Two Sata drives - bios/detection problem

Sul · 13 Jan 2006 at 22:46

Hi

I have two "Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)" hard drives and I've plugged them each into the SATA ports on my A8N32, power cables also plugged in fine, but it seems like only one of them is detected in the bios - saying as the "Sixth IDE Master". Is this right? Why is the other one not there?

smids · 14 Jan 2006 at 00:31

Have they both been plugged into the same controller? Checked the cables/ports etc? Always best to check those first, else it might be the drive.

Sul · 14 Jan 2006 at 00:44

I've checked cables and now isolated which cables/drive is the problem. I swapped the cable to no avail, which probably means the drive is the problem since the other drive works fine when plugged into any SATA port. What kind of problem do you think the drive might be having - any way I can correct this, or will this require a replacement?

smids · 14 Jan 2006 at 00:48

Highly likely replacement. So long as the dodgy drive doesn't respond on the nForce4 controller, then it is dead/in need of replacement. Make sure the power cables both work as a last attempt and remove any jumpers on the drive.

Sul · 14 Jan 2006 at 01:15

What do you mean with removing jumpers? Sata don't need adjustments there do they, I thought?

Checked power cables - they're not the problem.

smids · 14 Jan 2006 at 01:47

SATA drives (esp. SATA-II drives) do indeed use jumpers, but not for setting master/slave. Instead they have uses like spread spectrum (don't ask) or forcing 150Mb/s as opposed to 300MB/s external transfer rate. As your drive is a SATA-II, it may have the force rate, so I would recommend removing all jumpers and run the drive on the nForce4 port, just in the unlikely case that it might work.

Sul · 14 Jan 2006 at 01:58

I checked them up, didn't have any jumpers set. I just created an RMA for it - shouldn't be too much hassle since I can work with my other 250gb and just add the other one when it comes.

smids · 14 Jan 2006 at 02:03

Yeah, stop wasting time - same thing I did with my Raptor 150GB

. Kept intemittently spinning down (resetting) causing windows to freeze or fail to boot properly - I thought stuff this and 2 days later it was back - waiting for my replacement now. Luckily I didn't buy from OcUK so sent it back to retailer for quick replacement rather than WD - 2 weeks.