Did I put too many hard drives in my computer?...

[slick]

I decided to act uber nerdy and bought a bunch of 2TB hard drives (3 to be exact).
I had a 300GB Velociraptor, 1TB WD SATA, and 2TB WD SATA. The 2TB is filled with movies. So I thought I would get another 2TB to backup my current 2TB. I thought I might as well get two more 2TB's for future proofing.
I removed the 1TB (I have 6 SATA connections on the mobo, 5 hard drives to connect and one SATA DVD burner).
On SATA 1 we have the raptor, on 2 the DVD burner, and 3-6 are the 2TB hard drives.
I turn the computer on, "BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". I just installed Windows 7 on this thing. So I reinstall W7. It installs, I get into windows and format/initialize the new hard drives, install drivers, get everything working and restart, "BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER".
What the heck? I thought my Velociraptor was bad. I replace it with the 1TB, install W7, go through the same BS, restart and guess what, same error.
I decide to put the Raptor back in, disconnect all of the 2TB drives, boots up fine. Do a few system updates, restart, works fine. I restarted the dumb thing 10 times, all good. I plug in ONE of the 2TB drives, computer goes ape **** again.
I have never put more than 3 hard drives in a computer, but never thought it would be an issue. Any ideas?

[Auric]

Err, confirm the boot drive in CMOS Setup. I am dumbfounded that your first step was to reinstall the OS. Even if it is not the boot order, some sort of repair or image restoration would be prudent before resorting to that.

[slick]

The Velociraptor was/is the boot drive. I made the hard drive the first and only boot device, still no dice.

I upgraded Vista to W7, so I just decided to do a clean install when this BS started.

Now the thing won't boot even with just the Velociraptor connected.

[DaJMasta]

Make sure that the mode used to install the drives is the same now in the bios (ACHI/RAID/IDE), make sure that the drive you're trying to boot from isn't part of a broken RAID array, make sure that all 6 drives are on the same SATA controller, often that many ports means a different controller and you shouldn't be switching them around to the other one and expect it to boot cleanly.


Since you've already nuked once, it may be worthwhile to set it to IDE mode and reinstall again, that's the only way I know that it will always work - ACHI or RAID could work fine too, but I haven't looked into it. You could also set the CD drive to first boot, boot with the win 7 cd, run the recovery app, and if nothing else works, run the dos mode, then "chkdsk /r" and "fixboot" (or is it "fixmbr"?).

[slick]

I've left the controller mode the same, IDE, and the Raptor has always been on the same connector. I think there are two controllers on the board, but I believe its one controller for the 6 on board SATA and another controller for the 2 eSATA on the back, so I think I am good on that.

I'm going to try recovering/repairing first, and then try check disk and fixmbr.

I wonder if its the controller? And I don't know whether or not I have the jumpers on the SATA drives, but is that even necessary anymore? (you know, master and slave and that crap).

[DaJMasta]

Originally Posted by slick

I've left the controller mode the same, IDE, and the Raptor has always been on the same connector. I think there are two controllers on the board, but I believe its one controller for the 6 on board SATA and another controller for the 2 eSATA on the back, so I think I am good on that.

I'm going to try recovering/repairing first, and then try check disk and fixmbr.

I wonder if its the controller? And I don't know whether or not I have the jumpers on the SATA drives, but is that even necessary anymore? (you know, master and slave and that crap).

They're not necessary, it should be just one drive per channel. I'm actually not sure why they still include them....

[slick]

So I tried repairing the boot records through Windows 7 installation, still doesn't work.
Ran disk check and did fixmbr, still a no go.
I can't boot into windows even with just the Raptor connected.

Why am I having such a difficult time installing a few extra hard drives to my computer?

What about a BIOS update, think that might help? The motherboard is 2 years old, and I have never updated the BIOS.

[slick]

Dumb question, how would I perform a BIOS update if I don't have a floppy drive?

