New Serial ATA harddrive is not working.

[Murray]

I would like to get some advice on what to do before returning this to the store.
It might be faulty drive, but I'm not sure.

Here's the story, it's a Maxtor 200GB Serial ATA.
I plugged it in like I'm supposed to.
Please take note, that I already have another Serial-ATA drive (Western Digital) installed.
I have a motherboard with support for SATA. It's a MSI K8T Neo2.

So when I boot up, the computer freezes.
I think it crashes occationnally when it tries to read/write to the drive, but I don't know if the drive is faulty or if I missed some option in BIOS mabye, but I sure as hell can't get it working properly, because sooner or later the computer freezes when I have it plugged in. If I don't have it plugged in, the computer works just fine.

 

[duffers20]

have you tried booting up with only the maxtor plugged in? If it is recognised etc then it could be a problem with the controller on the mobo, as it doesn't like 2 drives plugged in. If it doesn't, then it could be a faulty drive. Just another quick question, does the drive make any unusual noise when you start the pc, or does it sound healthy?

 

[Murray]

It doesn't make any sounds that are mentionable. I managed to start a formation of it, but after a few seconds the computer freezed again.

 

[Cuddlez.ini]

Are the jumpers on the maxtor set to master or slave? And in your bios what is your boot order?

 

[Asus]

And in your bios what is your boot order?

Yeah, you should check that.

Are the jumpers on the maxtor set to master or slave?

Remember, it's a SATA drive. No Master/Slave jumpers.

 

[psyno]

Does your Neo2 have two SATA chips (as in the controller on the VIA southbridge and an additional Promise controller)? You would have four SATA ports in this case... How do you have the drives configured? Which channels are they on?

 

[Murray]

Remember, it's a SATA drive. No Master/Slave jumpers.

I have no Master/Slave jumpers inserted into it.

Does your Neo2 have two SATA chips (as in the controller on the VIA southbridge and an additional Promise controller)? You would have four SATA ports in this case... How do you have the drives configured? Which channels are they on?

My Neo2 have four SATA slots and two of them are RAID.
I have RAID disabled since I only have two SATA drives (my new one included).

I think it's wierd however that I sometimes manages to get into windows, and sometimes not. And then when I try to format it, it freezes at random, sometimes temporarily, and somtetimes permanently, so I have to reboot.

I'm pretty sure the drive is faulty, I'm returning it to the store today.


EDIT: One thing I don't understand is what kind of BIOS setting makes it possible for one drive to work propperly and if you try to read/write to another drive the computer freezes at random.

 

[Asus]

Where you able to get into windows the first time?

How are you formating it? I recently bought a WD 300GB drive and all I did was boot into windows, use the CD that came with the drive (to get past the 137gb limit) and it was installed and ready to use. Doesn't maxtor have a CD like that?

 

[Murray]

OK, a note to all.
I have been to the store and switched it with a new one and this one works better.

Moderators may close this thread now.