scarykitties on 13/9/2009 at 16:46
To start, here are my specs (roughly--can't remember everything):
Mobo: Biostar Tpower-I45
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo @ 3.16 Ghz
Memory: 8Gb DDR2 1066
SATA Devices: 3x640Gb Western Digital HDDs & 1xDVD+R
Video: Radeon HD 4800
Sound: Soundblaster X-Fi Xtremegamer
Power: 620 W Power Supply
OS: Windows 7 64
To explain my problem, let me quote what I described to Biostar in their technical support form (which is terrible, by the way):
Quote:
I have had continued troubles with one of my hard drives ceasing to function (which reached an apex when I bought a new hard drive for storage, and it would quit responding completely). Thinking (hoping) it was a hard drive failure, I bought another hard drive, but the original suddenly seemed to function again, so I put one of the new ones as the OS HDD, another as storage, and the possibly faulty one as back-up storage, with the following configuration:
SATA 1: Storage HDD (new)
SATA 2: OS HDD (newest)
SATA 3: DVD Drive
SATA 4: Backup HDD (old, possibly faulty)
However, the DVD drive hadn't been showing up, and, as of this morning, neither did SATA 1, even though it's a brand new HDD. So, I tried setting them up instead in this configuration, as I saw that all the odd-numbered SATA ports weren't functioning, but the even-numbered ones were.
SATA1: N/A
SATA2: Storage HDD
SATA3: N/A
SATA4: OS HDD
SATA5: DVD
SATA6: Old, possibly faulty Backup HDD
This seemed to work to make all the hard drives recognized by the BIOS, but the DVD drive still wasn't showing up. So, on a whim, I enabled PCI IDE Busmaster, and, as of now, all SATA devices are recognized and functioning property.
My problem is that, in the past, faulty SATA devices have begun functioning simply due to my unplugging and re-plugging their SATA cables (the cables aren't to blame, as I've replaced them all numerous times from spares). My question is: Could the sheer number of SATA devices set up have been causing the difficulty, with the Busmaster actually fixing the problem, or is that a pipe dream (with the Busmaster not working that way), and is the problem still there, but just currently hidden?
P.S. I recommend that you update your technical support form, since it's 3-4 years out of date. That looks really bad.
Now, I'm asking here, because I frankly doubt the competency of Biostar's technical support (take a glance at their (
http://www.biostar-usa.com) confusing, amateur website to see what I mean). Would, as described, the busmaster actually correct the problem, or is it likely to be another ghost of hope soon to be snatched as devices begin to randomly fail again (HDDs dying while in use, causing any data being saved to become corrupt)? Why would only the odd-numbered IDE busses fail prior to busmaster being enabled? Is the motherboard itself in need of maintenance (I certainly hope not, as that would either mean buying another or sending it in, requiring a lot of money, not to mention the tedium of disassembly)? Any advice/insight is welcome.
P.S. I'm serious about their technical support form. It demands to know your CPU, but the options don't go above Pentium 4 or Athlon x64. How unprofessional is that?
EDIT: Replaced "IDE" with "SATA," as that was my mistake.
bikerdude on 13/9/2009 at 17:33
Quote Posted by scarykitties
IDE Devices: 3x640Gb Western Digital HDDs & 1xDVD+R
Would, as described, the busmaster actually correct the problem, or is it likely to be another ghost of hope soon to be snatched as devices begin to randomly fail again (HDDs dying while in use, causing any data being saved to become corrupt)? Why would only the odd-numbered IDE busses fail prior to busmaster being enabled?
P.S. I'm serious about their technical support form. It demands to know your CPU, but the options don't go above Pentium 4 or Athlon x64. How unprofessional is that?
99% of all motherboards have 2x IDE sockets, which enables the use of 4x IDE devices(and your mobo appears to be no different), so how are you using 6x..? Are you sure that some or all of the devices arent SATA...??!!
if the drive/s have started working again I would suggest its a faulty cable, Ive seen this so many times over the years.
I would suggest you set the bios default and set the hard drive detection on auto and see how you get on.
Al_B on 13/9/2009 at 18:28
In addition to BikerDude's reply, enabling bus master shouldn't cause a change to how your drives are being detected (but shouldn't do any harm either). I would be inclined to check whether your motherboard has an onboard raid controller that is interfering with your drive detection. If so, you should be able to disable it given your configuration.
scarykitties on 14/9/2009 at 11:52
RAID is disabled. Configuration is set to IDE only. There are 6 IDE ports on my motherboard (three columns with two rows), but I am only using four of them. As I said, the cables can't be at fault, as I've replaced the one cable three times and the problems persisted.
For now, all seems well, but hearing that what I did shouldn't have fixed it is concerning.
bikerdude on 14/9/2009 at 13:14
Quote Posted by scarykitties
Configuration is set to IDE only. There are 6 IDE ports on my motherboard (three columns with two rows)
FYI.. those are SATA ports not IDE.
scarykitties on 14/9/2009 at 17:43
Thank you, my mistake. SATA, I meant.
With that in mind, should what I did fix my SATA troubles?
