Hard Drive error, is it a motherboard problem?

[ferrari91169]

Working on fixing a computer, and I needed to replace the HDD so I got a 500GB 7200RPM Sata III 6.0GBit/s HDD to replace the old one with. I'm running into problems getting the computer to work, however. I've tested the hard drive in two other PC's, run scans on it, even went as far as installing Windows and using it for a while, and all worked absolutely flawlessly, but on this other PC, I can't seem to find out why it won't work.

When I start the PC up it hangs on the "ASUS" logo screen, before finally going to the next screen where it just shows all your components loaded in the system, and when it gets to the end it says, "Master Hard Disk on Port (whichever SATA Port I'm plugged in to, 1-6) failed. Press F1 to run setup, or F2 to load default settings and continue".

When I get this message, and flick F1, and enter the bios, I go over to the SATA devices, and the HDD shows up as "S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2". When I click on it, to go into more detail, it says:

Device: Hard Disk
Vendor: S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2S2
Size: 714.6GB's
LBA Mode: Supported
Block Mode: 50 Sectors
PIO Mode: Not Supported
Async DMA: Single Word DMA-0
Ultra DMA: Not Supported
SMART Monitoring: Not Supported

Now where it says size, and brings up "714.6GB's", that is an incorrect size, as the HDD is a "500GB" HDD, which shows up fine on any other computer I've tested. It's also said other random numbers in the size area before, ranging from about (312GB's - 714.6GB's).

What could be causing this error?

I've tested the PSU on another computer, works fine, I've tested the video card on another computer, works fine. In fact, the only parts I haven't tested are the Motherboard, CPU, and RAM, as I have nothing to switch them out with that I could test them with. Could this be a motherboard problem?

I was told by someone that it could be because the drive is a SATA III 6.0GBit/s drive, and I'm installing it on a motherboard that only has native support for SATA II 3.0Gbit/s drives. Could this be the problem? The same guy said that most ports are backwards compatible, but some can cause an error and would require me using a jumper on the HDD to get it to work correctly. Where can I get one of those said jumpers, and could that actually be the problem? I've looked online and see no help anywhere so any help is appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[ferrari91169]

Actually, nevermind the 6.0Gbit/s thing. Just looked at the drive again and it's actually a 3.0Gbit/s HDD. For some reason I was thinking it was a 6.0Gbit/s drive. Anyway, forget that part though, I guess that's not what should be messing with the drive. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

 

[the_riskbreaker]

It could be the motherboard. I was originally thinking it was the BIOS not properly reading the HD. But the variable sizes lead me to suspect either the SATA cable or the motherboard. MB is more likely since you don't hear about many cable failures.

Maybe one of the MB experts on here can offer an exact cause as far as part failure.