Hardware

IDE cables rarely, if ever, go bad.

Are these new IDE cables or used ones?

gammyun , check :
1. the connector on the hard disk . have you folded the pins such that some are touching each other ?
2. check your power cables to the disk .
3. check your master-slave-cable select jumper as well . do you have a conflict with the cd ' s jumper ?
that should do it ..

The first IDE cable replaced was the original one that had worked fine until this point. The second was a brand new one that came with the motherboard. The third was a spare one that was known to be working. I don't think the root of the problem is the cables themselves - there are no bent pins or anything on any of the connections.

The power connection to the hard drive seems fine, I've tried different connectors to be sure and it's in good and tight. The CD drive is on a separate IDE cable - I haven't messed with the jumpers and there's no device conflicts that I can see.

With an ohmmeter check the continuity of all the
wires in the IDE cable that has failed. It is
possible that you maybe drawing current thru the
pins and after use it just opens. The problem could be with the logic chips on either the
hard drive or the motherboard, even the power
supply may be the culprit, but not likely.

Once, I could blame the cable.

Multiple times, there is something else wrong.
When you swap out the IDE cables, you are bumping another component and temporarily correcting the problem.

You can verify this by just unplugging and replugging the IDE cable.

Start with the easy stuff.

If you have a different string of power leads, switch to those.
You might have a bad wire in the string of power cables.

When you removed the drives from the old PC, did you need to work extra hard to remove one of the power leads?
If so, inspect the solder on the power leads for the drive in question.
Use at least 10X magnification. You are looking for ANY cracks in the solder fillet.

If you find cracks, they MUST be repaired by someone with electronics soldering skills AND a proper ESD safe solder iron.

Verify that the RAM modules and plug-in cards are fully seated in the motherboard.

Check that leads on the bottom of the motherboard are not shorting out to the case.

Boot from a DOS floppy, or CD.
GENTLY and CAREFULLY flex the motherboard near or at the IDE connectors.
If the system shuts down, or the drive shuts down, you may have a bad motherboard.

Don't rule out a bad or undersized power supply.

Unless you have a slow or lightly loaded system, 500 Watts is not too much of a power supply.

Chas

I am with bfilm the only time i have had a bad ide cable has been when it fell apart in my hands while i am pulling them off (my hands shake so bad when i have to work inside the case you see (from fear)) So I admire how easily you guys did this. i have never had a cable fail just in use. your bad luck that this appeared to fix things. remember, during the cable swap you probably had power off...
do you guys all this is hardware?
could this be that he has not installed the proper hal for his new motherboard?
You got your drivers but did you get your latest BIOS version update and did you get the mboard drivers?
my answer is:
i would check the mboard mfg website for this problem
i would turn off power management in BIOS and in Windows
I would run the box booted from a DOS boot diskett to a command prompt and let it sit in hot room for couple hours to see if the hd stays up.
bet it does

Possible problems considering what you have reported. In the order that we would test it.

Bad hard drive: A cold solder joint or a defective chip that is heat related could cause this problem. Move the hard drive to a different machine and run the manufacturers diagnostic software on it.

Bad Mother Board: Again a cold solder joint or a heat related problem can cause this. Install a known good drive with it's cable on the motherboard and run the manufacturers diagnostic on it, multiple times to extend the time running.

Bad Power Supply: Replace the supply and test the system.

Not easy checks or test but is something that would have to be done.

Lee

Run a full set of Diagnostic tests from the Ultimate Bot CD an ISO is available from the following URL

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Download the image and create a Boot able CD and run all the diagnostic tests you have something seriously wrong here as IDE leads just do not fail in this manner.

In addition to what the Chas said about looking at the solder joints on the Power connector on the HDD also look for grainy solder joints as these can have become what is called in the electronics industry a Dry Joint where they are not conducting power. All good solder joints should look shiny and not dull and grainy. But the diagnostics will tell where the problem is and then you'll need to decide what you need to do to fix it.

Col

Hi,

A couple of things you could try.

1/ Next time it happens try unplugging and replugging the IDE cable from just the motherboard. If this "fixes" it then I would suspect a fault joint on the mobo. Repeat with the hard drive after this to check for a faulty joint.

2/ Plug the HDD into IDE port 2, with the CD drive, double check your jumpers HDD master CD slave, and change boot order in BIOS.