Possible HD failure?

[algae]

Hi all,
Here is what is going on with an older pc I own. The motherboard is a A7N8X Deluxe. I have two hard drives connected as follows: SATA connected to the SATA Raid_2 connector. This one has been the boot drive. I have an IDE drive that I use for back up slaved to the SATA drive and is plugged into the Primary IDE connector.
Suddenly the pc won't find the SATA upon boot up. As there happens to be an old install of Win XP on the slaved drive, I can boot to it but the SATA drive still isn't showing up.
So far I've taken out the SATA drive, plugged in another one that I have around and still the only drive that shows up in My Computer is the slaved IDE drive. I've also switched connectors from the RAID_2 to the other (RAID_1). I haven't tried another SATA cable because I don't have one lying around but before I go further I thought I would see if anyone has any advice.
I hope I've given enough info. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Gary

 

[Emulex]

yeah you throw it in another pc or an external enclosure - if its kaput - thats about it.

what i find is alot of marginal drives you can put in an external enclosure and keep powering it on/off and it will finally catch and go.

obviously this is more difficult if you are using your main power supply for pc

 

[algae]

Good thought. Do most external enclosures support SATA? I've checked two that I have and they don't. They are a few years old.
G.