Is anyone able to suggest why, my 500GB WD sata hard drive is more often than not, recognized in bios or Windows?
Here’s some history. I suffered for a long time with an inability to bootup. The computer would power up, and do nothing. Just a blank screen. After repeated hard starts, it would eventually boot up, albeit very slowly! At one point, once it had started, applications became very sluggish. I had enough of this foolishness! I suspected maybe a memory error, so I reseated my memory modules, and while I was in the case, reseated anything else I could thinking maybe that was why booting was so unreliable. I used a different SATA connection point. Turns out the memory was fine but was still suffering the bootup issue.
So, rather than trying to diagnose the cause of everything (no viruses, no spyware), I purchased a new SATA drive and re-installed Windows XP on it to start over again. The hope was to use the exchanged drive as a 2nd drive.
The new drive works flawlessly in it’s connector (where the original was). Windows XP installed and updated to SP3. Bootup was flawless and quick! Now, to plug in the original (faulty?) drive into the next available SATA connector on my ASUS M2A-VM mobo. Power on … the boot post shows all drives except the 2nd (older) one. SATA 2 - where it is plugged in shows empty, not “none”, but just empty ie. "SATA2: ". Bootup has become slower lagging between the drive recognition and Windows startup (blank screen with blinking cursor at the top left).
Once Windows is up … Windows Explorer confirms that 2nd drive does not exist.
So … being determined … I continue to restart my computer. After about the 5th attempt, success! The older SATA drive is recognized in port2. Boot up is slower than usual, but faster than when #2 drive was unrecognized. Windows Explorer confirms the presence of drive “E:”, a 500GB WD Sata drive. All previous data is in tact and accessible. Business as usual.
Next time around … a repeat! Numerous failed attempts at bootup to find this drive. With repeated efforts, it’s originally found! Ran some WD diagnostic tests (Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics) and all basic and extended tests came up up as Passed.
My computer is comprised of:
Asus M2A-VM motherboard with onboard audio and LAN, all updated (chipset as well) with latest drivers. 2MB of DDR2 RAM. Nvidea GEFORCE 8500GT PCI video card . xxxxxxx xx31000528AS primary (functional) 1TB sata HDD; WD 5000AAKS-00YGA0 500GB sata HDD (having accessibility issues), WD 1200JB-00GVC0 1200GB IDE HDD and LG DVD.
Please … I hope someone can shed some light onto the possible cause, and better yet, have a suggestion on what cab be done to fix it, even just long enough to pull my data off it and move tot he safe drive.
Jenn
