TSGL: Hard drive not in good spirits

[Don Penlington]

XP SP2.

About 2 months ago I added a new Samsung 250Gb hard drive (H). Up till now, 
everything has been fine. It was immediately auto-detected by the BIOS and 
the installation all went without a hitch.

Suddenly, yesterday for no apparent reason, when I rebooted, the new drive 
was no longer recognised by the BIOS (Award).

It did not appear in Device Manager and was nowhere to be seen. As if it's 
been spirited right away---and, no, it hasn't fallen out of the case.

The primary drive is SATA1, the new drive is SATA2.

Checked all cables, all tight and nothing loose. No strange noises (I have 
the sides off). The drive seems to be spinning and is running cool.

I rebooted and went into BIOS, changed Hard drive auto-detect to manual and 
back again to auto. Then rebooted and H appeared again as normal.

Rebooted once more, and again---no H!!!.

Same procedure, changing BIOS from Hard Drive auto-detect to manual and 
back again spirited H back once more.

After several more reboots, no regular pattern is emerging---sometimes H is 
present and working, sometimes not.

I imaged C-drive back (Acronis True Image restore) a couple of months, but 
that had no effect on this behaviour.

What could account for this intermittent problem?  Is it possible that my 
shiny new H has some intermittent failure? I'm sure if I send it back to 
Samsung under warranty, they'll say it's fine.

When it's present, it seems to be running OK. I use it for data only.

Maybe I need to indulge myself in some spirited behaviour. Any other 
suggestions, short of suicide?

Do BIOS'es ever wear out? The computer is only 2 years old.

Don Penlington



 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
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