Not sure if my SATA is BAD

**Loopy** · January 13th, 2006, 01:30 AM

This morning I booted up my system and it just wouldn't come on(it just stay at the windows xp loading screen) I rebooted and went through quite a few troubleshooting steps. My system sees the drive but when I try to format or do anything to the drive it makes no progress. I felt the drive and I could feel it spinning but it feels more like it's pumping(or pulsating). I've tried more things then I can list right now, so far I don't think its the motherboard.

(Some of)My system specs are.
Athlon 64 3700+
Asus A8N-Sli premium motherboard
Seagate 160GB barracuda hard drive(ncq)
Windows XP Sp2
2GB of OCZ ram
Geforce 7800gt
and a Seasonic S-12 600watt power supply

**confus-ed** · January 13th, 2006, 07:20 AM

Go & get yourself SeaTools which is Seagate's suite for hard disk testing, & hopefully it can make you a bootfloppy with which to test your drive outside of windoze ..

But if its getting stuck at the windows logo bit, the disk may probably be alright & its some thing software wise, even if that's maybe a filesystem error..(running 'chkdsk /f' {the '/f' bit makes it correct any errors else it'll just report them} from a command prompt is also very often worth a shot)

**Stalemate** · January 13th, 2006, 09:50 AM

I had a similar problem where I tested 2 SATA drives (RAID 0) and 2 IDE drives repeatedly to find a problem and finally discovered that my Antec power supply was at fault.

The system would attempt to boot, sometimes reach the WinXP loading screen and then reboot. There was an audible clicking sound but my case was so noisy with all the fans in there that I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

I wound up testing the system with a single (known working) stick of RAM, SPU and vid card only and it was still rebooting, but the PSU's problem had grown progressively worse by that time that I was finally able to identify it after days of troubleshooting.

"Physician heal thyself..."

If it turns out your drive is fine after testing, I would suggest you take a look at the PSU.

**Loopy** · January 13th, 2006, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

Go & get yourself SeaTools which is Seagate's suite for hard disk testing, & hopefully it can make you a bootfloppy with which to test your drive outside of windoze ..

But if its getting stuck at the windows logo bit, the disk may probably be alright & its some thing software wise, even if that's maybe a filesystem error..(running 'chkdsk /f' {the '/f' bit makes it correct any errors else it'll just report them} from a command prompt is also very often worth a shot)

Thats the thing tho. Chkdsk makes no progress. I have a cd that came with the drive that has seatools, it can see the drive but the dignostics make no progress whatsoever.

**confus-ed** · January 13th, 2006, 07:04 PM

Can you test the drive elsewhere ? & as an extension of that, do we have any spares etc ? my 'best advice' when flumoxed on a build is to test each bit independently as far as you can .. (otherwise you get to play at adept's game earlier & go around & around until something completely fails & its apparent)

& I seem to be telling you stuff you've done, so perhaps we could have a quick list of .." more things then I can list right now" to save on duplication ?

**Loopy** · January 14th, 2006, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

Can you test the drive elsewhere ? & as an extension of that, do we have any spares etc ? my 'best advice' when flumoxed on a build is to test each bit independently as far as you can .. (otherwise you get to play at adept's game earlier & go around & around until something completely fails & its apparent)

& I seem to be telling you stuff you've done, so perhaps we could have a quick list of .." more things then I can list right now" to save on duplication ?

I don't know what you mean by more things then I can list right now......

Here's what I have tried already

I tryed changing the sata cable on the drive then I tryed changing the sata port that the drive was plugged into, first I tryed using a different port on the main sata ports, then I tryed the extra 4 that are controlled by the sillicon imageing chipset. Next I tryed using a different power cable from the psu, I tryed running scandisk,format,and the seatools utilitys and they all just stayed at 0% on the meters. I know the computer wasn't frozen. I could feel the drive pulsating, I don't have another sata drive to test but I do have an IDE drive in my old comp I didn't try using that because of the troble I'd go through to take it out of the old comp.

**slgrieb** · January 14th, 2006, 03:24 PM

A bad drive is most likely. I have had a couple of drives recently that had electronics that were so bad the computer couldn't even get through the POST! Still, there is some chance that mainboard, etc, could be bad. You might want to try starting the system with the IDE drive installed and the other drive disconnected, but I think it would be a waste of time. I'm 99% certain the drive is dead. RMA the thing and call it good.

**confus-ed** · January 14th, 2006, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Loopy

I don't know what you mean by more things then I can list right now......

Here's what I have tried already..

I was requoting what you put in your opening post (hence why it was inside some double quote marks), but you managed to answer me anyway, despite apparently not understanding !

But at the moment I'd agree that your new sata drive looks suspect, however without being able to test it independently, or test the rest of your system by using another disk (as you seem unwilling to take your old system to bits) its impossible to conclude for sure.

**Loopy** · January 14th, 2006, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

I was requoting what you put in your opening post (hence why it was inside some double quote marks), but you managed to answer me anyway, despite apparently not understanding !

But at the moment I'd agree that your new sata drive looks suspect, however without being able to test it independently, or test the rest of your system by using another disk (as you seem unwilling to take your old system to bits) its impossible to conclude for sure.

Well since you recommend I do(you are always helping me) I will take the drive out of the old computer and put it in the new one. Will it be a problem that the old ata33 drive has win98 on it and my new computer needs winXP?

**confus-ed** · January 15th, 2006, 04:42 AM

I don't think I'm recommeding, I'm saying we need another hard drive to test matters with, or we need to be sure one way or another about this new sata drive.

I have loads of spares as I'm a system builder, so this is easy for me, I don't have to take working systems apart to test things independently, you apparently will, as you haven't got a whole load of spare stuff like I have. I can quite understand you not wanting to take a working 98 box to bits to test this one, as it'll mean once we've used it to test this setup, you may have to re-set up 98 on it, which is a whole load of mucking about for no guarnateed result.

You could just return the drive, but if that's via 'mail order', that'll take a while & we aren't sure its 'bust' anyway, so it might come back ok ! If its from a shop, that's much quicker (& better as you can talk to them & explain) & in that case take back everything & get them to test the whole lot together & seperately.

The problem here isn't what we do next, its being sure about where we are now, as a number of things could be the cause ..

This is why home builders are forever getting 'stuck', with just one lot of bits, if anything isn't working how the hell can you tell which bit ? Answer - you can't ! .. you must test each bit independently & without special test equipment, the usual method is substitution..

(btw if there's a computer shop nearby, even if you didn't buy all of this stuff from them, for a fee they'll probably diagnose this for you, so that you can be more sure about just what might be causing issue)

**Loopy** · January 15th, 2006, 11:50 PM

Ok.. I put my ata33 drive in the new computer and it worked fine I didn't let it boot up all the way(I pressed f8 and went to the command prompt and was able to run scandisk). After checking it all out I think it was just a bad sata drive. Now the only problem is avoiding having this happen again but that's another topic/post.

P.S I'll glady follow anymore suggestions, and thanks all!

**slgrieb** · January 16th, 2006, 06:33 PM

At the moment I'm having better experiences with Seagate Barracuda SATA (well, IDE also) drives than other mfgs, but I think it is all subject to change without notice. So tired of the non-existent quality control in the industry!

**Loopy** · January 16th, 2006, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by slgrieb

At the moment I'm having better experiences with Seagate Barracuda SATA (well, IDE also) drives than other mfgs, but I think it is all subject to change without notice. So tired of the non-existent quality control in the industry!

You read my mind, I was wondering if I would be stupid to buy a second seagate drive. The one that went bad was a barracuda 7200.7