Question Four Sata drives all stopped working at one time

[Alan Alan]

I have 3 Sata drives in a raid configuration and a single ssd on the sata ports. All other drives work. Suspect one drive has failed and is causing the motherboard to shut down the sata power. However in the bios the three in a raid show up but I don't recall the ssd listed. No sure how it all works but I suspect the drives can be read by the bios even without power. When it boots it takes forever and after boot the sata drives are missing. So I assume the power is down but the bios somehow knows 3 of the 4 drives are there but windows doesn't find them. As it boots up I can hear the hard drives try to spin then shut down , so I kind of think the 4th drive (ssd) is shorted and the motherboard has shut down the sata power. I guess the only thing to do is disconnect the suspected drive. If it's bad, the other 3 should start working. I heard Samsung SSD's are the best nowadays and it's a 1 tb drive. Funny how an ssd can fail when it it's been a read only drive for years. Am I on the right track? I can't think of anything else.

 

[Aeacus]

and is causing the motherboard to shut down the sata power

No.

MoBo has 0 control over SATA power cables directly from PSU.

but I suspect the drives can be read by the bios even without power.

No.

No power = no drives are working.

How else you think the HDDs are making noise? Taking the needed power from 4th dimension?

so I kind of think the 4th drive (ssd) is shorted and the motherboard has shut down the sata power.

Again, MoBo can not control SATA power cables. Heck, MoBo can't control the PSU at all, other than saying to PSU to start working and telling how much power MoBo itself, via 24-pin ATX power cable, needs.

but windows doesn't find them.

Sounds like your RAID has failed and it brought down the whole array.

 

[Ralston18]

@Alan Alan

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, used, refurbished).

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

What RAID configuration? What was the reason for setting up RAID?

Do you have other backups?

 

[USAFRet]

Funny how an ssd can fail when it it's been a read only drive for years.

What do you mean with "read only"?

A drive in that state generally indicates it has one foot in the grave.

 

[Alan Alan]

No.

MoBo has 0 control over SATA power cables directly from PSU.


No.

No power = no drives are working.

How else you think the HDDs are making noise? Taking the needed power from 4th dimension?


Again, MoBo can not control SATA power cables. Heck, MoBo can't control the PSU at all, other than saying to PSU to start working and telling how much power MoBo itself, via 24-pin ATX power cable, needs.


Sounds like your RAID has failed and it brought down the whole array.

I guess the power supply powers the sata buss. That section of the power supply might have a problem. Seems to me the sata drives did have a one or two cable choice. Seems like the power was derived either directly from the power supply or thru the board. Yet I have power to the motherboard, I guess one of the drives blew a fuse or something and is loading the sata buss. I guess there's only one way to find out. Start disconnecting those drives. Only 3 of the sata drives are raided together but the system shows no sata drives period. I also ran intel's raid controller within windows and it immediately showed an error. So most likely the sata ports are not responding. Also the drives try to spin up then shut down as it boots. It seems they tried it twice then moved on. Obviously the mobo can control the hard drives by software, it just doesn't power them, on the other hand it might have the ability to turn the sata power off in case of a short or over current. That's what I meant about turning the power off to the sata buss. Do sata busses actually connect directly to the power supply or do they go thru an on off switch like a transistor on the mobo?

 

[Ralston18]

If you start guessing and disconnecting, etc, consider that you may lose even more data as a result.

Is all data backed up elsewhere?

System specs?

 

[USAFRet]

In addition to the full System specs, what type of RAID array was this?

 

[Aeacus]

I guess the power supply powers the sata buss.

You guess? So, you don't know for sure.
And, No. Drives are not powered via SATA bus. Only data flows through there.

Full system specs, including PSU make and model (or part number) is? Also, how old the PSU is, and was the PSU bought new or used/refurbished?

And as others have also already asked: what kind of RAID array was this? Did you use dedicated RAID controller (if so, make and model of that one)? If not, you connected the drives to MoBo and used software RAID controller?