Really Need HELP! (In middle of build!)

[zandre88]

Uh... If you take out the HDD, the SSD works fine? Do you have another desktop for individual component testing? Try the HDD in it if you do. You can try to format the disk and see if it helps. Did you just install anything that might have screwed it up? This sounds kinda bizarre to me for the HDD to just stop working right after it was put into a new PC.

Yes I can unplug the from the SATA and the SSD works just fine and loads up Windows. I do not have another desktop to try the HDD on unfortunately just my laptop. When I bring up BIOS it Auto-Detects my two ODDs and my HDD but then it says their is a "4th Master Hard Drive Error." I'm sure it would say "1st Hard Drive Error" if I had it in SATA 1 like before but I tried moving it to a different SATA port in hopes that it would work. Of course it didn't. The only possibility I can think of is that the HDD is bricked. I certainly hope not but I do not know.

I cannot format the HDD because it doesn't show in Disk Manager in Windows. Although before I had formatted it and it still wasn't allowing me to copy those video files over from my USB drive.

Just to be clear this HDD error didn't start to happen until I hit the reset button while it Windows was shutting down. I had tried to copy the video files over from my USB a couple times and it didn't work and I would get that the HDD basically no longer existed. However I would restart it and it would show the HDD again. But ever since I reset it while Windows was shutting down it has been coming up as an error.

I guess I could try to hook it up to my laptop. I have a SATA to USB cable and see what happens.

 

[redfish]

Do that and see if it recognizes it then. There are also a couple of things I can think of now, just little checks to say that we've tried everything. These depend on the fact that the drive is not recognized by the BIOS.
1) Check the jumper position, if there is a jumper.
2) Check the power connector. Make sure it plugged in all the way and in the right orientation.
3) check the SATA cable for the same things.
4) Check for physical damage on the HDD board.

I think that you're more than experienced enough to know to do these, just checking to make sure that you haven't overlooked anything.

One other check, though. You say that you had RAID set up on the drives beforehand. The videos weren't installed onto the RAID setup, were they? I'm a little confused as to what happened.

Lastly, check the BIOS to see if you have the ODDs set up as storage drives, which device is the master, etc. A little error here could be causing the problem.

 

[zandre88]

Do that and see if it recognizes it then. There are also a couple of things I can think of now, just little checks to say that we've tried everything. These depend on the fact that the drive is not recognized by the BIOS.
1) Check the jumper position, if there is a jumper.
2) Check the power connector. Make sure it plugged in all the way and in the right orientation.
3) check the SATA cable for the same things.
4) Check for physical damage on the HDD board.

I think that you're more than experienced enough to know to do these, just checking to make sure that you haven't overlooked anything.

One other check, though. You say that you had RAID set up on the drives beforehand. The videos weren't installed onto the RAID setup, were they? I'm a little confused as to what happened.

Lastly, check the BIOS to see if you have the ODDs set up as storage drives, which device is the master, etc. A little error here could be causing the problem.

All of those above I have tried. Their is no physical damage that I can see. I went ahead and hooked the HDD to my laptop using the SATA to USB Cable I had. It was recognized by my laptop. Installed the drivers and was seen by Disk Manager. However when I went to try and Initiate/Format the drive it keeps giving me an error. Maybe it is just something simple but I think the drive is bricked. I'm going to take a screen shot of how the HDD looks in the Disk Manager and post it here in just a sec. Basically normally when you pull up disk manager even if a drive isn't initiated and/or formatted it would just say unallocated with a thin border around it than like a light gray inside of that border or something. However with this it is just a solid gray all the way across. It is hard for me to explain that is why I am going to take a screen shot on my laptop and post it so you can see what I mean.

http://img696.imageshack.us/g/97985545.jpg/

That is a link to the screen shots I took. One is showing the error that is occuring when I try to Initiate the drive and the other is just a better look out how Disk 1 (The HDD) looks like in Disk Manager so you can see what I mean when I say it looks different.

