Switch to full style
Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
Post a reply

Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 1st, 2008, 3:44

Hello,

I appreciate any help on this... I just made a big booboo.

I installed an IDE to SATA converter on my Seagate ST3500841a 7200.9 hdd and now my hdd does not work anymore. Even putting the hdd back to the IDE channel my motherboard's bios does not see it.

The converter is defective and it messed up my hdd. I confirmed this by putting the converter on my spare dvd drive and my motherboard does not see the dvd drive either.

I am able to confirm that (I think) there is no mechanical damage. I powered up the drive and it spins up without any noise.

I read that this is likely to be a pcb problem but I took out the pcb and I don't see any burnt mark or anything... Before I spend the money to buy a new board, I was wondering if there is anymore diagnosis I can do?

Thanks!!!

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 1st, 2008, 5:40

Does sound like a PCB problem.

Check the drive with MHDD to see if any ID info is picked up (i.e. Model, Serial # etc)

These drives are pretty fussy when it comes to PCB's though. I usually end up reading the ROM info off the duff PCB and re-programming a donor PCB to suit.

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 1st, 2008, 7:00

pcimage wrote:Does sound like a PCB problem.

Check the drive with MHDD to see if any ID info is picked up (i.e. Model, Serial # etc)

These drives are pretty fussy when it comes to PCB's though. I usually end up reading the ROM info off the duff PCB and re-programming a donor PCB to suit.


PCIMAGE,

Thanks for the reply,

I tried MHDD (first time). It only shows my boot drive, dvd drive and flash reader with a name attached to it. There is an empty slot under my boot drive that it can't detect what it is so I assume that is my broken hdd.

So does this mean it is definitely a pcb issue?

Also, I was wondering if I can get a different pcb for my hard drive because I'm having a hard time finding the same harddrive in retail. I have the 500gb 7200.9 with 8mb cache but I can only find 500gb 7200.9 with 16mb cache for sale...

thanks,

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 1st, 2008, 8:38

Hi,

MHDD works only with devices configured as Master, so make sure u connect your drive as master.
It is also useful if u run MHDD from floppy bootdisk or bootable CDrom (images are available for download AFAIK) and only plug the drive to be tested as primary master.
First check the setup with a known working drive.

pepe

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 1st, 2008, 18:10

pepe wrote:Hi,

MHDD works only with devices configured as Master, so make sure u connect your drive as master.
It is also useful if u run MHDD from floppy bootdisk or bootable CDrom (images are available for download AFAIK) and only plug the drive to be tested as primary master.
First check the setup with a known working drive.

pepe


Thanks for the tips.

I tried MHDD again with a known working drive and it doesn't show up either. Nothing on my IDE channels shows up.

I'm using an Intel board. The PATA is using a Jmicron controller. I'm using my cdrom as the slave drive on the Jmicron PATA controller and I'm trying to detect the PATA master. So far, only the SATA drives on the Intel controller shows up.

I know the Jmicron PATA controller works though cuz it boots into MHDD...

Any more tips?

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 2nd, 2008, 6:22

Hi, Then you probably got a faulty motherboard instead of a faulty drive.
Try to put your drive in a external Usb-enclosure and see if it will read it out that way.

Bosse

Re: Need some help! IDE to SATA converter cause huge problem...

March 3rd, 2008, 4:34

mr_spokk wrote:Hi, Then you probably got a faulty motherboard instead of a faulty drive.
Try to put your drive in a external Usb-enclosure and see if it will read it out that way.

Bosse


The good hdd and the dvd rom works fine in Windows on the PATA channel. Only mhdd does not recognize it.

I have tried an usb enclosure, mhdd does not see that either. Is there a specific USB chipset that I must use with mhdd?

thanks,
Post a reply