Used Asus Maximus VIII Hero not recognizing old HDD

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Hyperglyph

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Jul 18, 2017
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Bought a pre-owned Asus mobo, board seems to be fine and they claim it was up and running in their build not 2 months ago.

... but it's not recognizing my Samsung HDD. It's spotted my WD drive and everything else, but my main boot drive (the Samsung) from my previous build isn't showing up.

I knew there'd be some trouble with transfering an old Win7 install to a new mobo... but the fact that it won't even show up is scaring me. Plus, for some reason, the drive is making an awful retching sound at startup. It wasn't making that sound 2 hours ago when I pulled it from my PC and it's never made that sound before.

Not sure whether this is a mobo issue, a HDD issue or both. The HDD is about 9 years old, but I've never had an issue with it up to and including this morning.

Things I've tried:
Different SATA ports
resetting BIOS to defaults
clearing CMOS via mobo's built in button

I haven't tried a new SATA cable... but since the case, cables and everything but the mobo, ram and cpu are from my function build as of this morning... I assume the cables are good.

I've got 8 years of my life on this drive, so I wanna know if this mobo is somehow killing it.

EDIT: Checked the drive on another PC, my prayers are answered it's NOT dead. Also, it didn't make the retching sound (i.e. it was exactly same as it's always been). So the issue is ONLY with this board... dafuq is going on?

Anyone who can help, I'd appreciate it.
 
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urbancamper

urbancamper

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Apr 10, 2011
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If the hard drive is making strange sounds, it has gone bad. Highly unlikely the new motherboard did this. More likely that jostling it around when removing it caused this. You did after all say it is 9 years old.

There is a chance you can save the info by taking it to a computer repair shop and having them remove the disk from inside to read it in another drive. No guarantee on that though.
 
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Hyperglyph

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Jul 18, 2017
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I must've edited the post after you read it. It's not the drive. The HDD works flawlessly (no noises!) with both the original mobo and my 2nd PC's. It's only this mobo that makes it do a loud "TICK... TICK... TICK...." like clockwork when it starts up (which I assume is the mobo trying to read the drive?). And then of course, nothing shows up in the BIOS and the HDD stops spinning (or at least goes quiet).

I'd say the motherboard was bad, but the girl I got it from swears it was working when she put it in storage two months ago... and it recognizes all my other HDD's and devices right out of the box.

Makes me think it's something related to whatever OEM Windows does to drives when it's installed. I figured there'd be some issues and I knew I'd have to reactivate... but I wasn't expecting the drive to not be recognized at all. Can Windows even do that?
 
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Hyperglyph

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Jul 18, 2017
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Update:
Disabling SecureBoot by setting it to "Other OS" instead of "Windows UEFI" stops the retching sound. Like I said, it's an old drive... and the Windows install pre-dates UEFI's widespread adoption, so I can see why that was an issue.

However, SMART is now telling me that HDD failure is imminent and the device still isn't showing up in the BIOS.

It boggles my mind that a drive that had no issues (SMART-reported or otherwise) for nearly a decade would suddenly develop one in the exact moment of being attached to a new mobo... especially since my other mobos aren't reporting SMART errors (although they too, are between 5-10 years old).

I don't know whether I'm looking at an ominous warning from the only up-to-date motherboard or a wacko prediction from the new kid on the block.

Drive still spins up flawlessly with my 2nd PC.

Error Code on the Maximus is A2, which relates to (as expected) failure to read devices.

I'm gonna call Asus support (though they'll probably insist the drive is bad) and if all else fails, I guess I'm out another $60 to clone the drive and see if that fixes it.

A fresh install really isn't an option, as I've got nearly a decade of registry tweaks and personalized settings for a hundred different applications.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that after disabling SecureBoot, the drive is now visible in the Boot menu. Though it still can't boot without SMART errors which I'm gonna try and disable.
 
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