Oh and to answer your question redfish, at least I hope to answer it lol, no I did not try and copy the videos when the HDD's were in RAID. The only time I was using RAID was the other night when I couldn't figure out how to get the SSD to load any other way other than RAID. I was then able to find a way to get the SSD to install and load Windows while it was in IDE so that I could actually use the HDD properly.

NOTE: NOTE: I went ahead and just ordered another HDD. I ordered the same one from Best Buy except it isn't the OEM/Bare-Drive version. It was the normal one. I don't think their is a difference other than the fact that it comes with a manual and what not and the OEM does not. It was on sale for $60 and free shipping. However that was with Standard shipping and I didn't see how long that was going to take but in the past it has taken upwards of 10-12 business days so I payed the extra to get the Expedited shipping and it was still only $77 total. That was cheaper than the OEM version from newegg which is $89.99. If anyone is looking for a new HDD (lol my problems are rare and have more to do with my SSD I think) than you should check out Best Buy. If you don't mind waiting a while for the HDD it'll only cost you $60 for the WD 1TB Black Caviar HDD. I'm not 100% but that seems like a heck of a good deal. Even if I am able to return my HDD and get a new HDD in return I'll have two so its not all bad. And for all the time and money I've already put into this another $77 wasn't going to kill me to spend.

EDIT: I am just going to return the HDD. I think there was something wrong with it from the beginning. I can live with just the 240gb SSD for the time being and hopefully the new HDD's will work properly when I get them. By the way I've never returned anything to newegg and I am trying to open the Return Policy page on their website but I think because of the Black Friday sale the website is having problems and it won't open. So if anyone could advise me what their Return Process is like. Whether they are good about it or a pain? I think the only option I have is to return it for an exchange which is fine as long as this next one will stinking work.

 

[redfish]

Newegg's RMA process is painless, or close to it. If exchange is the only option I'd suggest running RAID 0 with the two HDDs so that this doesn't happen if one of them goes bad again.

 

[zandre88]

Newegg's RMA process is painless, or close to it. If exchange is the only option I'd suggest running RAID 0 with the two HDDs so that this doesn't happen if one of them goes bad again.

I don't think I will be able to run the two HDD's in Raid 0 because I have the SSD. If I were to run the RAID 0 it'd want to use all three of the drives combined together I think? Either way I don't know if that is possible. I'm sure it probably is but it'd probably be a complicated process in BIOS and I didn't notice anyway to do it that way while in BIOS. I will likely at first just use the two drives separately and hope at least that they will work properly.

I am hoping that this whole problem was just with the HDD not being good. I hope it doesn't have something to do with this SSD but I just don't see why it would have anything to do with my separate HDD not allowing me to copy files to it. Also not allowing me to download files to it.

Hopefully sometime mid-week I will be able to finally come back with some good news that will stick that way.

 

[redfish]

Naw, you should be able to create a RAID driver disk using the ASUS utility and just load it up or something like that... I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I do know that you can just choose to run it with the two HDD's. I also am fairly certain that the only reason why you had so much difficulty with the original setup is because you were trying to load windows onto the RAID setup, a much more complicated feat.
And no, it is not a BIOS setup for the RAID. Download the utility either from the ASUS website or from the disk that came with your mobo. You can do it from windoze.

I sure hope so too. That RevoDrive is too expensive to be bad.

 

[zandre88]

Naw, you should be able to create a RAID driver disk using the ASUS utility and just load it up or something like that... I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I do know that you can just choose to run it with the two HDD's. I also am fairly certain that the only reason why you had so much difficulty with the original setup is because you were trying to load windows onto the RAID setup, a much more complicated feat.
And no, it is not a BIOS setup for the RAID. Download the utility either from the ASUS website or from the disk that came with your mobo. You can do it from windoze.

I sure hope so too. That RevoDrive is too expensive to be bad.

Okay well that makes sense. I will look into that Windoze program and about the RAID 0. If anyone has any good reading and/or tutorials on how to do it with my particular Motherboard (ASUS Sabertooth X58) or with the Windoze program it'd be much appreciated if you could make a reply with them.

