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Advantage22
May 5th, 2006, 04:17 PM
OK, I'm stumped on this problem with my PC. Here's the details:

1. Have 2 HDDs running on same cable for 2 years. (Seagate boot drive and Maxtor data drive).
2. One day, PC won't boot, blank screen, no POST.
3. Ended up buying in new Mobo (but now I doubt if this is a mobo problem).

Here's the interesting bits:

The PC will not boot if both HDD is installed on the same cable. I have tried:

1. Swapping 3 different IDE cables.
2. Swapped the Master/Slave jumper setting on both.
3. I have to put the 2 HDD's on separate controllers to get the Mobo to boot.
4. And, I get the same blank screen if I add a 2nd drive (DVD burner) on the same cable as the Maxtor (Slave drive I use for data).

Right now I got the PC working again with both HDDs on their own cable/controller. A month or so ago before all of this happened and the 2 drives were happy coexisting together on the same cable and controller, there was a few times when I could read the D (maxtor) drive. And I get some jibberish for the drive manufactor ID when I looked in the BIOS. But if I rebooted, the D drive worked again.

I am beginning to think the Maxtor drive is bad. Maybe there is short in it or something and since it's 2 years old, it's out of warranty (buying FS retail drives sux). Do you think I'm right? And what are my options here, can I put in a 3rd HDD in the SATA controller (the mobo have both IDE and SATA) and back up my data?

PennyArcade
May 5th, 2006, 04:49 PM
you've done everything I would do to figure it out.

The only advice I can give you now is to get an external hd enclosure and see if the maxtor works via usb.

Loco
May 5th, 2006, 04:59 PM
Is you power supply unit equipt to handle the load? Perhaps as the PSU ages, it is losing the capacity (capacitance :( ) to handle the drives.

Maybe the Maxtor is hugely fragmented and needs a good defragging. Large drives can lead to a large number of files and then to MFT errors. Which can lead to garbled data. Usually this does not lead to a computer, Not Posting. though.