Seagate Barracuda in ACHI mode - physical damage???

[Just D]

Did anybody get any trouble with Seagate Barracuda 1 TB SATA hard drive
working in ACHI mode in Windows 7? It is a very strange coincident. I had
one 2TB IBM/Hitachi and three Seagate 1TB Barracuda working on the same
machine in IDE mode for a few months. I switched BIOS and Windows to ACHI
mode using the driver that came with this mobo, all the hard drives worked
for a day or so, I shut computer down as usual, next day computer stopped
recognizing one of the Barracudas freezing for a very long time on the BIOS
check, then giving me BSOD when Win7 was finally trying to boot up. Ok, I
disconnected this Seagate drive, tried it on the external controller - dead.
Rebooted machine, it worked just great. One day later, means today, I tried
to start the same machine with already 1 Seagate out - same issue. To make
the long story short I can say that the second Seagate became dead. It spins
like the first one, but the controller can't recognize this hard drive -
second for last two days! It looks like the controller is dead or maybe the
technical cylinders on these hard drives are overwritten or something like
that. Any ideas? I tried IDE mode, rolled back the driver, no luck. So I
returned the driver and BIOS to ACHI mode to test if this is a real problem
with the driver or not. Anyway I will to send 2 hard drives to RMA. So who
cares if there are 2 or 3 in the box. But what the real reason and if this
is a real coincident or ACHI mode can kill the hard drive?

Just D.

 

[KCB]

Did anybody get any trouble with Seagate Barracuda 1 TB SATA hard drive
working in ACHI mode in Windows 7? It is a very strange coincident. I had
one 2TB IBM/Hitachi and three Seagate 1TB Barracuda working on the same
machine in IDE mode for a few months. I switched BIOS and Windows to ACHI
mode using the driver that came with this mobo, all the hard drives worked
for a day or so, I shut computer down as usual, next day computer stopped
recognizing one of the Barracudas freezing for a very long time on the
BIOS check, then giving me BSOD when Win7 was finally trying to boot up.
Ok, I disconnected this Seagate drive, tried it on the external
controller - dead. Rebooted machine, it worked just great. One day later,
means today, I tried to start the same machine with already 1 Seagate
out - same issue. To make the long story short I can say that the second
Seagate became dead. It spins like the first one, but the controller can't
recognize this hard drive - second for last two days! It looks like the
controller is dead or maybe the technical cylinders on these hard drives
are overwritten or something like that. Any ideas? I tried IDE mode,
rolled back the driver, no luck. So I returned the driver and BIOS to ACHI
mode to test if this is a real problem with the driver or not. Anyway I
will to send 2 hard drives to RMA. So who cares if there are 2 or 3 in the
box. But what the real reason and if this is a real coincident or ACHI
mode can kill the hard drive?

Just D.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

included text from KB article above:
"For example, assume that you install Windows Vista or Windows 7 on a
computer that contains a controller that uses the Pciide.sys driver. Later,
you change the SATA mode to AHCI. Therefore, the drive must now load the
Msahci.sys driver. However, you must enable the Msahci.sys driver *before*
you make this change. "

 

[Just D]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

included text from KB article above:
"For example, assume that you install Windows Vista or Windows 7 on a
computer that contains a controller that uses the Pciide.sys driver.
Later, you change the SATA mode to AHCI. Therefore, the drive must now
load the Msahci.sys driver. However, you must enable the Msahci.sys driver
*before* you make this change. "

Everything was added and enabled BEFORE this change for sure, if not the
system would never boot up for sure. I wrote about 4 drives in the system.
The system was working perfectly right after this change and for a few more
days days, and all the drives were in a very good shape, no problems at all.
The problems appeared first to the first Seagate drive and then to the
second Seagate again drive. The third from this collection still works
great, and that's good. Also the primary one, which is a newer IBM/Hitachi
2TB drive is also in a good shape. The system is installed on this drive.

Btw, neither controller recognizes these drives after that happened. If it
was only logical issue related to the file system I would expect to be
recognized, but nothing worked.

Just D.

 

[Chuck]

Everything was added and enabled BEFORE this change for sure, if not the
system would never boot up for sure. I wrote about 4 drives in the system.
The system was working perfectly right after this change and for a few more
days days, and all the drives were in a very good shape, no problems at all.
The problems appeared first to the first Seagate drive and then to the
second Seagate again drive. The third from this collection still works
great, and that's good. Also the primary one, which is a newer IBM/Hitachi
2TB drive is also in a good shape. The system is installed on this drive.

Btw, neither controller recognizes these drives after that happened. If it
was only logical issue related to the file system I would expect to be
recognized, but nothing worked.

Just D.

A similar problem occurred a couple of years ago on two older MSI MBDs
in my P/Cs running Win ME. Turned out that there was a power supply
failure or, more likely, a failure in the MBD 5v regulators, likely due
to failed capacitors.
Two WD PATA drives died in one, with blown chips on the drive I/O card.
(One at a time, with a couple of days between the failures.

Naturally, the P/Cs were old enough that it was not worth the
trouble/cost to repair, and while some parts were recycled, it was time
to replace them. (Newer, better, faster, etc)

In your case, I'd likely try to get my hands on the drive Mfrs "low
level" utility, and see if it recognizes the drives. If these driver
were 1TB drives, there is a possibility that they are two of a "bad lot"
of drives that were sold a couple of years ago.

 

[KCB]

A similar problem occurred a couple of years ago on two older MSI MBDs in
my P/Cs running Win ME. Turned out that there was a power supply failure
or, more likely, a failure in the MBD 5v regulators, likely due to failed
capacitors.
Two WD PATA drives died in one, with blown chips on the drive I/O card.
(One at a time, with a couple of days between the failures.

Naturally, the P/Cs were old enough that it was not worth the trouble/cost
to repair, and while some parts were recycled, it was time to replace
them. (Newer, better, faster, etc)

In your case, I'd likely try to get my hands on the drive Mfrs "low level"
utility, and see if it recognizes the drives. If these driver were 1TB
drives, there is a possibility that they are two of a "bad lot" of drives
that were sold a couple of years ago.

Now that you mention it, the Barracuda 7200.11 series were having issues,
causing Seagate to issue firmware updates. Look here if this may be your
problem:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951&NewLang=en
The 7200.12 series has (supposedly) solved the issues.