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5 Master Boot Drive Failure

1K views 10 replies 2 participants last post by  loda117 
#1 ·
So, I'm currently in the middle of trying to ascertain whether my motherboard or my HDD is at fault here.

My main problem started when I took a peek in my case while it was running, didn't touch anything, but moved the case a tiny, tiny bit. The computer froze up and I had to shut it off. (I'd been having problems before that, but this is when the main issue started.)

When I booted it back up, it would recognize the drive, but it would say something like, "No proper boot drive found, please insert system disk or attach boot drive." Not verbatim, but something like that. It would just sit on that, or it would restart.

When it would do that, it would load the BIOS, and then sit while trying to figure out what HDDs I had attached to the computer. Just sit, and sit, and sit. After about two minutes it would either say there wasn't a boot drive, or it would load into XP (32-bit).

I figured it was the HDD I had (which was a Western Digital 250GB Sata 3 g/s drive, and had been failing check disks for a while, so it wasn't completely unexpected).

Because of that, I just purchased a Seagate 500GB Sata 6g/s drive, and am attempting to use it as my main system drive on a ASRock 770 Extreme3 motherboard.

I installed Windows 7 (64-bit) onto the Seagate, which goes fine until I get to the very end. Then it will load up, blue screen, and restart - or it will try to load, and then say that the Windows installation was corrupt and it can't load it (which it then gives me the option to load my previous version of Windows XP, which I installed on a different drive).

After installing Win 7, when it POSTS, after showing all the HDDs it will say "5 Master Boot Drive Failure", or something like that.

At the same time that I installed the new HDD, I also installed two more 2GB RAM sticks. And now my computer keeps freezing every minute or so, so I think that may be causing problems too.



I did check all of my cables, reset the RAM and HDDs, but no change.

So my total system looks like this:

ASRock 770 Extreme3 motherboard
XFX 5750 video card
AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE
2GB mushkin DDR3-1333 RAM
4GB a-data DDR3-1600 RAM (I'm under the impression this will run at 1333 fine while installed with a 1333, but this is possibly causing the glitching/freezing)
Seagate SATA 6 g/s 500GB
WD SATA 3 g/s 250GB
Hitachi SATA 3 g/s (I think) 1TB

Currently running Windows XP 32-bit to post this.
 
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#2 ·
ya moving a computer tower while its running is not a good idea

First thing i would take out all RAM sticks from your computer. Plug in only one original RAM stick plug in your drive (change the SATA cable) Change the Sata connector its plugged into to another
and see what you get
Also run
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
I've already done the RAM and changed the SATA cables (I only have two ports for Sata 6 g/s, not much I can do there - I figured the RAM was the cause of the jerkiness/glitching).

I tried to run the SeaTools and Windows said it couldn't write G:\BitMap to the disk, and that the data had been lost.

I finally got Windows 7 to run off of the Seagate drive, but it's still running slow as molasses. :4-dontkno So I still have no idea if it's just the drive or if it's the motherboard.

I turned SMART on in the BIOS so I could see if the drives thought there was an issue, and on POST now it says the drives are OK. Haven't seen the 5 Master Boot Drive Failure in about three reboots, but after POST it loads up very, very slow (used to load XP in about 30 seconds - now it's taking about 3-5 minutes).

Ah man. I think my computer may have answered my main question. The front USB ports shut down, I restarted my computer, the front USB ports are fine for about one minute, and then shut down again.

I shut off my computer, reset the front USB cables, turn computer on. POST stalls when trying to detect the Seagate drive. Remove the Seagate. POST stalls when trying to find the HDDs. Reset. Can't find boot drive.
Reset. Can't find boot drive.
Rinse and repeat.
 
#4 ·
Ok just to be sure we don't have a bad hard drive can you put the drive in another computer to see if you are able to run HDD diagnostics through it
You can use ultimate boot CD s
Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

hmm as for other problems with USB just started
unplug all power from the PC
Reset the BIOS jumpers on the motherboard (find it on motherboard's manual)
Take the Battery out for about 4-5 mins
Put the battery back in
Press the Power on button infront of PC for couple of times
plug in power and turn on the machine
 
#7 ·
As long as you have SATA slots it shouldn't matter if they are 3g/s or 6g/s or whatever as long as it has slot slots on board

ya I have seen board do weird things when a hard drive is faulty so before we jump to any conclusions we should def check the drive for errors
Then we will check the RAM one stick at a time in the computer run memtest and wait for 8 passes per stick
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Also give me the make and model and watts of your power supply
 
#8 ·
I checked the ram previously at 10 passes, 0 errors (within about the past three days, after the PC started acting up). Currently only have the one old 4GB ram stick for troubleshooting purposes.

The PSU is a Diablotek 450w.

Just pulled the jumper and battery from the mobo, reset, etc. Still the same problem.
 
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