Malfunction on SATA Connection

Hello guys,

Upon trying pretty much everything I know and what others have advise me without success I decided to come here getting help from you, since there is a lot of knowledge members and I usually come here looking for answers and advices everytime something bad happens with my system.

The issue is as follow - last week my system began freezing without reason and rebooting would make the following message appears "disk boot failure, insert system disc and press enter" and my motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI) wouldn't recognize the HDD. I would left it off for a few minutes and it would work fine, at least until freezing again. The issue got worse and I worked it out by slightly budge the HDD SATA cable where it connects to the motherboard.

However after a few days the issue turned up again. I connected the HDD to the other SATA slots, checked other SATA cables and other HDD but the problem persisted. Checked the power supply's cable and it was working fine and the HDD is also working fine in other computers. I thought it was the motherboard SATA connectors that are damaged since HDD IDE works fine and bought a Delock SATA II PCI Express Card but it also doesn't recognized the HDD.

Sometimes the DVD drivers' names on the BIOS are wrongly written, too. Instead of Sony it displays SYNE or POENERR instead of Pioneer or something along the lines.

I no longer have any idea nor does anyone who could help me. What do you guys think? Could it be that the motherboard SATA connecters got damage somewhat? Or the motherboard itself? A few suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

welcome to the forum.

Well youve been prity extensive with your testing :)
Firstly try updating your chipset drivers for your motherboard.
Then id do some memory tests, if the HDD cant write to the ram then all kinds of issues persist.

Then id start flapping as it would point towards a dying or dead board.

if you can get it to boot to windows then download memtest and run it, if you cant take out all bar 1 stick of ram and try, then another ext.

Go to another computer and D/L memtest86+ and load it to a USB memory stick or DVD.

The link to the software is in this tutorial, which explains how to run the test.

RAM - Test with Memtest86+

i still wouldnt rule out a HDD fault, ok it works in another computer, but if heat is an issue, the cooling of the other computer may be sufficient to stop the fault.. its a long shot, but better than splashing out on a new mobo to have the same issue.

What type of SATA cables are you using? If you aren't using the latching type, then consider exchanging them for ones that latch (they have a small metal spring at the connectors which clicks into the sockets when you insert them). Due to the small size of the connectors, the non-latching types (often included with motherboards) can become loose in the sockets.