WD Caviar SATA Drive loses contact with Asus Motherboard

TSF_Man

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Jul 1, 2007
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I created my own PC (with somebody building it for me) with an Asus P5B-V Motherboard and a WD Caviar SE16 WD4000KS Hard Drive. The system works well, its just that frequently the HD just gets disconnected from the system.

50% of the time on booting the HD can't be found or the HD disconnects itself whilst working.

I open up the PC, pull out the connector to the SATA HD, reinsert it and the PC works again.

Asus can't come up with an answer. I think it might be the firmware, because the 3.5 floppy which worked when the system was put together now doesn't read the contents of inserted floppies.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
 

g-paw

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Jan 31, 2006
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Couple of possibilities. I'd start with the PSU, try a different one in the machine. If you don't have an extra PSU and can find a local store with out a restocking fee, buy one and see if it fixes it and if that's not the problem, return. Try different data cables. Possible the hard drive is bad but that wouldn't account for the Floppy but that could be bad as well. Again, try a different hdd and Floppy. Unless you're moving the computer around a lot it's not likely that it's physically becoming unplugged.
 

musky_melon

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May 3, 2007
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Wait, does it physically lose contact—as in unplugged— with the motherboard or is everything still connected and the HDD cannot be detected/does not respond?

Either way, I'd mount the HDD in a different computer and see if the problem occurs there. This will let you know if the problem is with the HDD or with the other components in your system. Alternatively, you could mount a different HDD in your computer and see if that drive has the same problem.
 

tomwaddle

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I'd get SATA cables that snap in for an extra, secure connection with your mobo and your HD (assuming you don't have that right now).

If you do, then I'd look at your PSU for power failure
 

sluzbenik

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Jul 19, 2006
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Hi man, I'm having the same problem with the Intel SATA ports on the P5B Deluxe. A few months ago it started, and I found there was a driver update for the ICH8R, the Intel Matrix Storage Manager stuff, and that fixed it for several months. But now I'm on the latest drivers and the problem is back. I've tried reinstalling them but it hasn't help. A soft reset doesn't bring the drive back, only a hard (power-off) reset. And then it disappears again, usually in the middle of an extended read.


It's definitely not the SATA cable or the drive because I've connected the drive (Saegate 7200.10 320meg) to the Jmicron SATA ports and am not having any trouble.

I think something is getting corrupt, since updating the driver fixed it for several months, but like I said, reinstalling the Intel drivers didn't help.

I might try a different BIOS version next..

 

Zorg

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I certainly could be wrong, but I think it's a mobo problem and Asus is playing dumb. Try SATA 5 or 6. The BIOS update sounds like a good idea. Floppies are cheap and somewhat flaky. Try putting a disk in and formating it, or as has been said, try that drive in another machine. The problems may not be related.
 

Benjamin_500

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I am having the same issue, i have the asus p5b-e plus and a WD of some name, (lol) but every now and then the HDD decides that its gunna play smart and run off, yet its only ever the boot drive, as i have a vitsa boot on the second HDD which has never bounced, its only ever the main boot device from the bios. which leads me to think that its to do with the M/B, but i get on to asus and they say "please go to where you got your item and check your set up with them" which is not helpful. i have tried 5 sata cables, every thing has an indipendant power supp. its driving me nuts, The only thing i can do to get my pc working again is unplug and reconect the Sata port, then i get a few more days till it happens again. im thinking i might take it back and change it for a diff manufactura as this is stupid. any ideas??? also keep an eye on the HDD as i did have a barracuda which became curropt not sure if it was cos of this problem, but the sound started to go first then the blue screen of death, which i was sure only came from pc world, (HAHAHA)
 

pdanzo

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Feb 6, 2013
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Hello All,

Read thru the posts and wanted to see if anyone has an update, I am having the same issues with my SATA connections, I am running with a home built computer, I originally started with an ASUS M4A88TD-V-EVO motherboard with 5 SATA positions, Windows 7 Professional 64, 3 internal hard drives (2 Western Digital and one Micro Center SSD which I used for the operating system) I kept losing 2 of the SATA connections, one for one of my hard drives a WD 1TB hard drive and one for one of my 2 DVD drives. I would have to shut down, power completely off wait a little bit, restart the computer and get all my drives back, sometimes it would take an hour other times a day or two and I would lose the drives again, not showing up in the bios (shows the SATA positions but not showing anything connected) and not showing up in my computer so totaly inaccessable! I upgraded to a new ASUS motherboard M5A97 R2.0 and guess what similar issue only this time I am losing 1 SATA position, different hard drive, a WD 750 GB hard drive. Both hard drives have been in the computer since I built it 2-1/2 years ago, I have tried updating the drivers, replaced the cables, switched the hard drives around and still have the same problem!! I called ASUS and they tell me they do not know of any issues that maybe the motherboard is bad, I told them due to my testing and changing things around I can pretty much rule out that either motherboard is defective yet they do not have a solution and seem to be playing dumb!! Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!!
Pete