Sata drive issues

[Torven]

So this morning, my hard drive decided to stop working. Since WindowsXP does not have native SATA support and I didn't want to go through the nightmare of trying to install on a SATA drive again, I got a new IDE drive to use for the OS and will use a separate one for my data and games. Unfortunately, the computer does not seem to be acknowledging the existence of my SATA drive. I installed the drivers, and something is going on because if the SATA drive is connected, it takes forever to boot up. However, the drive does not show up in my CMOS or windows disk manager.

As a side note, some kind of alarm is getting tripped when my computer boots up (right after it flashes "verifying DMI pool data". It just starts beeping two tones without stop.

[Araris]

The only time I ever got two tones on start up was when my RAM went bad. It would boot into the OS and everything but every once and a while I'd have some issues.

[Boss Llama]

Grab your motherboard book, and look in the index for "POST codes" or "Beep codes." Every different combination of beeps and beep lengths is specific to a certain error, and the motherboard book will tell you what your mobo's codes mean. That will be a great asset in troubleshooting the error.

In the meantime, have you tried changing which port on the mobo it's plugged in to? Have you changed the cable itself? Do you have another computer you can try hooking the SATA drive in to to see if it works there?

[mr_s]

thats a strange problem. check the jumpers on the back of both hard drives, and make sure the IDE is marked as master and the other one as slave.

if you manage to boot up, and still cant access the SATA, i would say its been fried.

[Torven]

Tried the drive on two other computers via a SATA docking station, with no luck. Also have tried changing the port it is plugged into on the motherboard. Long story short is that it looks like I may have lost everything on that drive. Worst part is that thanks to Dell's customer "support", my windows disk will no longer install, so I had to buy a new OS as well.

[Torven]

Figured out what was wrong with the beeping. Apparently whatever fried my drive also knocked out the temperature sensor for the CPU; it is reading 94 C, regardless of settings, even just after startup, when the heat sink is cool to the touch.

[MMX]

what about a thunder storm, surge or broken capacitor?

[mr_s]

[quote="MMX";p="170500"]
what about a thunder storm, surge or broken capacitor?
[/quote]

that also may be an issue... carpe lost a capasitor recently

[Espada]

Ok, I had this problem recently. I think.
My computer LOVES my SATA drives. It starts up fast doesn't hang anywhere durring the startup. And while WinXP doesn't have naitive SATA support, most BIOS have an option that is usually enabled by default to run SATA as an IDE drive. In fact, that's how all 3 of mine are running.
As far as your problem, my hard drive itself was beeping from the moment the computer started up. It would slow down the startup significantly. When I tried to access it after it finally did start it would cause significant slowdowns again. It was like the access times suddenly increased by 10 or even 100 times. I was only able to access the data on it a few times before it finally bit the dust, too. My brother took it to staples and ran a test on it...NO good sectors on it at all. It sounds like your hard drive is dead or in it's dying throes too.
Don't give up on SATA because of one bad experience. I've had nothing but great things with SATA and I've been using it for 5 years now, all 5 on WinXP.

[metacide]

When your computer boots up it looks for the drives, if they are SATA the mobo will recognize that SOMETHING is plugged in but may not be able to find anything, so after it times out (around 30 seconds) it will continue to boot normally. A quick fix is a soft boot, the SATA drives should show up after that. You may need to upgrade the BIOS (not as scary as it sounds).

Good job figuring out the temperature thing, thats an odd one.

I dont think your SATA drive is completely gone, just lost in the mix some place.