Greetins, all,
I just recently rebuilt my PC using new components and am encountering a strange problem (or rather, a pair of problems). For an operating system, I have XP loaded onto one HDD and Windows 7 RC1 on another. Both HDDs are replacements for RMA units, and the first problem is with the one upon which Windows 7 is loaded. Every now and then, it freezes in the boot process, and it has also frozen a couple of times during operation (primarily, moving large files from one partition to another). I believe this indicates that the drive is bad, though diagnostic software doesn't show any problems.
The second problem is directly connected to the first, but lies (I beleive) within the motherboard or BIOS, and thus is the one that I'm hoping someone here might be able to assist me with. Upon restarting each time after the first error, I always get a disc read error during post, and I never progress to OS boot. This will happen each time I restart; however, the problem clears once I disconnect and reconnect the SATA power line from the HDD. With this done, the system POSTs normally and the OS boots.
As I mentioned, I believe the first problem might be caused by a bad disc, but I have no idea why the BIOS has such trouble recognizing the disc after restart until I effectively disconnect the drive from the motherboard. I looked through the BIOS settings, but couldn't find anything that might cause such a problem. Does anyone have an idea why this might happen?
My syster particulars are:
Motherboard: EP45-UD3P, MPS 1.4, F9 BIOS
Memory: G Skill F2-6400CL4-2GBPI-B
Processor: E7400 Core 2 Duo, 2.8
Drive: ST3250310AS
PSU: Corsaid HX520W
Nothing is overclocked. One odd thing is that Windows shows the system disk to the "Disk 2" (Disk 0 is assigned to a shared data drive and Disk 1 is assigned to the XP OS), though I don't think that should be an issue. Also, my last build experienced catastrophic problems after nearly four years, and this replacement uses all new components except the case and the PSU. I don't think the PSU could cause these problems, but I'm open to that in case anyone has seen something similar.
Any help would be much appreciated. I'll try installing the OS on a spare drive to see if I can solve the first problem, but I'd still like to know how to avoid trouble with the MOBO and/or BIOS, and having to go into the case to unplug a drive should I have trouble.
Many thanks.
