Hard Drive Prevents Windows from Booting

[Solek]

Hi,

I am currently having a problem with a 750Gb WD HD. I keep getting errors from it in eventvwr that would lock up my system. Finally, none my hard drives except for one (nonsystem) would show up in the BIOS thus windows xp wouldn't start. I unplugged the 750GB hard drive and everything then worked fine. I then tried unplugging one of the other hard drives then plugging the 750gb hard drive back to see if it was a PSU issue. The systems boots but the 750GB still won't show in the BIOS or in Windows XP. This 750GB hard drive was the second replacement for a 650gb WD HD that had similar issues. It worked for a little over a month and now this is happening. Before that they sent me a totally Dud that was DOA. The original 650GB worked for about a year... Is this a HD issue, PSU issue, config issue, or is this a possible MOBO issue. If this turns out to be a HD issue I'll be on my second replacement... what gives? Below are some errors I received... they identify the 750GB HD in them...

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not respond within the timeout period.
The device, \Device\Scsi\JRAID1, did not respond within the timeout period.

CORSAIR 650W PSU
2X 250GB HD
1X320GB HD
(1X 750GB HD) - this is the HD in question
ATI 5770 GPU
E6600
GIGABYTE 965-DQ6
2GB RAM
WINDOWS XP

 

[darrwo]

I'd say it's the hard drive.

Some things to try to verify this is the case:

Power down system, disconnect all drives except for the problem drive and reboot.
- Does it show up in the bios?
- If not power down again, and connect to a different sata/ide port
- Try this with all the sata/ide ports until you either see the drive or not

If you do see the drive on one of the ports:
- Possibly the sata controller or conections on MB is the problem
- Keep the drive connected to that port and reboot a number of times
- Does it dissapear sometimes?
- If it sometimes doesn't show up again, then I'd say it's the drive still

Another thing to try, if you have the enclosure:

Remove the drive and put it an external enclosure
- connect this external to another desktop/laptop and see if you can see the drive
- If the drive is the problem you'll likely get errors reading it
- it may show as unformatted
- or it may show up under my computer then dissapear over and over.

D

 

[Solek]

How can one defective hard drive make most of the other drives disappear from the BIOS?

 

[darrwo]

Forgot to mention, you should try a new/different cable on the problem drive as well. Very possible it's just a bad SATA cable.

I have seen problem cables cause issues on the controller itself and reflect to the other drives. Hence all drives disappear.