hard drive isn't powered in boot

[vesa01]

I have Msi 970A-G45 motherboard and Samsung hd502hj 500gb sata hard drive. The problem is that the hard drive doesn't get powered in boot. It stays silent. At first I noticed that bios didn't show hard disk and after many checks I noticed that It wasn't even running. Then I tried the following. I powered the computer and then took sata power cable off the hard disk and then put it back. Hard disk woke up suddenly and was running just fine. When I entered the bios It even showed there in the sata devices list.

That hard drive was running just fine under another mainboard a few weeks ago and power supply shouldn't be the issue because it too worked in another computer. And that motherboard worked just fine too in another configuration.

They just don't seem to work together or have I missed something?

 

[Paperdoc]

So, disconnecting the HDD's power supply connector and the re-connecting it fixed the problem, right? Did the problem come back, or did it stay fixed?

Any connector can work itself loose. Also, over time, connector metal contact surfaces can become lightly coated with oxidation and break the connection. Either problem often is fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting several times to "scrub" the contacts and re-insert the connector. Maybe that's what you did.

Now, if the problem returns, there are a few possible steps to take.
1. Do the disconnect - reconnect process again.
2. Switch to a different mobo SATA port, in case the port or its connector is faulty (not likely if the problem truly is power).
3. Change to a new different SATA power connector in case that it faulty.
4. MAYBE the HDD itself really is faulty, even if intermittently. But it is encouraging that the HDD unit was fixed by your process, and has proven to work OK in other computers.

 

[vesa01]

Well after further testing I discovered that the hard disk worked fine when it was connected to an another computer. Also I borrowed a hard drive from another computer and attached that to this motherboard, it also worked fine. Now it seems that the Msi motherboard and Samsung hd don't like each other.

 

[Paperdoc]

That would be very odd, especially since you have had it working sometimes. So, what is its current status? Is it working OK, like just after you re-connected it? Or, has it stopped again?

Just a related thought: did you, by any chance, change the jumpers on the pins on the back edge of this drive? I ask because there is almost NEVER a reason to do that with SATA hard drives. Plus, there are some HDD's and jumper settings that actually turn off the HDD motor so it can be controlled by a special design of HDD controller card.

There is ONE situation where you do need to adjust or install a jumper, and this may apply to you. The drive is a SATA II, now called a SATA 3.0 Gb/s unit. All SATA drives are supposed to adjust themselves to all SATA controller systems. However, there were some early SATA (original) controller chips (now called SATA 1.5 Gb/s) used on mobos that failed to do this properly. The solution was to install a jumper on a particular pin pair on the back of a SATA 3.0 Gb/s drive to force it to slow down its communication rate to the older 1.5 Gb/s rate. For your drive this is not easy to find at the Seagate website. But I did find a Tom's Hardware thread from 2009 for your drive here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252407-32-samsung-hd502hj-force-gbps

Look at the sixth post from Nov 3/09, in which the poster places a diagram of where to install a jumper for this purpose. This is a safe move. If this solves your problem, you're good! If it does not, you can remove the jumper and pursue other ideas. If this jumper actually is not a needed solution, it will not harm anything (it only slows down your HDD's performance a little) and can be removed any time.

There MAY be another possibility. In searching for this problem I found this Seagate website page that offers a firmware patch for your HDD. It does not describe the problems this patch is supposed to solve. But it does tell you which mobo hardware the drive has trouble with so that you might need this patch. So, check whether you need it for your mobo and drive combination.

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223631en

 

[JustSomeJoe]

If you tried installing any of the Windows 10 Pre-release builds check if PUIS (Power-Up In Standby) has been enabled on the drive.

 

[vesa01]

I haven't yet tried these jumper solutions and that firmware patch solution. I have now borrowed another hard disk from another computer and it too was recognized and was shown in the bios. I think that the least time comsuming thing to do is to buy a new hd (preferrably something bigger and maybe faster). I hope it will be compatible as these two other drives were. I believe that my motherboard supports sata 6gb/s standard. No point of running this drive with 1.5gb/s using jumper settings.

 

[Paperdoc]

You're right, if your mobo has anything faster than SATA 1.5 Gb/s (the original SATA) for its ports, there is NO need to force the comm rate to slow down. In fact, I believe that means there should be NO jumper on the pins on the back of your HDD. Are there?

 

[vesa01]

You're right, if your mobo has anything faster than SATA 1.5 Gb/s (the original SATA) for its ports, there is NO need to force the comm rate to slow down. In fact, I believe that means there should be NO jumper on the pins on the back of your HDD. Are there?

There are 8 pins in total, but no jumpers.