SATA HD troubles

I live on the MS gulf coast, and when Gustav was comming me and my fiancee evacuated. I took my computer with 2 HDs in it. When I got back home and tried to set up the computer, only one HD was found. The SATA drive (Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s). I replaced the cable to my MB (ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ) and still nothing. I don't feel any vibration from the drive (or hear any sound) when the system starts up. The BIOS doesn't detect it. Before I spend a lot of cash sending the HD out to a lab to recover data, I'd like to see if anyone has suggestions of what it may be?

 

The drive might not be receiving power. If you are using a one of those 4-pin molex to 15-pin SATA power adapters check out the molex pins to see if they are still engaged. Optionally, disengage the connectors on the 'working' drive and connect them to the 'problem' drive. Sometimes, just the act of swapping them will properly re-seat them.

 

More than likely me, (glasses might need cleaning…doh)… but you say your sata was picked up? It is the other you have a problem with?

I agree with the last reply on the sata drives it usually is power lead problem. But I have had occasions to find a problem with the sata driver go missing due to the sata being added to a system after the initial installation of O/S and the controllers being held on and IDE Drive instead of being added to prior to O\S install…

Stephen.

 

Thanks guys. I got it fixed. It was a problem with the molex connector not seating correctly. I actually had to replace the molex to sata connector. Thanks for the tip on that one.