Cable Fussy Hard Drive

[Giants_1]

I'm running Windows 7 on an ASUS motherboard. Everything was fine until last night, when the computer refused to recognize a hard drive either on Windows My Computer or Crystal Disk Info.

After switching SATA data cables, I isolated the problem to one cable and one hard drive. In other words, the cable worked with another hard drive and the other hard drive worked with the other cable, no other switches on the motherboard done and no change in SATA power supply cables.

I solved the problem by switching cables. Why is there a sudden incompatability between one SATA cable and one hard drive?

Thanks

 

[atljsf]

well, i think that what you have there is abad sata cable, they can fail like that

when you move and touch them, they work but latter they wil resume the weird behavior

better remove the cable

on the mainboard, the sata ports, any of them is labeled or marked as raid or any special name? or just sata 0 to sata 3 or 5?

 

[Giants_1]

Thanks. The motherboard connection for that cable is "SATA 3G." When cables go bad, do they have certain hard drives that they don't work with or do they not work with any hard drives?

I should also add that the tower case lies horizontal/on its side (lower CPU temp) and that this problem occurs only with the higher up hard drive (which is toward the middle of the tower), though the cable is not stretched and has plenty of slack.

 

[atljsf]

it is a failing cable, change it, if it fails all of a sudden like this or just start to silently destroy all your files as one cable here once did, they can fail in many ways

sata cables look strong and simple, they are in reality a pita and delicate as piece of bad porcelain

 

[Giants_1]

Will do. Is there a way to test SATA cables?

 

[Giants_1]

This is really weird. The computer does NOT recognize the third hard drive, same scenario I discussed above, this time with a new SATA data cable. I switched positions and SATA power cables for #2 and #3, and now the computer recognizes all three hard drives. #3 is connected with a Molex-SATA adapter due to lack of enough SATA power cables. I dont use the DVD drive that often, so I wonder if switching out that would help? Thanks for all your help?

 

[atljsf]

then, your problem can be related to the psu or the mainboard itslef, not the cables

not every cable can be damaged

what psu do you have, mainboard?

how many hard disks do you have there?

 

[Giants_1]

Thanks.

ASUS P8Z68-V LE that I built in 2012

Corsair Builder CX430 PSU installed in 2015

3 SATA SSDs and 2 SATA DVD drives

 

[atljsf]

it has been a long time since i heard or rad that someone has a optical drive, forget two!

then i would point to the mainboard as the root of your problems

 

[Giants_1]

I support the local library and check out DVDs. Also, some software comes in DVDs.

I solved one problem: the Molex-SATA power adapter was loose. For the time being, the mobo reads all three hard drives.