Continuous SATA problems

[Skittles]

I'm not having much luck with SATA HDD's.

I currently have a 250GB SATA HDD enroute to Data Recovery Corp. Mostly because I was stupid, didn't have a backup and didn't make sure both power connections were NOT connected. But I received a replacement which is identical to the first.

I've had this new drive for a couple months now. But this drive decided it was going to fail and took two other drives and my motherboard with it.


I didn't know it could kill so much other stuff. The other two HDD's wont even spin up. and my mother board does not recognize anything on the Secondary and Third channels.

So I am AGAIN buying a new MB and two UDMA ATA133 HDD's.  

Hopefully the data recovery won't cost a fortune as I have over 5 years of bought and downloaded stuff.

Looks like I seriously need a backup routine.

[Delta_]

How did the chip get in such a state?  :o

[Skittles]

I dunno. I was designing a fictional airport with AFCAD2, FSSC and FS2004 running. Without warning the computer just shut-off.  I thought for a minute, believed it was probably a software glitch and turned it back on.

Then I smelled something buring!

I shut it off, took it all apart and discovered my IDE2 slot smelled burnt.  I also smelled my drives and found the fired chip.

[the_autopilot]

Wow.

Hope you get it fixed. I've never had any problems with SATA even with raid 6.

[ctjoyce]

Well that sounds like a Drive problem. Try using a different company this time, and I have no idea why the chip would burn, odd.

[GunnerMan]

Hmm sounds like the HDD sent sme extar power through the SATA cable smehow, similar thing happened here a monitor dd something and kiled the IGP so the whole board killed.

[Skittles]

Western Digital won't replace with a different model. I am picking up two Maxtors though.

[washburn_it]

I would check the PSU, it's not the first time that a PSU failure damages an hard drive or a motherboard especially when some component is fired.
It can happen once and then it can work fine when turned off and then on but it's sure (at least for my experience) that it can happen again.
Usually it's due to an unstable voltage regulator that brings 5 or 12 Volt line over tolerance (sometime even 50%) and chips burn in a while!!
I hope this can help.
Regards,

Bob

[GunnerMan]

Just be like me, try and draw so much juice out of that PSU it cant raise the voltage. My 12V rail is gettin kinda saggy