What's failing - HD or mobo...?

[bovinda]

Problem: Hard drive (a non-OS one) disappears, then computer starts slowly.

The Story: So about a month ago, a computer I built, which has 4 HD, suddenly shows only 3 - one of the back up drives (which I keep my Documents, Music, etc. on, separate from the OS drive) disappeared. Everything else seemed fine, so I restarted the computer.

It started freezing at different points during start up - each time I restarted it, it seemed it would freeze up earlier, until it was freezing during the POST screen. I was busy, so I left it off for a week, came back, and tried again.

It seemed to start up fine, and all hard drives were detected. So I updated Windows, and during the restart, it started having the same problem.

Left it off for another month, and today it started fine. I let it run for a bit, then the same drive disappeared. I've heard no grinding or anything like that, and this drive is about 3 or 4 years old. Granted, this computer is on 24 hours a day...

I restarted it again just now. It hung for awhile on the POST screen, after it detected SATA channels 1-4, on a part saying "Detecting IDE drives..." The it continued and loaded up windows, but says something like "Drive E [where I moved My Docs folders to] refers to a location that is not available..."

Restarted once more and went into BIOS - it doesn't show the hard drive.

The question - what do I replace? Is it the hard drive, or an IDE controller on the mobo for some reason failing? Because I haven't heard any grinding like I've heard people say when drives fail.

Hardware specs:
Abit IP35 Pro
Q6600 (non-OC'd)
4 GB RAM
3 Samsung HDs (one of which has disappeared), one 300 GB raptor
Nvidia 8800GT
Corsair 620 watt PSU

Thanks in advance!

 

[RebateMonger]

All of your signs point to a failing (or failed) hard drive. An intermittently-working IDE controller would be really rare. If you haven't already done so, replace the IDE data cable and re-seat all the power and data connectors.

If you want to be 100% sure that it's the disk, connect the hard drive to another PC or through a USB enclosure or an IDE-to-USB adapter cable like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...to+usb+adapter

If the disk is recognized when connected through a different controller or cable, then you may have an IDE controller or IDE cabling issue. Otherwise, it's the IDE disk.

If you want to recover any data from that disk, you'll either need to get it recognized by the BIOS of a computer or will need to send it to data recovery professionals.

 

[bovinda]

Thanks for the response - I'll try those options just to be sure it's the HD. Fortunately I'd backed up everything on it about 2 weeks before it started going wrong.

Appreciate the help!

 

[pcgeek11]

Thanks for the response - I'll try those options just to be sure it's the HD. Fortunately I'd backed up everything on it about 2 weeks before it started going wrong.

Appreciate the help!

That is a great reply, one that is seldom heard by a PC repair person.

Good on You!