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Possible BIOS Issue?

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by m61

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Had some problems with my computer "crashing" a few months ago, turns out it was the power supply, so I swapped it out, and now my secondary drive (yes, jumpered as slave) shows up in the bios as: ≤T≤8=0≥1β α α α α

now I hope these symbols show up. The drive is a segate 120gb 7200 IDE drive, as i had about 90 gigs on the drive, there was about 30 free, and now the partition editor i use only shows the drive as having 30 gigs available.

I'm wondering what could be wrong, could it be my IDE channel on my motherboard, or the drive itself? or the bios?

10 replies

by m61

...contain an OS, and no the data is not backed up.

it's more the fact that any drive set as slave shows up "funny" in the bios and is not recognized by my partition editor which is why i'm wondering if it's more of a bios issue or IDE controller issue

even though the jumpers are set to master/slave, does it matter where on the IDE cable they are connected?

by oh smeg

http://tinyurl.com/yvq99t

and test the Drive.

If it doesn't pass [b]Don't Panic[/b] as it may not be the drive at fault. Remove the drive fit it to another Computer and test again If it still fails you have a problem but if it now passes the Drive Controller or Lead on the M'Board is at fault and needs replacing.

As for the strange designation on the HDD the only time that I've seen this is with a Power Supply that is less than perfect so maybe all the problems are with the new Power Supply. Remember that just because it's now doesn't mean that it's perfect so check that as well.

Col

by m61

...seatools on it on a different machine and it passed. it is recognized on another machine as well, which [as i just stated above] why i think it's something with the bios or the ide controller...

by computercookie

it's hard to say.

What happens when you connect as a master and boot from it?

by m61

...is a soltek sl-75frn2-l

if i connect it as the master and boot from it i get kernel panics (as the drive was corruped when the computer decided to shut down unexpectidly when my other power supply went)

oh, and i'm running ubuntu gutsy

by oh smeg

Yes it matters where the drive ins on the IDE Lead as the new 80 Way IDE's auto Select The Master should be on the End and the Slave on the Middle connector.

To test the IDE controller & IDE Lead you need to run Seatools on that Computer and see if the Drive Passes, If it doesn't the IDE Controller or IDE Lead is shot. Try changing the IDE Lead and testing again If it now passes the Lead was faulty and it it still fails the IDE Controller is Shot. Seatools or any HDD Testing Utility tests not only the HDD but it's Controller & Data Lead so you need to run it on the problem machine.

Soltech makes some decent M'Boards and besides the faulty batch that they had a few years ago that seemed to cross all models if it worked for 4 weeks it kept working. So other than some damage being done by the failing Power Supply it should be OK but it needs Testing. Use the Ultimate Boot CD to test the M'Board CPU Ram and whatever else, this also has Seatools and several other HDD testing Utilities so you can run them directly off the CD. If you don't have a copy of this very useful tool it's available for download here

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

by m61

...and the short test failed, and the long test failed as well, each time it said that "the temperature limit has been reached -- 229"...now i highly doubt the hard drive got up to 229 degrees, but still, looks like the hard drive has failed...

and i'm fairly sure it's still on warranty, so i think i can still RMA it..

thanks for all the help!

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