OT Crazy hard drive problem

brianw wrote on 11/19/2009, 5:51 AM

My computer, Asus PK5-VM, 2.4 gig Core2 quad Q6600, 2gig memory, Seagate 80gig PATA system drive and Samsung terabyte Sata data drive has been working fine for a year or so . Suddenly now on booting the BIOS finds and recognizes both drives but doesnt list the Seagate in the boot options. Of course I get the ' No operating system found' error. Removing the Sata drive restores operation and the SATA drive works fine in an external USB enclosure (just much slower than on board sata). Other SATA drives in both ports give the same error.
Its not a disaster (yet) and I guess an upgrade is in the wind but its a PITA.
Any one had this happen? TIA, Brian

Comments

ECB wrote on 11/19/2009, 6:03 AM

Did you check your MB CMOS battey?

EB

Former user wrote on 11/19/2009, 6:04 AM

I think there is something in there setting the system to IDE vs. SATA if you are booting from a PATA drive.

Could be your battery for the MB is dying and you are losing your bios settings.

Dave T2

Jeff9329 wrote on 11/19/2009, 8:06 AM

If indeed the HD is working correctly, a power supply starting to fail will cause this on an ASUS.

Im on a P5K Wi-Fi Deluxe AP MB. Similar boot problems in the past on a bad power supply.

Edit: I would also get a new SATA boot drive and image the current boot drive to it, just to be safe and act as preventative maintenance & a mild performance boost. An 80GB drive is a little old.

psg wrote on 11/20/2009, 2:16 PM

I know this sounds crazy, but I had a similar problem once that was solved by reseating all the connectors from the MB to the drives.

brianw wrote on 11/20/2009, 10:40 PM

Thanks for the replies. PSQ you might just have it as I just installed a new CMOS battery and to do so had to pull the PATA cable out for more room and of course replaced it. Problem solved, dont think it was the battery as the old one still measures 3.1 volts. How simple some things are!!!!!
Brian