Two WD SATA failures....at once.

[Bluefront]

Two new WD 320gb SATA drives failed at the same time. They were mounted externally, with the cables plugged to the external SATA ports of a PCI SATA card. The power was from a molex with a "Y" adapter. They were both working fine.....the OS was on one of them. I moved the setup with the power off, then re-connected the drives and powered back on, never even opening the computer. Nothing....neither drive even spins any more, even attached to the MB SATA headers. I suspect the PCI SATA card caused the failures, as the molex power connectors checked/metered ok. Nothing else in the computer was affected, including an internal PATA drive, so I'm ruling out the PSU. A new WD SATA drive is now working ok in the same external setup, but using the MB SATA ports. Here's the question....can the DATA cables cause a drive failure bad enough that the drive motor no longer spins? I'm not using the PCI SATA card any longer, even though Windows XP recognizes the card as being ok......

 

[Puffnstuff]

More information would be useful like what ps, card, how did you have the drives mounted and stuff like that. When the drives receive power they should spin up regardless of whether or not a data cable is attached.

 

[Bluefront]

The question is.....can the data cables cause the drive motor to fail because of some controller malfunction. Neither drive motor spins any longer, whether or not the sata cable is attached.

I"m well aware that a PSU can cause the drives to fail, but the system is working fine with a new drive, and the same Fortron PSU. Nothing else failed.

As to the brand of the card......? It either caused the problem or it didn't. I'm not about to attach another drive to it to check. I've just never heard of a data cable causing the drive motors to fail.

 

[wwswimming]

one option - identify power circuit nodes on the failed drives
and then "ohm them out" (well, measure the voltage,
actually) to see what the status is, compared to the
reference working drive.

$20 for a Radio Shack multimeter.

i'm tempted to say a connector solder joint failed but that's
just one possibility. it's unlikely that you would break 2
solder joints plugging or unplugging a cable.

could a failed power connection on one drive cascade
to the other drive ?

i had something similar happen once with 1.2 GB WD PATA
drives. dropped one about 1" while it was running. hasta
la vista to 2 drives.

might be a knee jerk reaction that says more

 

[corkyg]

The only things common to two drives at the same time are power and data feed. Data feed rarely causes a hardware failure, but power anomalies can do that. I would be checking the power supply outlet that feeds the SATA power cables. Or, those cables themselves. Or, the SATA controller that turns those things on and off, etc.

 

[Bluefront]

Yeah I considered all the possibilities before I attached another WD drive. I metered the power cables at the drives.....checked normal, but I replaced the thing anyway. I figured that a PSU surge would also have ruined the internal WD PATA drive, because it is on the same rail as the two that failed. The PSU is a very new 400W Fortron, the new fanless model. I have my fingers crossed. The drives were bought locally, so I just exchanged them. Hard to figure. If it happens again, I'll blame the PSU. For now I blame the SATA card.

 

[Pabster]

Power surge? You didn't mention if you are using a UPS.

 

[Blain]

> Install a CA-302R along with an LA-302R <

 

[Bluefront]

Well I doubt it was a power surge. The thing was working, plugged into a UPS. I turned it off, moved it slightly, and re-routed some cables. That's it......Re-attached everything, only to find both hard drives dead. It was a sunny day, no storms. Maybe just bad luck...🙁