Hi guys,

I've got a problem with my computer. Yesterday it booted up into windows and I went away from the computer, upon returning the computer was running very slow, the mouse was starting and stopping to move and the keyboard wasn't responding so I reset the PC. Then the comp stopped at bios saying 'boot disk failure'. I was thinking at that point that my WD 320gig Sata drive was dead. so I tried the second sata port with a new sata cable with no luck. Today I reset the CMOS and the same error message happened. Tonight I reset CMOS again and used the third sata port on the motherboard. It now works. I haven't reset the computer again yet as I fear this is the last time it's going to work.

I'm wondering if either my hard drive is on the way out or maybe the motherboard is playing up? I suspect the motherboard could be playing up as a few months ago my onboard network card stopped working so now i'm using just a spare PCI network card. Also my IDE WD 120gig drive has been working fine throughout all of this.

My motherboard is an Asus A8N-e.

Cheers,

Ben.

Run the WD diags on the drive, see what smart says about the drive. If it books ok on the 3rd port, then the first two are possibly deadish. Only one way to find out :)

Given the age of your board and it's model/brand, I'd first consider mobo failure. That said, try an run the WD diagnostics if you can (mind you, faulty board won't give you an accurate result either way - think about it).

What is it with the number of hard drive failures lately? It's like the stars have aligned and the earths polar regions have shifted & everyones hardware has been nuked.

qtab man

What is it with the number of hard drive failures lately? It's like the stars have aligned and the earths polar regions have shifted & everyones hardware has been nuked.

Chaos theory. Heardy looks at a hdd in ireland and its failures galore in queensland

Thanks guys,

I ran the short and extended WD diagnostics tests and it came up alright. When I get home tonight I'll see if the error comes up again on boot up.

I'm guessing it might be the motherboard afterall....