HDD and BIOS detection issues

Recently my 500GB WD Caviar® SE16 (WD5000AAKS) hdd has had some issues being detected in the BIOS.  The BIOS will not fill out the drive info and will instead just leave the area blank.  Usually after hitting the restart button the BIOS sees the drive just fine and everything seems to work just fine.  I am posting this from that very computer right now in fact.

I’m not entirely certain as to what could be causing this.  My best guess would be either an issue with the sATA on the mobo or a dieing hdd.  A bit of good news though, I have been backing up all the important data to a portable hdd so if it’s the hdd it’ll just be a matter of buying a one and reinstalling windows. 

Hopefully sombody will have some better knowledge of what might be happening.

Hmmm

You can try that HDD On another computer and in another SATA port of the same computer

Maybe some problems with the calibration of the drive ( this is bad) or simply a BAD sata port…

I have one of that hard drives Oldies but good ones… so im still in hope thinking that may be not the drive :stuck_out_tongue:

for now my wd5000aaks se16 is on a set up box recording TV shows in HD

Update:

Before I powered up the system this morning I swapped my HDD into sATA port 2 where my DVD is and dropped my DVD down to sATA port 3.  Again, the DVD was detected properly and the HDD was still not showing up in port 2.  I powered down the system and swapped them back to where they were and the bios saw the HDD as it should (I am posting this update from the system in question).

Still pretty stumped, although I should be able to get my hands on a friends system tomorrow to try it in.  We’ll see what happens.

Well, after trying the hdd in two different systems and having no issue with the bios detection the only common things left are my system itself and the sATA cable.  I’ve changed out the cable so we’ll see if that fixes it at all.  

Nothing like an issue that you can’t reliably reproduce eh?  Guess I’ll just use as normal and keep doing my nightly backups until something fails for good.

how its the smart of that particular drive in question ?

The WD DLG says ‘Not Available’ under SMART status, even though I checked and it is enabled in the BIOS.  I’m not certain why.  Going to start up an extended test and see if it says anything.

Ok, extended test finished in 2 hours 40 minutes and no errors were reported.  Hooked it up to another system and it did allow me to see the SMART data and it passed.

I used the Disk Smart View utiliy from Nirsoftand was able to post the data into a .txt file:

==================================================
Description : Model
Raw Value : WDC WD5000AAKS-22YGA0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Firmware Revision
Raw Value : 12.01C02
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Serial Number
Raw Value : WD-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Cylinders
Raw Value : 16,383
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Heads
Raw Value : 16
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Bytes Per Track
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Bytes Per Sector
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Sectors Per Track
Raw Value : 63
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : ECC Size
Raw Value : 50
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : PIO Timing
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : DMA Timing
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Current Cylinders
Raw Value : 16,383
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Current Heads
Raw Value : 16
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Current Sectors Per Track
Raw Value : 63
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Current Sector Capacity
Raw Value : 16,514,064
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Total Addressable Sectors
Raw Value : 268,435,455
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Single Word DMA
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Multi Word DMA
Raw Value : 7
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Attributes
Raw Value : 
Normalized Value : 
Worst Value : 
Threshold Value : 
Status : 
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Read Error Rate
Raw Value : 49,165
Normalized Value : 199
Worst Value : 199
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Spin-Up Time
Raw Value : 6,166
Normalized Value : 176
Worst Value : 176
Threshold Value : 21
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Start/Stop Count
Raw Value : 1,771
Normalized Value : 99
Worst Value : 99
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Reallocated Sectors Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 140
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Seek Error Rate
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Power-On Hours (POH)
Raw Value : 15,438
Normalized Value : 79
Worst Value : 79
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Spin Retry Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 100
Worst Value : 100
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Recalibration Retries
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 100
Worst Value : 100
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Power Cycle Count
Raw Value : 1,738
Normalized Value : 99
Worst Value : 99
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Power-off Retract Count
Raw Value : 63
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Load Cycle Count
Raw Value : 1,785
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Internal Temperature
Raw Value : 28°C
Normalized Value : 122
Worst Value : 115
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Reallocation Event Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Current Pending Sector Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Uncorrectable Sector Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : UltraDMA CRC Error Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 200
Worst Value : 200
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Write Error Rate
Raw Value : 156
Normalized Value : 198
Worst Value : 198
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Ok
==================================================

==================================================
Description : [132]
Raw Value : 2,199,040,033,659
Normalized Value : 49
Worst Value : 1
Threshold Value : 0
Status : Unknown
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Reallocated Sectors Count
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 0
Worst Value : 0
Threshold Value : 140
Status : Unknown
==================================================

==================================================
Description : Read Error Rate
Raw Value : 0
Normalized Value : 0
Worst Value : 0
Threshold Value : 51
Status : Unknown
==================================================

 Not sure what most of that means but there it is.  I am now 3/3 on startup after changing the sATA cable, maybe that was the issue all along :confounded:.

Welp, after almost two months without the issue cropping up after changing the sATA cable, it has shown it’s ugly head again in the last few days.  Even after re-seating all the cable connections on the drive the issue still persists.

Luckily I’ll be able to borrow an unused HDD tomorrow to see if the BIOS has an issue with it.  That should help narrow it down.

Here’s the latest SMART info:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 4.3.0 (C) 2008-2012 hiyohiyo
                                Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    OS : Windows Vista Home Premium Edition SP2 [6.0 Build 6002] (x64)
  Date : 2012/05/06 11:19:01

-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
 + Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller [ATA]
   - IDE Channel (0)
   - IDE Channel (1)
 + NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller [ATA]
   - WDC WD50 00AAKS-22YGA SCSI Disk Device
   - TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203B SCSI CdRom Device
 - NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller [ATA]
 + AEJLCI3V IDE Controller [SCSI]
   - MG1022K OGQ483U SCSI CdRom Device
 - Microsoft iSCSI Initiator [SCSI]

-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
 (1) WDC WD5000AAKS-22YGA0 : 500.1 GB [0-2-0, sm]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (1) WDC WD5000AAKS-22YGA0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Model : WDC WD5000AAKS-22YGA0
        Firmware : 12.01C02
   Serial Number : ***************
       Disk Size : 500.1 GB (8.4/137.4/500.1)
     Buffer Size : 16384 KB
     Queue Depth : 32
    # of Sectors : 976773168
   Rotation Rate : Unknown
       Interface : Serial ATA
   Major Version : ATA8-ACS
   Minor Version : ----
   Transfer Mode : SATA/300
  Power On Hours : 16283 hours
  Power On Count : 1805 count
     Temparature : 30 C (86 F)
   Health Status : Good
        Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
       APM Level : ----
       AAM Level : 80FEh [OFF]

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 198 198 _51 00000000F1BE Read Error Rate
03 193 176 _21 0000000014C4 Spin-Up Time
04 _99 _99 __0 000000000752 Start/Stop Count
05 200 200 140 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 200 200 _51 000000000000 Seek Error Rate
09 _78 _78 __0 000000003F9B Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _51 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0B 100 100 _51 000000000000 Recalibration Retries
0C _99 _99 __0 00000000070D Power Cycle Count
C0 200 200 __0 000000000040 Power-off Retract Count
C1 200 200 __0 00000000073C Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 120 115 __0 00000000001E Temperature
C4 200 200 __0 000000000000 Reallocation Event Count
C5 200 200 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 200 200 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 198 198 _51 00000000009C Write Error Rate