BTW...redfish the HD5870 is running WoW on Ultra Graphics with no problems at all so I am happy with that. I don't know if the other one would be able to do it but just looking at the two cards you can just tell which one is more powerful and the HD5870 is definitely more powerful. I am trying to find everything that came with the GTS 450 so I can maybe return it for a refund because after looking into I can return it within 60 days for a full refund. I think I have everything that came with it but I just need to make sure. Stupid question...Does anyone know where I can check to see what exactly comes in a box? I think all that came with it was the Card itself, the manual, and two adapters. I am thinking I'm going to save a little bit more up, especially if I can return the other card for a full refund and crossfire w/ two HD5780's. My only concern is will I be able to run both of them with my 650w PSU? Because if I can't well it'll be a while before I'll be crossfiring.

EDIT: Well after looking at the PSU it looks like I have just enough of the type of wires I need to run the HD5870. It takes two 6-pin wires and I have 4 of them total with the PSU. So I basically just need to figure out whether or not the PSU can properly handle the two cards in crossfire. Plus the card and PSU are made by the same company so it'll probably be easy to figure out. I'll look into that.

EDIT (2): I just was doing some reading and actually found what I was looking for on the video card box. It requires at least four 6-pin and 600watts. So my PSU is 650w so I assume while that is just getting by it will work. Is running just over the recommended power going to be a problem or should it be just fine?

 

[redfish]

Uh... "windoze" is slang for windows. The program can be found here http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=AM2RChl84MZrKh6J&templete=2 or on the disk that came with the mobo.

Yeah, the GTS 450 is comparable to the HD 5750 and is no competition to the HD 5870. I suggested it as a PhysX card, which means that it would be performing certain computations for accurate stimulation, to complement the HD 5870 and not as a replacement nor main card.

You should be fine, just wrap everything up like it was and apply for a RMA from the website.

If the requirement is 600W, you'll be fine. The 600W requirement is a little much, if anything.

Just a little suggestion: If you want to crossfire but not spend the money on another 5870, you can get a 5830 for much cheaper and crossfire it with the 5870. AMD claims that in such a situation the 5870 will downclock to run at the same speed as the 5830 and therefore you'd see minimal performance increase, but from what I've heard that isn't true. While the performance wouldn't be close to that of two 5870s, it'd definitely be better than one 5870 or two 5830s.

Overclocking can also prove to be very advantageous- I was able to clock my 5770 at speeds waay higher than stock using the reference cooler and in a small, minimal airflow case. Overclocking is the cheapest way to "upgrade".

 

[zandre88]

Well I think if I did decide to crossfire I would go ahead and get another HD5870. Seeing what it can do alone I can't imagine it basically doubled. Maybe that isn't what it'll do exactly but I know it'll be a real nice addition. I'm thinking a Christmas addition. That's not to far off and by then I should pretty well have the computer figured out and running well with a SSD and HDD working properly. LOL it's been quite a task so far. Much more than a beginner bargained for but I guess I can say I've learned a ton so that is at least something. I will get this thing figured out before long.

I'm pretty sure I have everything that came along with GTS 450 now and just need to put it all back into the box and will more than likely return it for a refund. Am I able to just tell them that I decided not to use it? Since it is on their Standard Return Policy I can return it within 60 days for a refund minus restocking fee. That will pretty much cut the cost of the 2nd HD5870 in half or at least a 1/3 so that is one way to look at it.

Anyways I've gotten off subject from my original problem and gone all over the place but hopefully that isn't a problem for anyone.

Again I just want to thank everyone that helped me along the way with getting this figured out. I will try and update any progress I have once I get one of my new HDDs and hope that it'll work properly. Like I've said before I hope someday to be able to help other newbies out with their builds.

 

[redfish]

Yes, please do. Good news is always appreciated. I think that you have more than enough experience to help newbies- and the more for being successful.