System freezes, hard drives freak

I have an Asus A7N8X (not the deluxe) with an Athlon 2400+ and 7xx MB RAM. I
also have a number of hard drives. I've had problems with this thing since I
put it together. I started out with a WD Caviar WD1200. The computer would
freeze every hour or so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I rebooted
I'd find partitions corrupted as a result of the freeze-up.Happened every
time. I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard drives
and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

I recently re-added the WD1200 again after the WD1200 proved to work fine as
a backup storage drive in another machine. I was able to install Windows
Server 2003 and several services installed, but then it started freezing up
again. And now, before I had the chance to think it might be a Windoze
problem, it sometimes freezes the BIOS during the POST check, during the
"Detecting IDE drives". Sometimes today it would give the error, "Secondary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed", which I never saw before until
today.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze, first ten minutes into my Windoze
session, then later right during the POST check.

But after having taken the WD1200 out, while browsing these very newsgroups
to post about the WD1200, the computer froze with the HD light solid on
again, and I again got the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor
cable installed". Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've had
this machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for over
a year now.

I'm so confused! What on earth is going on?? Could it be a bad power supply?

Thanks for any help,

Jon

Removed the old drives, took everything off the Secondary IDE channel, put
the WD1200 drive back in on the primary IDE channel alongside the DVD.

PREVIOUS:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: old HD 1
Secondary: Drive 0: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 1: old HD 2

CURRENTLY:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 0: -
Secondary Drive 1: -

No errors yet, still no freeze yet, posting this within Windows on that
drive right now.

So, could be a bad secondary IDE channel. I never considered this before.

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
I have an Asus A7N8X (not the deluxe) with an Athlon 2400+ and 7xx MB RAM.
I
also have a number of hard drives. I've had problems with this thing since
I
put it together. I started out with a WD Caviar WD1200. The computer would
freeze every hour or so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I
rebooted
I'd find partitions corrupted as a result of the freeze-up.Happened every
time. I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard
drives
and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

I recently re-added the WD1200 again after the WD1200 proved to work fine
as
a backup storage drive in another machine. I was able to install Windows
Server 2003 and several services installed, but then it started freezing
up
again. And now, before I had the chance to think it might be a Windoze
problem, it sometimes freezes the BIOS during the POST check, during the
"Detecting IDE drives". Sometimes today it would give the error,
"Secondary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed", which I never saw before
until
today.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And
when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze, first ten minutes into my Windoze
session, then later right during the POST check.

But after having taken the WD1200 out, while browsing these very
newsgroups
to post about the WD1200, the computer froze with the HD light solid on
again, and I again got the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor
cable installed". Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've had
this machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for
over
a year now.

I'm so confused! What on earth is going on?? Could it be a bad power
supply?

Thanks for any help,

Jon

However, the Primary IDE channel has an 80-conductor cable I think (can't
tell, it's one of those round ones for modded PCs).

I moved the old drives to the other computer and one drive failed. But one
was using another 80-conductor cable. I swapped them and it worked ..
apparently one of them required the 80-conductor cable.

I swear I was A+ certified in 1997 and I've been building PCs for a decade,
and I never realized this the 80-conductor cable issue to be a problem. I
guess I lucked out for so long up till now in that my older PCs with these
drives never failed on me with 40-conductor cables till now.

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
Removed the old drives, took everything off the Secondary IDE channel, put
the WD1200 drive back in on the primary IDE channel alongside the DVD.

PREVIOUS:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: old HD 1
Secondary: Drive 0: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 1: old HD 2

CURRENTLY:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 0: -
Secondary Drive 1: -

No errors yet, still no freeze yet, posting this within Windows on that
drive right now.

So, could be a bad secondary IDE channel. I never considered this before.

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
I have an Asus A7N8X (not the deluxe) with an Athlon 2400+ and 7xx MB
RAM.
I
also have a number of hard drives. I've had problems with this thing
since
I
put it together. I started out with a WD Caviar WD1200. The computer
would
freeze every hour or so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I
rebooted
I'd find partitions corrupted as a result of the freeze-up.Happened
every
time. I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard
drives
and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

I recently re-added the WD1200 again after the WD1200 proved to work
fine
as
a backup storage drive in another machine. I was able to install Windows
Server 2003 and several services installed, but then it started freezing
up
again. And now, before I had the chance to think it might be a Windoze
problem, it sometimes freezes the BIOS during the POST check, during the
"Detecting IDE drives". Sometimes today it would give the error,
"Secondary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed", which I never saw before
until
today.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And
when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze, first ten minutes into my Windoze
session, then later right during the POST check.

But after having taken the WD1200 out, while browsing these very
newsgroups
to post about the WD1200, the computer froze with the HD light solid on
again, and I again got the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor
cable installed". Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've
had
this machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for
over
a year now.

I'm so confused! What on earth is going on?? Could it be a bad power
supply?

Thanks for any help,

Jon

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 20:28:46 -0800, "Jon Davis"
wrote:

However, the Primary IDE channel has an 80-conductor cable I think (can't
tell, it's one of those round ones for modded PCs).

I moved the old drives to the other computer and one drive failed. But one
was using another 80-conductor cable. I swapped them and it worked ..
apparently one of them required the 80-conductor cable.

I swear I was A+ certified in 1997 and I've been building PCs for a decade,
and I never realized this the 80-conductor cable issue to be a problem. I
guess I lucked out for so long up till now in that my older PCs with these
drives never failed on me with 40-conductor cables till now.


It seems more likely you had a damaged cable (or simply
making a poor connection), typically use of 40-conductor
will only cause the "no 80-conductor..." message and force
ATA33 mode, nothing worse than that. Wiggling around such a
cable can get it working, possibly only for a short time,
making it more trouble to diagnose without replacing the
cable.