?


I have a idea but I need more information, I don't want to waste any more of your time than I already have.

[Sirgod]

OT: Haven't seen that, I did watch RV the other day with Robin Williams, and found it to be OK.

How did the Man of the Year compare to one of my personal fav's My Fellow Americans?

Anywho, when It comes to IDE cards, and power supplies, I'm not the guy to ask. The best I could offer, is I do have an extra PS that's 550 watts, that I guess I could loan you. It's of course a backup for me, But If It turns out to be the MB, then It really isn't needed.

stephen

[Centurus]

I've already mentioned several times how the hard drives are connected, but I'll repeat myself again.

The hard drive, with Windows or just set for storage, will not boot in the mobile racks.  They crash for some reason, and I don't know why.  Power is not the problem, and I doubt the IDE connection to the bay and inside the tray are the problem, because, as I said before, and old 80 gig and 13 gig that I put in my mobile racks work fine, and I always, ALWAYS, do clean formats of any drive I use if I build a new system. 

BIOS picks up the hard drives regardless of how they're installed.  They show the drive model number of the particular hard drive connected at the time.  The only drive that was unformatted was my 250 gig hard drive that I bought during the weekend, and the same problem persists, when in mobile racks, they don't work; when outside, they do. 

Since I am not using a combo of IDE and SATA drives, the hard drive's are listed according to the IDE controller they're connected to, and what jumper settings are in use on the hard drive, and as I said before that I never really have 2 or more drives installed at the same time, all my hard drives are set to master, and no, they are not in the computer at the same time, so they can't conflict.  Again, said this before.  Also, as I had said before, I always have my hard drives on the first IDE channel, and my DVD burner on the second.  They never are on the same channel, and aside from my zip drive that's currently unplugged, both power plug and IDE connection, the DVD drive doesn't share the IDE channel with any other device.  And BIOS is set for auto detect of any devices, even for the SATA controllers.  It's the only way to go.

As for installing multiple installations of Windows, I like to be safe.  I actually go through the long long process of formatting and installing Windows on each drive individually.  This is the best method for me since, to me, it's the simplest.  I don't have to worry about screwing up the format or Windows install on another hard drive, nor on the hard drive I'm setting up at the time.

One thing I haven't mentioned though is someting that just came to mind just now writing this post is that once, in trying to diagnose this problem, I turned off the first IDE channel and plugged the hard drive into the second IDE channel, with the hard drive set to master and DVD set to slave.  Someone had recommended that I try it to see if it worked.  It didn't.  In fact, the system took about a minute and a half trying to detect any connected drives, and then it would just hang.  Hell, it was worth a shot.

Setting up my mobile racks for simply storage drives is not really an option to me.  In my very first post, with the copied post I had pasted, I said I wasn't the only one that uses this computer, so having separate hard drives is best, that way I don't have to worry about any of my stuff on my hard drive being screwed up, and vice versa.  Each drive has it's own install of Windows, and it's own programs.  Makes life much easier for me.  So having one main drive always installed and having storage in mobile racks isn't an option for me.  If my mom uses the computer and accidentially does something that causes the system to crash, not only is she down, but so am I, and I've gotta spend time trying to get back up and running.  And if the hard drive just dies for no reason, again, same problem.  Gotta spend time trying to get back up and running, only this time, I gotta take the time to open the case and replace the hard drive. 

With the mobile rack setup I've always used, one drive has a problem, I can pull it out and put in another one and suffer really no down time, and if a drive is about to die, I can transfer the data to another storage device before the drive is inoperable.  Also, if I get a new larger hard drive for either myself or my mom, formatting and setting it up is easy, cause I can just put the drive in a mobile rack tray, lock it into the rack, and start setting up Windows, without having to worry about a permanent drive inside the computer.

If I have appeared frustrated, I apologize.  Just that I keep getting asked the same questions over and over again after I answer them, and not so much here on these forums, just everywhere. 

[Javora]

Yeah, ok.

This is what I would do at this point.  Disconnect all the hard drives and the mobile rack connected to the system except for the drive containing Windows.  Make sure the Windows drive is not connected to the mobile rack but connected to the primary/master IDE channel and set the hard drive as master drive.  Also make sure that the CD/DVD drive is connected to the Secondary/Master IDE channel.  Reformat the Windows drive and reinstall windows.  When you reformat the drive do a full (zero out all bits) format, and not just reformat the headers.  Again make sure that the drive that will contain Windows is the only hard drive connected to the system while you are installing windows.  Once Windows is reinstalled (along with any needed drivers) then and only then reconnect the mobile rack to the system with one of the data drives and see if there are any instability or crashes.  If there is no instability or crashes then connect the Windows drive to the mobile rack and see if there are any instability or crashes.

At this point I can't rule out a corrupt Windows install.  Since Bios is labeling the drives correctly and in the correct order when it boots, I don't believe that it is a motherboard issue.  That leaves the the mobile rack and Windows.  Since the mobile rack works with older drives, that leaves me with Windows as the primary suspect.  So by following the instructions in the above paragraph should rule out any outside influences that could corrupt a Windows install.  Once Windows is reinstalled and you start moving around the drives we should get a clear picture of what is causing the system to hang, if it hangs at all.