Brian The Dog on 14/9/2009 at 21:44
When you say they aren't working, do you mean in the BIOS/POST, or in the OS? Since the SATA ports are in IDE emulation mode, which uses a dual-channel configuration, it may be that the drivers are causing you problems with their IDE emulation mode. Are all six channels shown in Device Manager OK? Can you attempt to boot off all the devices?
I know you said you checked the cables, but sata cable connectors are definitely not a good innovation - I had to make sure I got some cables that clicked on rather than the usual ones that slide on, and have the habit of sliding off again...
bikerdude on 14/9/2009 at 22:18
Quote Posted by Brian The Dog
I know you said you checked the cables, but sata cable connectors are definitely not a good innovation - I had to make sure I got some cables that clicked on rather than the usual ones that slide on, and have the habit of sliding off again...
cheap Sata cables depending on the quality, will very easily loose connection sometimes. you could what i did and replace them with the type that have clips on the end..
scarykitties on 14/9/2009 at 22:18
It's true that the SATA cables have a tendency to become loose, but I don't see why that would have been the problem, as, when that first hard drive stopped working, merely tightening the connection wouldn't suffice; it had to be unplugged from the motherboard, then plugged in again.
It wouldn't show up in the BIOS, nor load anything from the drive. It was essentially invisible.
First, I had the one hard drive with the OS on it. Every month or so, the computer would die in the middle of something, and, when I restarted, it would say that there was no valid boot device. I would then open the case, un-plug the SATA cable from the motherboard, and plug it right in again. The HDD would then be recognized and the OS would start up.
However, recently, I bought a new HDD for storage. Since installing it, the OS HDD was a lot more finicky, occasionally ceasing to work completely, even if I re-plugged it. I bought a third hard drive then, thinking the first may be broken, and installed the OS onto it, instead. All seemed well, until I started noticing, as mentioned above, that my drives stopped functioning in an odd pattern (specifically, only the ones connected to odd SATA ports weren't showing up in BIOS, but the even ones were). I arranged the hard drives so that the OS, storage, and old one all were on even ports, which made them all work alright, but my DVD drive, being on an odd SATA port, wasn't working.
On a whim, I enabled Busmastering, and now all my devices show up in BIOS and function in the OS. My only concern is that it's just temporary and things will start dying every couple weeks or so, like before.
If I had to guess, I'd say that the non-busmastered BIOS tried to set them up with an IDE-like master/slave configuration, but the drives don't have jumpers, so it's not set up correctly for that, causing occasional (and in the end, frequent) failures. The busmastering ensured that the SATA functioned as it should. That's just my guess, not sure if that's how it works at all. For the moment, it seems to have fixed the problem (but as I said, I'm concerned that it's just a phantom fix).
scarykitties on 15/9/2009 at 02:57
I bear bad tidings. Against all my hopes, the crashes are back. It looks like it must be something with the motherboard, though I'm hoping like mad that it doesn't require me to replace it. Gawd, I hate fiddling with CPUs.
Okay, so here's the cheese:
I was running Dromed and decided to take a break. My door was closed, so it was getting a bit warm in my room, and by the time I got a snack and got back to my computer, I'd noticed it had rebooted and there was a nice little "insert bootable media" error on the screen. Damn.
Well, I restarted to determine which hard drive was dead, and the BIOS kind of froze before it got to the settings. I restarted again, and after a somewhat long delay (and an error, something about a secondary slave not working, which I hit F1 to bypass as per the error's instructions), I got to the BIOS settings. All devices are currently active, according to the BIOS (all three HDDs and the one DVD drive), and the computer isn't even close to overheating temperatures (at least, according to the BIOS), so I have no idea what is causing the problem.
Now, when the computer starts up, it sometimes hangs in the POST test, and takes a good minute to detect the devices, as if it's having trouble detecting them, then jumps forward to a "please insert bootable media" error. Then, sometimes, it'll shoot right through the device detection (like it should), but still have that "insert bootable media" error. I can't really find a pattern for when it does or doesn't. Sometimes it just hangs on the device detection and does nothing at all (usually after I tell it to enter BIOS setup). It was working earlier today and yesterday just fine!
Does someone have some insight? I'm frankly at wit's end, but I'd like to know if there's any possible fix short of tearing apart the computer and replacing the 150+ dollar motherboard.
UPDATE: Looks like SATA 4, the HDD with the OS on it (the newest of the HDDs) isn't showing up. Now, why would the NEW one be having trouble?
Is it possible that my power supply (640 W, I believe) isn't sufficient, so as things get going, devices start dying? What could this possibly be? It seems unlikely that it's actually any of the hard drives, since I'm getting the same problems with this new one as I did with the very old one, so it's unlikely that they both have the exact same fault (besides, the old one is showing up fine in the BIOS now).
UPDATE AGAIN: Okay, it working again, now that I swapped HDD 1 over to SATA 1 and HDD2 over to SATA 3 (rather than 2 and 4, respectively). So, again, unplugging and fiddling with the wires is the fix. What the flippin' donkey is up?
