A hard drive puzzle.

[Alan2273]

My better half called me and said the computer will not boot and is trying to do disk check, so I said switch it of and I will have a look at it when I get back.

As it has just updated Win 7, I immediately suspected the updates, but this time it was not Microsoft.

Her computer has 2 SATA hard drives , (a WD 250GB with OS and 160GB's free and a Seagate 500GB drive, used for back up ).

It would not even boot into safe mode and no disk check being done, so could not see which drive was at fault.

So I disconnected the 500GB drive, and switched on and it booted up with no problems

So using a SATA to USB connection I hooked up Seagate drive and ran their diagnostic software only to be told there were no faults.

So back in the computer the drive went and same problem again, no matter which SATA port I used, but it works with no problems using the SATA/USB method.

Any thoughts ?.

[MANEMAN]

Hi Alan.

As CHKDSK was already trying to run I would be inclined to give it full speed ahead on both disks before doing anything further. It didn't go into that state on it's own without a good reason. Running a full check can do no harm, only good, and may even sort out the problem.

It is still worth checking the updates to see exactly what they were applied to. Even uninstalling them if neccessary.

John.

[Boris]

Hi Alan,

Duff SATA cable on the Seagate ?

[Alan2273]

Hi Boris,

First thing I tried was a new SATA cable.

[Alan2273]

I ran the Seagate diagnosis tools on the drive and it found nothing.

So I used GParted to wipe it and write zeros to the drive then set it up as NFTS.

Put it back in the wifes computer using a different SATA connector on the motherboard, so far no problems.

I can only assume that SATA port 2 being faulty was the original problem.

As I built this for the wife 14 months ago, and this is the first time anything has gone wrong, it says a lot for WIN 7 stability, I still prefer Linux though.

[GladyMintz]

What piece of the puzzle am I missing? I was expecting a speed increase as far as my OS. Load times are still the same and I really noticed no increase in speed at all. I am assuming it is my older than dirt ATI hd3870 512MB ddr4 gfx card. I do have 8 Gigs of RAM. Then again I also have a 32bit OS so it is only seeing 3 but at the same time I went from 2GB single channel pc3200 to 3GB dual channel PC3-10666 as far as the OS is concerned. I thought I would see some improvement. The memory timing is set to the kit's specs. 9,9,9,24. I really won't have too much extra money at all so which upgrade would you suggest? A 64bit 7 pro or a better GFX card or what else am should I look at? I'll be checking back so any questions are welcome.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

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