Samsung HDD help

[kramer]

Hello.

I have been visiting the forums here for some time now. Since I know that there are people with knowledge about electronics here, I decided to ask you guys about the problem with my Samsung HDD. It's the model SP1614N, a 160GB, 7200 rpm PATA disk with 8MB cache and a nice, silent Nidec spindle motor.

I go to university abroad and move the hdd back and forth a number of times each year. It was working fine before. The problems began when I last came home and put in into my computer to do a fresh install of XP. Anyway, the symptoms are:

1. During POST, I get the "primary/secondary master/slave drive fails" error, depending on how the hdd is connected.
2. After POST, I get the "Disk boot failure, insert system disk..." error.
3. When connected to either channel with another hdd, transfer mode drops to PIO.
4. SMART doesn't work but this was actually going on for a long time now but I didn't have any related hardware problems before.

The strange thing is, I've installed XP on an old Maxtor hdd and can still use the Samsung as a back-up disk. I encountered absolutely no errors of any kind during all this time using it this way.

I've done a full surface scan with Samsung's HUTIL. No badblocks were found. I've also done a low-level format to no avail.

So the only thing wrong with it, it seems to me, is the PCB board. Now, I could go a buy a nice new SATA hdd but I'm stuck with my old computer for some months and the mainboard doesn't support SATA (KT266A). I suppose it would be okay if I could obtain a working PCB but I don't think I'd have much luck with that.

Any ideas?

Sorry for the long post.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Samsung HDD help

First of all i would check the HDD cable, to make shure this cable is working and it is a real ATA 133 cable. I have encountered similar problems with an SIS748 board, but the problems came slowly. I never come to the cable until i put the hdd on an highpoint 370 controler, which seems to be more sensitiv for bad cables. The hdd wasn`t detected there and the system freezes right after hpt controler bios had gotten control. Lukily i figured out, that the cable was bad or at least not specified for the ata133 frequency by replacing the cable with a new one (keep i mind, that all cables from ATA66 are 80pin, so there aren`t any visual differences- if not labeled).
Next thing are loosey master / slave jumpers, may be it will help to bend the jumper pins a little apart.

And of course, any bulging capacitors, may be on the psu or on the mainboard could cause similar and a bunch of other mysteriouse problems.

[kramer]

Re: Samsung HDD help

Hello again.

First of all, thanks for the suggestions.

I attached the hdd to a friend's computer and it worked. Now I think it might be a mainboard problem because I get the failed drive error on both channels. Though I'll still borrow one of his cables and try it out but I don't think it's the cables.

Anyway, thanks again.

[yanz]

Re: Samsung HDD help

check also if your 12v from psu is undervolted or overvolted. while the "pc health" or "hardware monitor" in the bios isn't accurate, it could indicate something...and yes, bad data cables is very common and sometimes giving me headaches...