Odd HDD Problem

[Tsavo]

I have a Samsung Spinpoint F3/500GB. It was installed on a Gigabyte P55 UDR3 with Windows 7 and all the proper drivers. AHCI mode set to on in the BIOS. It ran fine until yesterday and then it started running very slowly. I figured it was a software issue, and it was time for a fresh install of W7 anyway...but the drive wouldn't take the OS at all after a format, and soon my PC wouldn't boot at all with it installed. Also, BIOS set to defaults for testing...no OC or anything out of norm.

I tried all manner of data cable/power cable/drive swaps, and my PC works fine with all my drives except the F3.

Sooo...I tried the drive in my Asus P5QPLM system..it's based upon the Intel G41 chipset. and running in regular IDE mode. It works fine, and passes Samsung's own ESTOOL diagnostic utility. Checkdisk shows no errors.

I installed Windows 7 on the P55 UDR3 on my old WD Black 1TB and it works fine.

Any ideas on why the F3 stopped liking my P55 UDR3? Bad drive or bad mainboard?

 

[corkyg]

It points to the controller on the P55 UDR3.

 

[Russwinters]

Put another good drive on that board and see what happens.


If a Bad sector occurred sometimes the drive will revert to PIO mode.


If you took the drive out and changes system it wouldn't run in PIO anymore though.

 

[C1]

Verify the operational mode via device manager (also hardware mode should show in the BIOS)

 

[Tsavo]

Low level format in another machine fixed the drive.

Strange.

Got it back in my main PC as main drive.