Hard Drive Dissapears after installing 2nd SATA Drive

[CommonTater]

Ok guys update.

This is what I have done so far. Ive disconnected the 1.5TB Drive DATA SATA Cable. Left the Power cable in. Turned the pc on and got a invaild system disk or something. So i ran Hirens boot cd, fixed everything with the mbre and boot. Restarted and Drive wasnt there. Turned off PC from the power, started it up again and the drive was there. But it couldnt get into windows. So I thought to my self, ok? No SATA DATA cable in the 1.5TB and still not booting? So I took out the power cable. Booted it up again and got into windows fine? Turned it off, put ONLY the Power cable in, and didnt work. So I changed it over again, put the 1.5 data and sata cable in and only put in the power cable for the 320 so i can try the hot swapable feature. For some odd reason windows booted up (under the 1.5tb as the main). So connected the sata cable to the 320 whilst the pc was on. It found the drive did some things and then crashed. Couldnt move the mouse ctl alt delete wouldnt work. Turned it off. And just took out the 320.

Does that only leave my PSU as the fault in this? There is surely enough power. Only running a GTX275, 4 GIG ram, (took out my IDE CD-ROM as well)

Faulty PSU?

Frankly I'd be prone to blame that 1.5tb drive. It shuts down a working system when connected to power, there's definately something wrong with it. If it's less than 3 or 4 years old it's likely under warranty and you could get a brand new drive in exchange.

 

[68iou1]

Changed the sata cables and that didnt work. And theres no point of wiping it clean. Because when I opened it up (the 1.5tb drive) it was fresh from the supplier. I'm going to my cousins house to put it in his system. Changfe over power supply and do abit more tests on it. I'll post back in about an hour or 2

 

[68iou1]

Ok, plugged in the 1.5tb drive in my cousins computer. And it booted up fine. the 1.5tb drive has my windows on it etc and it was fine.

I'll plug his 2tb sata drive which has nothing on it in my computer and see what it does then.

 

[CommonTater]

Ok, plugged in the 1.5tb drive in my cousins computer. And it booted up fine. the 1.5tb drive has my windows on it etc and it was fine.

I'll plug his 2tb sata drive which has nothing on it in my computer and see what it does then.

BUT... will it work as a secondary drive along with his main?

 

[MadMaxData]

Your missing the point I'm trying to make by telling you to wipe the 1.5 clean, then install it with Disk Management. If BOTH your SATA drives have a primary boot partition on them, that's most likely your problem. I'm not just throwing random suggestions your way, but there's actually a method to my madness....LOL

But do as you wish.

 

[MadMaxData]

BUT... will it work as a secondary drive along with his main?

Exactly.

 

[CommonTater]

BUT... will it work as a secondary drive along with his main?

Exactly.

All this takes me back to when I was first starting out in computers. I was programming in GWBasic (AKA Gee Whiz Basic) and went for a job interview, samples in hand... The interviewer tells me: "You are pedantic, boring, direct and very methodical... you'll fit right in." Well, to this day I don't know what to make of that.

I agree... our friend needs to take a more methodical approach to this...

 

[68iou1]

Yeah it worked along with his main. Then when I went into disk management it had his primary which was his 320. and my 1.5 tb drive. im guessing windows 7 changed my drtive letters to d and x. but yes both drive worked fine. I could view all my files, windows files (on my 1.5tb) etc.

Now when i put his 2tb drive in my pc it worked. (it was a fresh drive with nothing on it) formatted it through disk management restarted the pc and it came up fine.

 

[MadMaxData]

LOL.....sometimes you just want to scream: "Stop asking me questions, and just do what I said!" :roflmao:

 

[68iou1]

Your missing the point I'm trying to make by telling you to wipe the 1.5 clean, then install it with Disk Management. If BOTH your SATA drives have a primary boot partition on them, that's most likely your problem. I'm not just throwing random suggestions your way, but there's actually a method to my madness....LOL

But do as you wish.

I've already tryed that. Even when I got this drive packed and sealed brand new (its only 1 week old) it still wouldnt work. btw when you select which boot device you want, windows 7 does everything else. even if you have both of them as primary.

Also wanted to say thanks for everyone for their time. Checking my 320 for bad sectors, it wouldnt boot up on my cousins computer along with his other sata hd. see how it turns out.

 

[MadMaxData]

btw when you select which boot device you want, windows 7 does everything else. even if you have both of them as primary.

Not always. Some BIOS software will auto detect for a primary boot partition, and change your boot order without any help from you at all. Thus, it could indeed get confused with two seperate primary boot partitions. I've actually seen this happen on many occasions.

If the 1.5 is new, and had problems right out of the gate, I would just RMA it, and be done with it. I'm sorry, but I did not realize it was a brand new drive, or I would have suggested this WAY earlier.

 

[CommonTater]

btw when you select which boot device you want, windows 7 does everything else. even if you have both of them as primary.

Not always. Some BIOS software will auto detect for a primary boot partition, and change your boot order without any help from you at all. Thus, it could indeed get confused with two seperate primary boot partitions. I've actually seen this happen on many occasions.

If the 1.5 is new, and had problems right out of the gate, I would just RMA it, and be done with it. I'm sorry, but I did not realize it was a brand new drive, or I would have suggested this WAY earlier.

