New hard drive problem(s)

[storms33]

Hello all. Got a small problem that has done me in true and good. even the google oracle cannot provide a answer/solution....

Two new 'Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM' Hard drives.
Existing GigaByte GA-EP35C-DS3R motherboard.

Connected new hard drives in, not looking to RAID them. In post, set 'SATA RAID/AHCI Mode' to [AHCI] and 'SATA Port0-3 Native Mode' to [Enable].
CD drive on IDE with XP SP2 disk.

I've tried downloading Intel Matrix Storage drivers and GigaBytes RAID/AHCI drivers. Put them on floppy disk drive to F6 during setup and i've tried slip streaming the drivers using nLite. No luck. It either doesn't detect the hard disks or if it does, it runs into an error resulting in either windows setup blue screen or cannot access the hard drives or cannot formatt.

I've tried using different SATA cables, tried using one then the other hard drive in different SATA ports on the motherboard. I've tried turning the AHCI mode and Native modes off in the post, one and the other and both... still nothing.

Then i tried putting my old 40GB WD hard drive in SATA, looked for the hard drives in windows and partition magic, seems to be the same problem, if i do find them they either give error messages when i try to create partition or format or cannot be accessed or just dissappear from view.

Even tried taking the CD drive off and turned the IDE port off.

AND NOW my old drive won't work correctly

This has been driving me mad for days now thus i resort to doing the un-mannly thing of asking help
If anyone can help... You WILL ACTUALLY be MY HERO!

 

[evongugg]

Welcome to the fourms!

If you are using XP, see here:

http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/how-to-enable-ahci-windows-xp/

 

[Outlander_04]

Firstly those seagates have a huge failure rate . I wont be buying any more seagates or maxtors after my experience with them .
Theres a good chance they are faulty and will never run

You dont mention if the HDD's are seen in BIOS . If they are theres hope .

Id diconnect the seagates , clear the cmos , and then reconfigure BIOS to run port 0 in PATA mode . Disable ACHI.
Does it recognise and boot from your old drive ?


If you can get that happening , add one seagate at a time and try to format it from windows . If it doesnt format send it back and by a samsung or WD

 

[knotknut]

You can try to format drives using Acronis.
15 day free trial: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

or format using USB external drive.

 

[storms33]

thanks for the replies.

i sometimes see the drives in bios. seem to be some kind of quantum state of being there and not :S

having problems with old drive, thats why i got new ones.

i put windows 7 on. went on and saw both hard drives no problems. seemed ok on one drive. moved afew hundred GB onto it then tried formatting the 2nd hard drive. now i can't get access to either again. windows just has a fit, either loading windows or the windows install setup.

might try vista, if not, as mentioned above i may have to send back. going to be really really annoyed though cause i've moved several GB of stuff that i can't get back

i don't give in though... will keep at it!
fight them on the beeches etc

 

[prezburs]

Hi!

I bought a Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB SATA II 7200.11 Hard drive before Christmas, and it was working fine until today. I started up the PC and it didn't boot, after restarting I checked the BIOS and no sign of the HDD. I tried doing similar things as the first poster, nothing helped.

Is this surely a HDD failure, because it seems to me that it's working? I have some really important stuff on it, will I be able to get it back somehow? Also do you know if I return it could I get my money back and buy a different drive, or they are just going to replace it?

Your help would be much appreciated,

Thanks in advance

 

[storms33]

"Get what you pay for!"

at £35 for 500GB 32MB i guess i should have been suspicious. guess i just got excited at a bargin.

think i'll send em back. the reason i got to was to originally RAID them. that went out the window the day i got them. was asking a friend, said he found his system more unstable with RAID.

i would take something alot more stable and reliable even if it ment sacrificing speed.

recommendations? need space and reliablitity. budget of about £80-90 tops. heck, round it to £100 if its a really good hard drive.

 

[turboflame]

Hi!

I bought a Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB SATA II 7200.11 Hard drive before Christmas, and it was working fine until today. I started up the PC and it didn't boot, after restarting I checked the BIOS and no sign of the HDD. I tried doing similar things as the first poster, nothing helped.

Is this surely a HDD failure, because it seems to me that it's working? I have some really important stuff on it, will I be able to get it back somehow? Also do you know if I return it could I get my money back and buy a different drive, or they are just going to replace it?

Your help would be much appreciated,

Thanks in advance

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

Seagate acknowledged a firmware issue and apparently are offering free data recovery services to those with bricked drives. Try getting in touch with them.

 

[storms33]

Many, many, many thanks Turboflame.
[what the hell, you earn kisses]

xxx

 

[prezburs]

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

Seagate acknowledged a firmware issue and apparently are offering free data recovery services to those with bricked drives. Try getting in touch with them.

Ok, so as you suggested I tried contacting Seagate, but they are not answering their emails. Then I tried the chat thingy where a guy tried to send me a firmware update for a drive which is not recognized in BIOS, and he then gave me a phone number to call a manager in the US which will be probably quite expensive for me since I am from the UK. Nevermind that, the interesting thing was that he wasn't aware that Seagate is offering free data recovery which is strange.

Did somebody have a different experience with them?

 

[storms33]

read this...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1098793&cid=26542735

kind of an unoffical explaination. long as my data isn't lost, i can wait a week or hopefully less to get the correct firmware

think most people now feel the same knowing what has actually happend, if only seagate said this in the first place and just asked people to be patient.... sigh.

 

[prezburs]

Thank you storms33, finally something, BTW you are right - everybody was panicking and now they even made the problem worse with the bad firmware flash,

Sorry for the noob question, but how can I update the firmware on the HDD if it is not recognized in BIOS?

 

[storms33]

i don't know about that to be honest...
mine seem to appear and disappear in the bios still. they say that data is ok and changing firmware will sort it.
may have to ..."have a little patience" and see what happens when you try new firmware. as they instruct, take other hard drives out, boot from cd and see what happens... d-day in less then 24-hours supposidly!
i'm even gettting abit excited