Intermittent hard drive issue

Hodsocks

Posts: 417   +2
This problem has left me a little puzzled so hopefully you guys may have some ideas. I went to see a pc that wasn't booting up as it couldn't find the boot disc, I checked settings and it was set to boot off the hard drive. I reseated the SATA cable to the drive and it booted up, so I thought it must have been just a poor connection. However when I stood the case up instead of it lying on its side it froze and wouldn't boot up again. I tried a different sata port on the mobo but the same thing happened. I changed the cable which was a slightly tighter fit than the first and it seemed to be working OK even when the tower was stood upright. I rebooted the pc and it all seemed to be fine.
A few hours later the computer refused to boot up again as before, at this point I was a little flummoxed so am hoping someone has the answer.
 
No I have not seen this before, I might expect it on pc's that are quite old but this one was rebuilt only 3 years ago. I think I will run the long hard drive diagnostics test and see if that throws anything up. I hate intermittent issues cos they can be very difficult to diagnose, they may work fine while I am my customers house but after I leave they play up again.
 
My customer is now finding that the only way to use her pc is to lie it on its side because vertically it just won't bootup. I am having another look at it tomorrow thinking it may be a loose connection somewhere although have previously checked connections to the hard drive.
 
I am no wiser as to why the pc works on its side but not vertically, from my experience today that situation is inconsistent, often it would not boot even on its side. When not booting it doesn't get though the CMOS checks as no beep is heard, a couple of times there was a message "Enabling unleashing mode failed" hit F1 or F2. Having checked the hard drive, memory and tried a new PSU I am thinking there is an issue with the motherboard, although why its position affects it I cannot explain.
 
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