Weird - SATA drive disappears

bzbatl · 07-27-2007, 12:17 AM

So I got a new 500 gigger. I plug it into SATA channel 4 and the drive that's on channel 2 disappears.

So I put channel 2 onto channel 3, and it still disappears. I unplug the new drive and it reappears. WTF?!

This is a Abit IL-8 motherboard, which has 4 onboard SATA connectors. The drives in question are a Seagate 500GB and a Hitachi 250GB. The Hitachi is the disappearing act.

The 500 seems to just make the 250 disappear. It's the weirdest shit... any ideas? All the nerd forums haven't been any help so far. There are no jumpers on a SATA drive.

AEgeus · 07-27-2007, 11:13 AM

I wonder if they are trying to share the same drive letter? Go into your disk manager and change the drive letter to something unused.

ballistic5 · 07-27-2007, 12:55 PM

how large is your power supply, running three hard drives with a p4 and a cdrom drive you should be at a 450W. also check the settings on your bios. under integrated peripherals>onchip ide devices> change the on chip SATA controler to enhanced mode.. this will allow two ide devices and up to 4 SATA devices.

between the two items all your drives should show up in the system

Choco · 07-30-2007, 09:01 AM

^most people underestimate the importance of a good power supply.

bzbatl · 07-30-2007, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AEgeus

I wonder if they are trying to share the same drive letter? Go into your disk manager and change the drive letter to something unused.

Nope, new drive is assigned to G. D drive keeps disappearing (nothing replaces it).

bzbatl · 07-30-2007, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ballistic5

how large is your power supply, running three hard drives with a p4 and a cdrom drive you should be at a 450W. also check the settings on your bios. under integrated peripherals>onchip ide devices> change the on chip SATA controler to enhanced mode.. this will allow two ide devices and up to 4 SATA devices.

between the two items all your drives should show up in the system

I ponied up about $120 for an Antec "True Power" supply with the individual connectors about 2 years ago. I believe it was rated at 500W.

I didn't know about that BIOS setting. I went through everything, I didn't see anything about the SATA other than "Enable". I'll check again.

ballistic5 · 07-30-2007, 04:08 PM

follow my steps they are for your mainboard.

bzbatl · 07-31-2007, 11:04 AM

I think that did the trick. They're both visible now. Thanks ballistic!

ballistic5 · 07-31-2007, 05:52 PM

glad everything worked out.. let me know if anything else is needed

bzbatl · 08-01-2007, 03:28 PM

Well, I don't get it. It was working fine, I burned a couple CDs, and the D drive disappeared again. It comes back after I reboot.

I don't get it.

killernoodle · 08-03-2007, 08:22 AM

How old is the SATA cable? I find some of the older ones to be very flimsy and the connector on the end tends to split in half and not work anymore, especially if it gets unplugged and plugged back in several times.

Is the drive spinning when it disappears?

ballistic5 · 08-03-2007, 02:11 PM

odd that it disapears now.. how is the cooling in your case. they will shut down if they over heat. you said you were burning cd's witch runs up your hard drive proccesser and cdrom. thats a lot of heat.

other then that replace sata cable. or new drive is faulty.

bzbatl · 08-06-2007, 01:15 PM

I think I'm good on the cooling:

120mm fan on the drives (blowing into the case from the front panel), 2 80mm intakes on the side of the case, 2 80mm exhaust out the back, 2 fans on the power supply, 1 50mm (I think?) blowing into the 3.5" bays from the side, 120mm Thermaltake heatsink on the processor, and a 55mm on the video.

I replaced the SATA cable, but that didn't help. It had been locking up the computer when it disappeared for about a minute (like the computer "knew" it lost the drive and was trying to find it, or something). I've since disconnected the drive.

I *think* it might be going bad. The last time it locked up and disappeared it made a clicking sort of noise. Doesn't sound good...

Perhaps old drive is faulty all of a sudden, or just happened to be about the same time as the newly installed one

ballistic5 · 08-07-2007, 12:01 AM

sounds like it just went bad.. install it and get your data off while you still can. its odd how things go bad with computers. it might have been right on the edge of dying and when the case was moved. it finaly failed..

good luck on retreving data.
i have a few tricks if needed. just let me know