Weird Hard Drive Problem

[Butch Hinton]

System:
P4 3GHZ 512 Meg Ram
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard

Two Hard Drives:
Master: Western Digital 160GB 7200 RPM ATA100

Slave: Maxtor 200 GB 7200 RPM ATA133

This system has been running fine with just master hard drive for over a
year now. About 4 months ago I added
the slave drive. System running great until last week. When I turned on
the computer the bios would not recognize
the hard drives. I opened the case and noticed the slave drive was
making a loud ticking noise. After trying many things,
including putting it in another computer, I realized this drive was
dead. (only four months old!)

Now here is where is gets interesting. Removed the slave drive from
system as it was dead. The system still would
not recognize the master drive - I thought that maybe a one is a zillion
thing had happend and both drive were bad.
Played around and finally discovered that if I reverse the ide cable the
system will boot the master drive and system
runs great. I just received my warranty replacment drive from Maxtor but
can't put it in system until I get this wierd
cable problem solved. Oh I did replace the cable with a brand new one
and still the same.

Any ideas anyone - this has me baffled

Butch

 

[OhNo]

System:
P4 3GHZ 512 Meg Ram
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard

Two Hard Drives:
Master: Western Digital 160GB 7200 RPM ATA100

Slave: Maxtor 200 GB 7200 RPM ATA133

This system has been running fine with just master hard drive for over a
year now. About 4 months ago I added
the slave drive. System running great until last week. When I turned on
the computer the bios would not recognize
the hard drives. I opened the case and noticed the slave drive was making
a loud ticking noise. After trying many things,
including putting it in another computer, I realized this drive was dead.
(only four months old!)

Now here is where is gets interesting. Removed the slave drive from system
as it was dead. The system still would
not recognize the master drive - I thought that maybe a one is a zillion
thing had happend and both drive were bad.
Played around and finally discovered that if I reverse the ide cable the
system will boot the master drive and system
runs great. I just received my warranty replacment drive from Maxtor but
can't put it in system until I get this wierd
cable problem solved. Oh I did replace the cable with a brand new one and
still the same.

Any ideas anyone - this has me baffled

Butch

reverse??? do you mean end for end only I thought the connectors were keyed
disallowing connector to socket reversal.

cables are normally colour coded to ensure correct connection. ie Blue to
MoBo and Black into drive.

very odd

 

[OhNo]

reverse??? do you mean end for end only I thought the connectors were
keyed disallowing connector to socket reversal.

cables are normally colour coded to ensure correct connection. ie Blue to
MoBo and Black into drive.

very odd

that is Black to master, Grey to Slave.

 

[Butch Hinton]

reverse??? do you mean end for end only I thought the connectors were keyed
disallowing connector to socket reversal.

cables are normally colour coded to ensure correct connection. ie Blue to
MoBo and Black into drive.

very odd

It is reversed end to end. Only works if blue is to master drive and
black to motherboard. I did just
try something. I pulled the master out, put the replacement drive in,
put ide cable back to correct
position and tried it three times. First with jumper in master, second
with jumper to slave and
third with jumper to cable select. It was recognized all three times.
This is making me believe
there is also something wrond with the electronics in the master drive.
Thank goodness for backups!!!!

 

[Rod Speed]

System:
P4 3GHZ 512 Meg Ram
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard

Two Hard Drives:
Master: Western Digital 160GB 7200 RPM ATA100

Slave: Maxtor 200 GB 7200 RPM ATA133

This system has been running fine with just master hard drive for
over a year now. About 4 months ago I added
the slave drive. System running great until last week. When I turned
on the computer the bios would not recognize
the hard drives. I opened the case and noticed the slave drive was
making a loud ticking noise. After trying many things,
including putting it in another computer, I realized this drive was
dead. (only four months old!)

Now here is where is gets interesting. Removed the slave drive from
system as it was dead. The system still would
not recognize the master drive - I thought that maybe a one is a
zillion thing had happend and both drive were bad.
Played around and finally discovered that if I reverse the ide cable
the system will boot the master drive and system
runs great. I just received my warranty replacment drive from Maxtor
but can't put it in system until I get this wierd
cable problem solved. Oh I did replace the cable with a brand new one
and still the same.

Any ideas anyone - this has me baffled

Try a new cable, the old one has likely gone bad.

 

[Andy]

With Western Digital drives as master, their jumper positions must be
changed when the drive is master with no slave, and when the drive is
master with attached slave.

 

[Butch Hinton]

System:
P4 3GHZ 512 Meg Ram

Got it!!!!

This master drive is a Western Digital drive. I discovered today that
if it is the only drive in system, their is not to be a jumper on. I had it
jumpered as master. So I pulled the jumper off, put ide cable in right
and it worked great. Added the replacement drive as slave and all is
working great!!!
Aren't computers fun!!!