Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Hi Folks,

I have a bit of a wierd issue with my PC, and thought I would see if any of the forum members had seen (or even better resolved) such an issue before....

System is a self built....

Motherboard is : Nforce 2 M7NCD (Biostar)
I have 1 IDE HDD with win XP on it (built on old system - repaired for new one).
2 IDE media devices (1xDVD+RW and 1xCDRW)
Nvidia FX5700 Gfx Card.
450w Dual Fan PSU
iCute Case (top and side fans)

I recently purchased a Serial ATA raid card and a 160Gb SATA drive to do a re-install on, but I need to keep the data on the old drive....

I cannot get the system to stay up with both the drives active (booted from the IDE drive).

I have installed windows on the SATA drive, and done all the updates etc, but if I try to copy the data from the old IDE drive to the SATA drive, the system powers off...

System seems to be perfectly happy on with disk standalone, or when I am not stressing the SATA drive.

I intend to try booting from the SATA drive, and having the IDE drive as an additional drive, to copy the data, but wondered if anyone had seen this problem...

I dont think it is related to the amount of power required, as I have a 450w PSU (but I could be wrong)..

Any advice/guidance greatly appreciated.

Zovat ;)

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

So its a pci sata card? have you tried different pci slot in case of a conflict? just an idea

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

It is a PCI card, and I have tried it in 2 slots :(

I thought the same, and it seemed to be ok in the second slot, until I strted copying data from one to the other - then it died again...

I works great without the IDE drive attached - but I haven't tried with the IDE attached and the SATA as the boot drive..

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

have you tried a new ide lead ,again just stating the obvious i guess lol

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

It is a new lead, but that one could be iffy - I'll try the old lead, just to be sure - That hadn't occured t me...

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

When you installed XP on the SATA disk, did the old drive appear under XP?
I assume you loaded the drivers for the SATA card as well as the drive on the old copy of XP?
How does the system 'power off' - any blue screen or errors in the log files?

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

I did not have it connected at that point, as I did not wish to accidentaly overwrite it..

I did indeed ;)
no errors, no BSOD, just a click and no power to the system.

I have to remove the power lead, then replace it and power back up...

It sounds like the PSU, but it is a fairly new 450w supply, and I cannot see it using more than that...

(but as I say, I could be wrong)... :(

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Sounds like a psu problem to me.......

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

I'm beginning to thing so :(

I'll try with the new drive as boot, and make sure the power is shared evenly tonight, otherwise it's time for a new PSU :( , and if I get a new PSU, I might as well get a second SATA drive ;)

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

I would be more inclined to think it's an incompatibility between Mobo (ATA controller) and SATA card. At the time it dies you are pumping large amounts of data down the ATA channel and up the SATA channel. I'm not an expert on electronics, but I wouldn't think there would any sigificantly different power usage betwee an idle and busy drive and the PSU is able to boot up with all the drives.

The only thing I would suggest at this point is booting of the SATA with both disks plugged in and verify that the same thing happens during the copy. XP 'shouldn't' overwrite anything on the IDE drive.

HTH

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

It could be over demand on the 12v channel of the PSU. If you disconnect your CDROM/DVDROMs does it work then?

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

just booted with the SATA as the boot drive, and am copying the data from IDE to SATA - looks like it might hold up ;)

(It had normally crashed pretty quickly :( )

I'm guessing that the monitor S/W installed had some silly settings for the power down thresholds, but I wont be able to tell until later..

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

spoke too soon - darn thing powered down again...

Swapped the power connectors so that the HDs were on different rails...

All seems to be ok now (just copied a load of data over and the system is still running ok...

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

The Sata drive needed to be on a different connection to the IDE one mine has worked fine for the last month on seperate leads.

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Thats what I thought, but i did it again :( ....

I'll try sticking the SATA on a lead with only itself, and see if that solves it...

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Ive got 10 devices (4 of which are sata) plus an x800 xt pe running off a psu with only 6 molex connectors with no problems at all

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

what PSU do you have ?

The more I look at this, the more I suspect a duff PSU

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Just wondering if the problem is because both HDDs contain a bootable version of XP, ie 2 boot.ini etc. The OS sees another bootable partition and doesn't like it.

I know that you can dual boot XP, which you are not trying to do!, but the s/w has to be loaded as dual boot.

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

its not a very special one its 500 watt though

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Well, I have left it on, with no activity whilst I have been out, and it had done it again.
I'm ordering a 550W queit PSU as we speak, so hopefully that will sort it.

(my current PSU is a 450 - but I am not convinced it is a any good.)

there were no overtemp errors on the HW monitor, and the core voltage on the PSU seems to fluctuate a little too much for my liking...

Ah well, we'll see if that works.

Thanks for your help thus far guys..

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

update - sorry for not letting you know sooner - it was indeed the PSU...
New 550W PSU - and not one problem since.. :angel:

I have since added a second SATA drive - and still working great...

I do have a new question though - so I figured I'd save opening a new thread.

I had my drives set as raid 1 - I have now undone this, and done a low level format of on drive - I want to install Linux (SuSe Pro 9.2) on it.

I cannot see it in windows to format is, but I can se it throught the H/W settings..

all I want to know is how I can be absolutely certain which drive is currently being used as the "c" drive, then I will format the other using the linux DVD.

I have checked in the h/w setting of the drive, and the only thing that appears to be different is that one has the "enable this device" option available and the other does not...

I believe that the one that has the available option is the now blank drive, and therefore should format that one - but as my wife has some data on the drive that she has not backed up I do not want to mess it up..

and help gratefully received as always..

Re: Strange goings on with a SATA drive on XP
 

Weird update - I have identified the correct drive (disabled one, and it still booted - so my guess was right ;) )

I cannot see it in windows to format it, it does not show anywhere other than the hardware device manager - and it shows an unallocated drive..

(and I have enabled it again ;) )

Ah well, off to bed and have a think about it tomorrow ...