Hard Drive Incompatibility

[cl0ne1]

Hello,

I have run into a peculiar problem that has baffled me.

A friend of mine gave me his computer to fix because he was constantly getting a BSOD(0x0000007B). Normally, it would occur right after the Windows Logo.

His motherboard is an Asus K8V SE Deluxe and he is using Windows Xp 32-bit. The motherboard is SATA ready and the hard drive is indeed a SATA HDD.

So the problem was pretty consistent, as in the BSOD would occur at the same time over and over. I assumed that his hard drive was dying, which it was because not only was it old, but it would make the typical noises a over-worked hard drive normally makes. So I decided to run the disk for errors and the utility was successful in finding and correcting them. I then went to into BIOS and made sure that the proper options were enabled. For example, I enabled SATA Bootrom and made sure the operating mode was IDE and not RAID. But despite that, the situation had not changed and I was still facing the BSOD(same one). So I researched a bit and found another possible solution: reset the BIOS by removing the battery. So I did and Viola! The computer booted perfectly, time and time again without a single BSOD.

Problem solved? Not quite. I failed to mention one detail: While trying to fiddle with the computer's BIOS settings and what not, I had also removed the SATA HDD from my own personal, newer computer. My hard drive is close to 2 years old but runs beautifully on my machine. In fact, my entire desktop runs flawlessly without any hiccups.

So one of my troubleshooting methods was to plug my own SATA HDD into his computer thinking it would work if indeed his hard drive was faulty. Well, it turned out that neither his hard drive nor my hard drive would come through. Both were showing the same BSOD error at the same point of boot. So that is when I had ruled out that his hard drive was the culprit. Then, after trying everything I could, I tried the solution of taking out the CMOS battery which worked! But here is the problem: my, newer SATA HDD, still does not work and is still giving me the same BSOD error while his HDD is zooming right past that point and booting into windows.

All this has led me to believe that there is a incompatibility issue with the hard drive controller.

I would really appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this. My friend is looking to replace is hard drive but it seems as though a newer SATA HDD is not working.

Thank You

 

[Emerald]

In most cases a BSOD is caused by a driver issue.

next would be a video card or memory issue.


what is the error message of the BSOD?

 

[cl0ne1]

In most cases a BSOD is caused by a driver issue.

next would be a video card or memory issue.


what is the error message of the BSOD?

Thank you very much for the prompt reply!

The error message is 0x0000007B.

Hmm..I'm not too sure if it's the video or memory considering that both function properly with my friends original HDD. It's only my HDD that is reporting the BSOD.

But then again, I'm not a computer guru.

Thanks again.

 

[Emerald]

are you using the same video card drivers then you frind?

 

[cl0ne1]

are you using the same video card drivers then you frind?

Good question.

I suppose not. The specs on my system are totally different than his. But I think you are on to something. I have the same OS running on my HDD as him. The difference is that we both have different drivers installed for our respective hardware.

Wow, I totally overlooked this fact.

I think you nailed on the head with that questions.

 

[apache_lives]

VIA's first gen sata controllers all had issues with second gen sata drives not working automatically - forcing sata gen1 with jumpers on the hdd were required

being VIA also is another thing - there just rubbish full stop.

do some hardware tests

 

[cl0ne1]

VIA's first gen sata controllers all had issues with second gen sata drives not working automatically - forcing sata gen1 with jumpers on the hdd were required

being VIA also is another thing - there just rubbish full stop.

do some hardware tests

Thanks.

I guess it's not as simple as I thought - though the conflict makes sense. Too bad we can't change the chipset.

Can you explain why/how jumpers can affect this issue? I was under the impression that there was no such thing as Master/slave in SATA hard drive. Maybe I'm misunderstanding "jumpers" in this context.

Also, what hardware tests do you recommend?

Thanks again.

 

[abdussamad]

If you put your HDD with Windows on it into someone else's computer then it surely won't boot. Why? Because all the hardware is different. So now your windows installation is confused as to which hardware you have. So you will have to reinstall Windows on your HDD after putting it in your machine.

 

[cl0ne1]

If you put your HDD with Windows on it into someone else's computer then it surely won't boot. Why? Because all the hardware is different. So now your windows installation is confused as to which hardware you have. So you will have to reinstall Windows on your HDD after putting it in your machine.

Yes, I think that is the problem and it has everything to do with drivers. However, I cannot rule out apache_lives' point.

I think if VIA is responsible for this, then it is an issue of interest.

