HDD not being detected

rtatts · 1 Dec 2010 at 22:23

I need help and knew this is the place to go.

I am having a very unusual problem with either my computer or HDD. Its a long story so hear me out.

I have two computers and both of them appeared to be working fine. My main computer one day started playing up. BSOD, failing to boot, fail to show hdd. After noticing it was no longer even showing up in my bios i went out and purchased a new 1tb drive. I put this in my other computer which was running low on space and moved my other hdd across. I managed to clone the original drive onto the other drive. The computer was working fine for a couple weeks, then started bsod. I ran a chkdsk and it was badly corrupted. This got me thinking about the original drive (WD 500gb that no longer shows up in the bios of the main pc). When i connect it to my other computer it shows up in the bios and windows and appears to read and write data fine. I also ran the WD life guard and it passed the quick and extended test. I suspected main board so have checked and i have the latest bios installed. It seems weird that one drive appears but the other doesn't but i can see the other drive is fine in other computers, i have tryed different sata connections and cables. Reset my bios and re flashed it to the latest one again.

Has any one got any ideas?

Kanpai · 2 Dec 2010 at 01:15

What OS are you using? When I added another 500GB HDD I had to manually add it under disk management on Windows 7, only then was the drive recognized.

Hope that helps

angela · 2 Dec 2010 at 11:18

^^ This, or if you can't see on windows, probably format will help

rtatts · 3 Dec 2010 at 09:36

Last night I had another look. It still will not boot using the other hard drive. The hard drive that does detect, i can chkdsk /r with the windows boot cd. When i go to do a start up repair it claims unable to do this due to bad disk.

The other hdd still will not detect in the bios. I also boot into windows boot cd to try just formatting and reinstalling on it and it will not detect the drive at all.

I have tryed downgrading the bios from f13 to f11 but no change there.

The main board is a Gigabyte p35-ds3r. I have tryed the hdd in both the sata2 and the g-sata ports. Do i have to accept that it is main board. If so what is a good board for over clocking. Im using a IC2Q Q6600 (LGA775), 4gb of ram.

ots3go · 3 Dec 2010 at 15:52

Pop it in the SATA port that your current disk is in and see if it shows in the BIOS.

Use the same power cable the current disk is using too. Just to rule out to mobo & PSU.

rtatts · 4 Dec 2010 at 19:51

Tryed this. Moved the sata data cable and psu cable across and still wont detect.

Braka · 5 Dec 2010 at 02:19

which motherboard? i think i remember some having to remove ram before installing new hardware

rtatts · 5 Dec 2010 at 18:42

Gigabyte p35-ds3r rev 2.1

rtatts · 14 Dec 2010 at 14:26

Ok. Not had much of a chance to look at it recently but last night i decided to swap my RAM and GPU across and also move the 2nd pc into the nicer bigger case. Everything was fine until i moved into the new case. Now the boot able hdd wont show up. (different hdd and different main board) Im 99% sure this is PSU giving wrong voltages to the hdd. Explaining why the hdd wont work on my main pc but will work on every other computer. Does this make sense?

jones2636 · 14 Dec 2010 at 19:54

Could it maybe be a firmware problem with the drive I had a couple of seagate drives that suffered from not beging picked up.

jones2636 · 14 Dec 2010 at 19:56

rtatts said:
Ok. Not had much of a chance to look at it recently but last night i decided to swap my RAM and GPU across and also move the 2nd pc into the nicer bigger case. Everything was fine until i moved into the new case. Now the boot able hdd wont show up. (different hdd and different main board) Im 99% sure this is PSU giving wrong voltages to the hdd. Explaining why the hdd wont work on my main pc but will work on every other computer. Does this make sense?

What PSU do you have?

rtatts · 17 Dec 2010 at 11:10

I did have a cheap (yes i no i shouldnt be doing it but my last one failed and i needed a cheap one quick) trust 570w. I have replaced it yesterday with a corsair 650w. The drive now has been accedently nicked by a collegue of mine at work and used so he is getting me a brand new one now. I plan to use the new drive and see how it goes with my mobo.

jones2636 · 17 Dec 2010 at 16:17

rtatts said:
I did have a cheap (yes i no i shouldnt be doing it but my last one failed and i needed a cheap one quick) trust 570w. I have replaced it yesterday with a corsair 650w. The drive now has been accedently nicked by a collegue of mine at work and used so he is getting me a brand new one now. I plan to use the new drive and see how it goes with my mobo.

Ok well sounds like you might be getting it sorted then. P.S. good choice on the PSU.