If I may suggest, when people post questions about computer issues, try to stay away from long lengthly posts.  People I know that offer on line help tend to skip over stuff if the post tends to drift off topic and get to long.  That is how people skip important information that is stuck in the middle of a long drawn out post somewhere.  What I do if I have a question is keep the questions and information as short and to the point as possible and list my full system components at the bottom of the first post so people trying to help me out can look to it as a reference.

[Centurus]

Everything you suggested doing I did long time ago.  The old hard drives had fresh Windows installs.  I formatted them both in the mobile racks and outside, and they booted without problems in and out of the mobile racks.  The 160 gig drives and 250 gig drive I tried formatting in the mobile racks, but Windows setup crashed, so I formatted them when they were connected directly to the IDE cable, and they worked, but if I put them in the mobile rack, they just wouldn't work for some reason.  BIOS identified them and picked them up, but Windows wouldn't boot.  Plugged directly to the IDE cable, they booted with no errors.  In the past, I could format the drive in the mobile rack, and never had a problem, but that was in my old machine.

As I said, before and yet again, my hard drives and CD/DVD rom drives are always on different IDE channels, and my hard drives are always set to master, since I never have more than one drive in there at a time, unless I'm moving large chunks of information back and forth.  I did forget to mention that my DVD drive is set to master on the second IDE channel.  Always has been.

I can rule out a bad Windows install because I attempted various installs and formats several times, and I believe I mentioned that before.  Problem persists.  13 and 80 gig drives work in the mobile racks, and I can reformat them to death while in the mobile racks, but I can't do it with any of my 160 gig hard drives or my brand new 250 gig hard drive.  The larger drives will only format and boot properly when connected directly to the IDE cable, and there is only one connected at any given time.

I would rather post lengthy posts because that way no one is asking me a question to which I have already provided the answer.  Saves time and effort, or at least it's supposed to.  Depends if people actually take the time to read the posts. 

Not to sound disrespectful, but since I wasn't really getting anywhere with this thread, although some people did try to help, and I am thankful, I decided to take the machine in to get checked out from top to bottom.  I gave them a complete list of all the symptoms and also a list of what I tried to do.  Chances are they're not gonna pay attention anyway.  I didn't know what else to do, aside from dishing out a few hundred bucks for new parts and essentially build another system all over again from scratch, but I don't know if that would do any good, and I don't have the resources to figure out what's going on.

I have a feeling it's the motherboard, but at this point, I don't know if I'm right or wrong.  I do know that my hard drives are working fine, mobile racks are working fine, power supply is working fine, memory is working fine.  Aside from that, I don't really know anymore.

They said it would take about a week to inspect it.  I have a feeling I'm gonna end up having to get another motherboard all over again. 

[Nemesis]

Best of luck and don't forget to let us know the resolution.  Knowing might help someone else solve a problem.

[Centurus]

Best of luck and don't forget to let us know the resolution.  Knowing might help someone else solve a problem.

Absolutely.  The mobo manufacturer said that it could either be an incompatibility issue with either the mobile rack brand or the chipset technology.  If that's the case, there's a possible chance that I'm never gonna be able to use mobile racks again, if it turns out to be the chipset, and if I end up trying several different brands with the same results. 

Needless to say, I've got a lot of hand work ahead of me. 

[Centurus]

Thought I'd give an update to this topic, just in case someone down the line runs into something similar.

The store I took my computer to for diagnosis really screwed up.  They never bothered to read the problem description.  They thought the problem was the hard drive and diagnosed the hard drive, then said that Windows needed to be reinstalled.  Talk about a load of bull.

When I pointed out exactly what I had written down, and got extremely pissed that it took 16 days for all this to be finished, they refunded me my money and gave me my computer back.

I found another brand of mobile rack, and figuring that I had already gotten my money back, I could try just one more avenue of thought.

It worked.  From what I can gather, the older brand of mobile rack probably couldn't handle the data transmission from larger capacity drives on the newest systems.  This new mobile rack is running solid now for 3 hours and so far so good.  No lag, no crashes, no pauses, nothing.

The new mobile rack brand is Kingwin.  But, I'm not completely out of the woods yet.  Gotta call Microsoft and explain to them that I built a new machine for myself, using all my old hard drives and most of the hardware from my last machine in this new beast, and ask them to let me activate Windows.  Knowing them, they'll tell me to purchase either a new copy or a license key from them.

But anyway, as for the mobile rack front, the battle is won, and I am victorious!!!!

Now, could someone help me rebuild my shoulder?  I really screwed it up lifting this monster of a case all over the place.

[Nemesis]

Glad to see you have a solution.  Unfortunate that it involves replacing the removable bays.

Now, could someone help me rebuild my shoulder?  I really screwed it up lifting this monster of a case all over the place.

Thats wetware and not covered by this forum.