Intermittent recognition of sata drive in xp

[chicken66]

this is my first post anywhere! to do this right, i would like to know where to post my question and how to include the Everest report on my sys specs...if this is nec. my question is much discussed, but i remain confused and dont want to do any irreversible damage by acting without asking? i love my computer...y'know? so, here it is - i have a single seagate sata drive (100 gb) on an hp pavilion dv2025nr ("designed for windows xp/vista compatible") running xp home sp2. i have done a factory restore from the recovery partition and the problem still remains the same. that is... the hdd is only recognized every fifth boot attempt. strange! here's how it goes...i shut it down thru the start menu, push power on, get blank black screen, push power off, on again, get hp screen where you can enter setup, wait, it goes to blank grey screen with blinking cursor and flashing words "os not found," power off, on again, blank black screen, power off, and then, IF AND ONLY IF I WAIT ABOUT HALF AN HOUR, power on and xp comes on just fine. this is consistent, but very inconvenient! help, please!

dont know if you want to know this now, but redirect me as nec...

dev mgr (IDE/ATAPI Controllers) has:

nVidia Serial ATA controller
Primary IDE CHANNEL
Secondary IDE channel
[3 ricoh mem card things]
Standard dual pci ide controller

i dont mind the idea of trying to run the sata hdd as ata or in ide mode or whatever that option is (sorry i am so clueless) but i dont know how to do that and the bios is only a partial build so i cant disable sata control.

thanks so much!

 

[kimsland]

Hi chicken66 :wave:

It's one of these:

Power Supply (I know it turns on, but this could be it)
Motherboard (Hope not)
HardDrive

Or it could be just opening the case and reseating all the data and power cables
And removing any internal dust.

edit:

Also, instead of waiting half an hour
Just unplug the back power cable
Hold the ON button in for 30secs (dispersing all internal voltage)
Put the power cord back in
Turn on

 

[chicken66]

intermittent recognition of sata in xp

thanks kimsland for the incredibley fast reply. unfortunately, i have looked into all of these. i have been thinking it has to sdo with the fact that xp has no drivers for sata drives (or so my research has indicated). however, why would it then recognize the drive every fifth time? wierd, huh? i read somewhere that it might have to do with an incompatibility between the voltages in the motherboard and the harddrive (5.0 vs 3.30) or something. i sdont know. any other ideas?

 

[kimsland]

No
It's one of the above that I said
Just run CMOS defaults
Make sure nothing is connected to the computer (sometimes USB connections can cause issues)
Bios is usually P-Sata

Oh and here's a good page about getting all your updated drivers: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic100655.html

 

[chicken66]

what and/or where is the power supply?

duh? sorry. hi level of cluelessness. what and/or where is the pwer supply in my laptop? do they cost a lot? can i replace myself? i mean, replace IT myself LOL. i have tried the dispersing voltages thing, to no avail. taking out the battery, unplugging AC, sremoving hd, and disconnecting cmos battery seems sto work most times. does that mean its the motherboard that has the problem? if so, can i fix that somehow? ooh, this is sounding worse all the time!

i am running cmos defaults already, if i am not mistaken. what do you mean about the bios usually being p-sata? did i mention it is one of those hp partial build bios which does not allow any changes regarding ata/sata/raid/etc. can one change it to a full bios by any chance? can i do something driver-related withe the nforce 430/410 sata controller to make it more easily recognized? please say yes. oh yeah, i have checked out the hard drive in another computer. seems fine. will chec out techspot driver page, but it hink all is well there

 

[Garfield]

okay chicken on a laptop it is built in the power supply so the number of diy you can do on a laptop on your own is very limited as mentioned in one of the above it could be motherboard... when you turn on your laptop keep pressing delet key it wil bring up menu this is the bios menu go through the options using the arrow keys untill you fing one that say restore default settings use this option.. another this is you can open the hard drive access panel at the bottom of the laptop it has a small cylinder image near the screw this is the harddrive when its open check if the hdd (harddrive) is connected securely close it up and try again if all this fails you need to take it to the nearest service center for your laptop as it is more than likely the mother board oh one last thing try reseating the memory it is under another panel on the bottom a chip image is next to the screw but be gental with the memory there are two clips holding it in on ether side of it push them aside till the memory pops up wards... good luck chicken66

 

[CCT]

Next time you get it running, leave it on.

Then, download Everest Home (free) and look at the Computer, sensor readings for voltages.

Then, go to the Seagate site and download their drive diagnostics program and run it.

 

[chicken66]

i have tried all the reseating, taking in and out, options quite a few times. i am still looking into the voltage thing. everest did not seem to have the info needed. but i think i saw it somewhere in SIW. i am still looking. question related to my driver updates: i am confused about whether i should be getting the nvidia update labeled "nforce 430/430 / geforce go 6150" or the one called "nforce4 AMD" (might be "nforce 430/410 AMD"). I have all three. the processor is AMD and the chipsetis the nvidia nforce mcp51. i think the video card is the geforce part, but i am not sure how it all goes together in relation to the download i am supposed to be getting for the chipset and the serial ata controller,

thanks again, guys