SATA

[Yorkie1950]

Hi I have a Dell PowerEdge Server running Windows Server 2003, I have 3 SATA drives installed and all three have worked fine for more than two years, now for some reason Windows doesn't see the third drive, the BIOS sees it, the Dell Diagnostics sees it, DOS sees it, and the Windows Device Manager sees it but only as a Foreign Drive and will not access it. The drive it fine as I have moved it to the second drive position and it works fine, I have also removed the second drive and the third SATA port sees the drive fine, the problem is only there when all three drives are present.
Any ideas greatfully recieved.

Alan

 

[hang-the-9]

So is the issue when ANY third drive is installed in any order?

so drive 1-2-3 in sata port 1-2-3 are no good, is drive 1-2-3 in ports 2-1-3 good or something? Do drives 1-2 alone work fine? 1-3? 2-3?

Maybe try new sata cables?

 

[Yorkie1950]

Hi Many thanks for your reply, yes it is when any third drive is there, it doesn't matter which ports I use and and I have moved the cables around and tried new ones. the strange thing is that it has worked fine for two years and if I open, My Computer the the third drive is missing, however if I go to Properties, Hardware it is there..then try properties on the third drive, I get the message "This Device is working Properly" so I go to Volumes and Populate, I get a Status of "Foreign" and nothing else..
I am totally stumped by this one.

A

 

[hang-the-9]

Try to re-install the chipset drivers and maybe update the BIOS.

 

[Yorkie1950]

Thanks, I will try that and see where it gets me, but probably not now till after Christmas.

A