Topic: Hard Drive problem

[Don Karnage]

i got a use 80 gig hd on the com and its the second time that it no longer detected, i mean the computer freeze and i have to reboot it and the HD is no longer show.

i transfer the stuff i care to my 200 gig hd for safety and i was wondering if there anything i can do about it?

there was no warning, the com just froze and when i reboot the hd was not detected.


i have it for 6 month and i don't think it's still under warranty.

[Just plain old Punisher]

Well, there are a number of steps to troubble shoot this problem.

First, you need to check if the cables are firmly seated in both the motherboard and the HD, check the power cables too.

Is your HD getting power? You can check this by turning on your computer, with its case off, and placing your finger on the metal part of the hard drive casing. You should feel vibration from the fan and plateen motor turning. If your hd isn't getting power, try using another power connector. If you don't have another power connector, consider picking up a BERG Y-splitter at your local computer/electronics store.

Make sure your new HD is set to slave, and your start up hd is set to master. You can check the jumper settings on the hard drive.


If your HD is SATA, then you don't need to check ANY slave/master connections.

[Don Karnage]

its a sata HD, it get power but the com freeze and i need to reboot it, and then turn it off and on again so the hd is detected.

it might be dying with out warning 

[Just plain old Punisher]

Quite possible, or it could be a power supply problem. Have you tried connecting the HD to a different power supply plug?

Do you have another computer you can test the HD on?

[Nemesis]

Could also be a bad cable.  In one case the HD was functioning fine until I changed the memory and the minor moving of the HD cable was enough to make it go bad (it must have been on the edge of malfunctioning already).  Fortunately I had a spare lying around.

[Javora]

Could also be a bad cable.  In one case the HD was functioning fine until I changed the memory and the minor moving of the HD cable was enough to make it go bad (it must have been on the edge of malfunctioning already).  Fortunately I had a spare lying around.

It could be that, or it could be the connectors on the hard drive or the motherboard.  A lot of pressure on either one could break the connector.  So I would check the leads on both ends with a new data cable (or at least a data cable that you know works).  Then I would try what Punisher suggested and try another power lead and see if that makes the drive more stable.  Sometimes the rail can go bad on a power supply.

If that doesn't work then I would try going to Disk Management (if he hard drive is recognized by the computer) and see if the OS says the hard drive is healthy or not.  You can get to Disk Management by clicking:  Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management.  Expand the Storage folder on the left side and then double click Disk Management.  While you are in Disk Management right click the hard drive in question at the top of the dialog box (on the right side) and click Properties.  Click the Tools Tab and click the Check Now button in the Error-checking sub-section.  See if you find any errors while that runs.

If none of that works then I would suggest going to the Hard Drive makers website and download the utility program.  Follow the instructions on the website and run that program to see if it can find any errors on the drive.  Those programs are usually pretty good and finding problems on their drives.

If you only had the drive for six months I find it hard to believe that the drive is not under warranty unless you bought it used.  While you are on the Hard Drive's company website see if you can find out if the warranty has expired or not.  If the warranty is not expired try to get a RMA for it and just not tell them you bought it used.  Hope this helps.

[Don Karnage]

i have a spare cable for the sata and i will try another port.

since the mother board is not old its not the port, well my other sata HD is fine and the IDE that i use for windows (only 20 gig) is fine, no problem since last time so i will see if it happen again.