alright i have had 2 hard drives one Samsung 1 western digital both 120gb the Samsung is master and wd slave . the samsung is ultra ATA the WD i am having trouble identifying. what type of hard drive would conflict with a ultra ata drive.

symptoms include at some boots the WD "slave" is not detected while at others it is "no changes in settings at all totally random" a few times after the computer is fully booted and a few hours has passed the slave drive will no longer appear and cannot be accessed. and just recently the pc will be running i will return to it and it appears it has rebooted and a warning appears that both hard drives are not detected


my samsung may be failing its prob 3years old the wd is 5-6 years old

i have scanned my WD for error sectors and nothing come up

thoughts anyone??

actually your WD drive is dying... And it's not the platters wearing out, it's the circuitry.

I would try to see if it holds when you use an other cable or so, or try to separate them; each on it’s own cable.

Sounds like a classic hardware fault. First remove and refit the ribbon cable, if no improvement then replace it. If still giving trouble download the manufacture’s diagnostic utility and fully test the drive. It’s most likely the hard drive, but could of course be anything to do with the drive, including the motherboard controller.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDr...ities/hutil.htm

thanks for the fast replies i will try a different cable (i think got a spare) but i also wonder if some how it could be conflicting drive types. because i had 2 samsung drives UATA drives together the 120 and a 60 and had no troubles but when i put this drive it i have had issues for the last 1.5years (yea i know i have been dealing with it and not fixing it for a long time. What occurs if a UATA drive is linked on a ribbon with a ATA drive or SATA drive or PATA drive ect...


ill try the cable thing while i wait for other thoughts on this area. thanks alot

There's no proof of that.

@cumminbk: Try changing the IDE cable with a brand new 80-wire IDE cable. Run manufacturer's diagnostics on BOTH drives, one at a time with only one drive plugged in at a time. See what that gives you.

Alright i changed the ide cable and it fixed the problem but my master drive ended up locking up so i tried to reformat and reinstall windows on it. I did quick reformat the first time and the drive locked up at the 34min mark of windows reinstall. the 2nd reformat ( i didnt do the quick one) the pc had a blue screen of death during the format. partmgr.sys caused the problem according to the bsod. Its a samsung drive which i thought has a 5 year warranty. the drive isnt 5 years (prob 2) but i have no receipt is there a way to return it ot samsung?

Yes, you always can return it, look at there site for the instructions; no ticket needed, for none of the other brands neither.