 

[Paperdoc]

Here's the thing on jumpers on SATA drives. You are quite right that there is no such thing as Master and Slave on SATA units, and you should never try to set jumpers for that. However, some SATA units do have jumpers and pins for some very different reasons. On WD units you need to be a bit careful, because ONE jumper setting will configure the unit a special way normally used only in advanced server systems, and in a normal machine it will make your drive look dead! But it's not, and fixing the bad jumper setting fixes that problem.

What apache_lives is talking about is that the SATA specs say that any controller and drive are supposed to exchange info and automatically adjust their communications speeds so they match - that is, to 1.5, 3.0 or 6.0 Gb/s. That ensures forward and backward compatibility. But some early original SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers (early VIA's apparently are a problem) fail to do this properly and never can work with a newer SATA II (more properly, SATA 3.0 Gb/s) drive (unless you fix the drive as follows). The fix several drive makers have included is that you can install a jumper on a particular set of pins on its back and force the drive to slow down to 1.5 Gb/s. Then it will always work with any SATA controller. In fact, at one time Seagate was shipping all their SATA II units with the jumper installed, and people who knew they had newer SATA II controllers were supposed to remove it.

Other than this communication speed forcing issue, it is never a good idea to fiddle with jumpers on a SATA unit unless you research it well and know exactly what you're doing. By the way, the jumpers on SATA units are a little smaller than the ones on older IDE units, so you can't interchange them.

Regarding your original problem, I am sure you found the answer. You got your friend's machine working properly with its drive, but it still would not work when you tried to boot it from your drive. Abdussamad is exactly right - that almost never works because of mismatched hardware and drivers installed on a drive from another machine. It has nothing to do with drive incompatibility.

 

[cl0ne1]

Here's the thing on jumpers on SATA drives. You are quite right that there is no such thing as Master and Slave on SATA units, and you should never try to set jumpers for that. However, some SATA units do have jumpers and pins for some very different reasons. On WD units you need to be a bit careful, because ONE jumper setting will configure the unit a special way normally used only in advanced server systems, and in a normal machine it will make your drive look dead! But it's not, and fixing the bad jumper setting fixes that problem.

What apache_lives is talking about is that the SATA specs say that any controller and drive are supposed to exchange info and automatically adjust their communications speeds so they match - that is, to 1.5, 3.0 or 6.0 Gb/s. That ensures forward and backward compatibility. But some early original SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers (early VIA's apparently are a problem) fail to do this properly and never can work with a newer SATA II (more properly, SATA 3.0 Gb/s) drive (unless you fix the drive as follows). The fix several drive makers have included is that you can install a jumper on a particular set of pins on its back and force the drive to slow down to 1.5 Gb/s. Then it will always work with any SATA controller. In fact, at one time Seagate was shipping all their SATA II units with the jumper installed, and people who knew they had newer SATA II controllers were supposed to remove it.

Other than this communication speed forcing issue, it is never a good idea to fiddle with jumpers on a SATA unit unless you research it well and know exactly what you're doing. By the way, the jumpers on SATA units are a little smaller than the ones on older IDE units, so you can't interchange them.

Regarding your original problem, I am sure you found the answer. You got your friend's machine working properly with its drive, but it still would not work when you tried to boot it from your drive. Abdussamad is exactly right - that almost never works because of mismatched hardware and drivers installed on a drive from another machine. It has nothing to do with drive incompatibility.

Thank you very much for the thorough reply Paperdoc!

You learn something new everyday!

Initially, I was complicating the problem by attributing it to the drive controller. But as soon as Emerald asked me the driver question, I almost fell off my chair lol.

I could not believe I overlooked the simplicity of this issue.

I thank Emerald for jogging my I.T. common sense lol.

So yes, original problem solved! Though I am curious to know what kind of issue would someone encounter if the drive controller and the new SATA hard drive were to collide. Would you get a blue screen? or perhaps an unrecognizable HDD?

 

[Paperdoc]

If the drive controller and the drive cannot communicate (for example, the failure of some SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers to communicate with SATA 3.0 Gb/s drives), the drive simply is not recognized at the hardware level. The BIOS will not report its existence. With no hardware recognized in BIOS, it really does not exist and there will be no sign of it in any OS you might load (from another drive, of course). If this is your only drive and you're trying to boot from it or install an OS to it, the machine will simply report that there is no valid drive so it cannot boot or you cannot install to (nothing!). "Cannot boot" usually results in the error message to insert a valid boot disk.

 

[cl0ne1]

Best answer selected by cl0ne1.