Taking a look at this, I'm seeing that he's got two drives the 320 and the 1.5 that don't play at all well together... Ok, if I'm following this properly... the 1.5 worked as a second drive on the other machine, but not on this machine... the other big drive works with the 1.5... Y'know what I'm wondering now... if there isn't a problem with the 320... It seems everyone plays well together except that one.

Arrrg... this is giving me a headache....

 

[MadMaxData]

Honestly, I can't confirm those findings, as the OP is quite confusing in explaining what he's done so far. Maybe it's just me, I don't know.

At any rate, I suggest a return on the new drive. If you buy brand new hardware and it doesn't work perfect right from the get go, I won't even fool around trying to "fix" it. That could potentially just turn into another headache down the road, and maybe even AFTER the warranty is up.

 

[68iou1]

btw when you select which boot device you want, windows 7 does everything else. even if you have both of them as primary.

Not always. Some BIOS software will auto detect for a primary boot partition, and change your boot order without any help from you at all. Thus, it could indeed get confused with two seperate primary boot partitions. I've actually seen this happen on many occasions.

If the 1.5 is new, and had problems right out of the gate, I would just RMA it, and be done with it. I'm sorry, but I did not realize it was a brand new drive, or I would have suggested this WAY earlier.

Taking a look at this, I'm seeing that he's got two drives the 320 and the 1.5 that don't play at all well together... Ok, if I'm following this properly... the 1.5 worked as a second drive on the other machine, but not on this machine... the other big drive works with the 1.5... Y'know what I'm wondering now... if there isn't a problem with the 320... It seems everyone plays well together except that one.

Arrrg... this is giving me a headache....

RMA isnt possible because it works on the other system as you just stated. Drive C: on the 320 didnt find any bad sectors. checking drive D: Keep you posted.

 

[MadMaxData]

RMA isnt possible because it works on the other system as you just stated. Drive C: on the 320 didnt find any bad sectors. checking drive D: Keep you posted.

Returning an item you just bought is always possible. Why would you be checking it for bad sectors if you didn't already suspect a failure? Once again, I fail to see the logic here.

By the way, just "check" for bad sectors on the 1.5, and DO NOT repair them. That could mess up your return. Let the tech's at the place your returning it to see it has bad sectors, so they don't try to send you the same drive back. And yes, a lot of places actually do just that.

 

[Sattracer]

Guys, I'm having a similar issue. Only my setup is a 1TB SATA and a 320gb IDE, both Seagate. On occasion the IDE drive will "Vanish" from the post test. It will not show on the boot menu. This being weird enough, I thought perhaps the drive was old and was just on it's last leg. SO I re-installed Windows 7 on the SATA for main boot. The SATA never disappears from the post BUT will dump the MBR and require repairs. Oddly enough, I can PREDICT this happening. I am a gamer and my latency will begin creeping up in game, slowly at first then jump into the 1000's. When I reboot to get rid of the latency, there will be no IDE drive and it will boot straight to the SATA. If the Sata is plugged in solo, the MBR will be missing and have to be repaired. The IDE drive will magically reappear if I leave it UNPLUGGED from the power supply for a while, I've not determined the "exact" length of time as I was surprised to see it function after not even showing in the drive register. Nonetheless, unplug the IDE drive's power cable and leave it unplugged for 6+ hours like I did and see if it shows back up when you re-plug it in. I have been reading some things about ASUS MB's and I'm beginning to question this MB's bios.

MB: M2A-VM HDMI, AMD 3800+ Dual Core 64 bit, 3GB ram, internal ATI video.

Hope this helps.

Addendum: I had Windows 7 RC on this same system for 10 months with NO ISSUE. Installed the 1TB without issue and both drives played nicely together. These issues began when I was forced to change to the released version of Windows Home Premium.

 

[CommonTater]

At any rate, I suggest a return on the new drive. If you buy brand new hardware and it doesn't work perfect right from the get go, I won't even fool around trying to "fix" it. That could potentially just turn into another headache down the road, and maybe even AFTER the warranty is up.

That is why they have to give us warrantees, y'know....

Yep... it's refund time.

This has indeed become very confusing... so much so that I think I'll let this one go 'cause I don't think I'll ever get my head around it now.

For the OP... when problems like this come up, a rigid methodical approach is the only way to solve them... When you add new hardware to a working system and it screws up, 90% of the time it's going to be the new hardware (or it's drivers) fault but the only way to confirm that is to put the new hardware in a different working machine and see what happens. i.e. The best test would have been to wipe the new 1.5 clean, delete all partitions, put it in with your old drive... no go... take it to another machine and put it in with that old drive... ok that works... now put your old drive in a working machine as a second drive... and so on. It's crucial that you track and catalog all this stuff if you are to get a successful repair... even more so if you are asking for help.

 

[CommonTater]

RMA isnt possible because it works on the other system as you just stated. Drive C: on the 320 didnt find any bad sectors. checking drive D: Keep you posted.

You don't have to tell them that.

 

[MadMaxData]

Guys, I'm having a similar issue.

I would recommend that you start a new thread, with that same post. Helps to keep the troubleshooting confusion to a minimum. I'll be glad to help you figure it out in a new thread.

 

[MadMaxData]

Yep... it's refund time.

That's the bottom line with this issue. It's a new drive that doesn't act like it should. Return it immediately.