[DaJMasta]

Depending on the type of bios and the board, you can usually do it from windows and can sometimes do it from a usb stick. Other than that, floppy is the only 'universal' way, but boards are starting to drop floppy drive connectors entirely.


Don't know if it would help, I wouldn't have high hopes for it.

[Sweetz]

You should be able to do it from a flash drive. In your BIOS there should be an option that will allow you to boot from USB drive.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned power yet though. Are you putting all your drives on the same rail? I think it's quite possible that you're exceeding the available power with that many drives.

[Auric]

So you say the Velociraptor remains the boot drive and you made "the hard drive" first and only boot device... this begs the question whether you are referring to the boot device priority section of CMOS Setup -that is, FDD, ODD, USB-HDD, HDD-0, LAN, and so on rather than the boot order of specifically detected devices which may be accessable from an Advanced section after keying CTRL+F1 or such.

Perhaps after installing and removing all the drives the order is no longer correct, even when the Velociraptor is the only drive -maybe another controller is now first. The OS reinstall could have borked the MBR too -again, a backup image would be useful.

As for BIOS update, it depends upon the manufacturer -sometimes alternate methods to FDD are available. Check their support site and the manual.

[slick]

PSU was my first thought considering that I have 5 hard drives, a dvd burner, and that gigantic 8800gtx card. The PSU has 6 SATA power connections and all are used up, if that helps.

As far as the boot order goes, first boot device is now set to SATA CD ROM (which is the only CD ROM/Optical choice). Second boot device is Hard Disk. There is no HDD-0, HDD-1, HDD-2, etc. For hard drives, its the Hard Disk option.

There is then another section in the BIOS to set boot priority for the drives, in there, I have the Raptor first in the list (shows up as WDEADS300 blah blah). The other hard drives also show up in the list, the DVD Burner does not.

I have a feeling the BIOS update won't work, so I'm not going to bother right now.

I wish I can explain better, I'm just not that savvy when it comes to troubleshooting. My friend just ordered a 850w Corsair PSU for a build he's doing, when it comes in, he'll let me try it in my computer to see if that helps. I guess I will keep trying to get this think to boot into windows without having to reinstall, again.

[Qualitier]

Originally Posted by slick

[...]I decide to put the Raptor back in, disconnect all of the 2TB drives, boots up fine. Do a few system updates, restart, works fine. I restarted the dumb thing 10 times, all good. I plug in ONE of the 2TB drives, computer goes ape **** again.[...]

Compatibility issue or bug with 2TB drives? Or with the new ones? (as you had one before the upgrade and the problems, with Win7 too? Have you XP to try and see if the issue is OS-dependant?)

Originally Posted by slick

[...] Now the thing won't boot even with just the Velociraptor connected.

Maybe formatting it at low level... Maybe its data has been affected by the issue.

Originally Posted by slick

Dumb question, how would I perform a BIOS update if I don't have a floppy drive?

It depends on the motherboard, the manual should describe your options. My mobo (Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P) can flash from Windows, but I don't like it in general (let it alone with problems), avoid it if you can. Some boards (like the mentioned one) have an embedded utility in the BIOS, this is my preferred method if available; this procedure should have its usage rules explained in the manual (my mobo for instance can read from any FAT drive -32, 16 or 12-, although if the drive is in AHCI or RAID mode bla-bla-blah etc). And it can also use a DOS utility, normally zipped with the BIOS. This was my preferred method with my previous mobo (Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA). The utility required a floppy, but it could be different with your motherboard.

Good luck.

[Qualitier]

As for a PSU problem, I think it'd only be possible, even with 6 drives, if all of them are using the same rail and if there's something more on it, because a drive should consume 10-15W iirc. I'd also expect hangs if there're OCP issues (over-current protection) in the PSU.

This is still a possible cause who knows, but my main point here is that the total PSU wattage wouldn't matter much. Higher PSU's with rails and OCP use to have more rails, rather than wider ones.

[slick]

How would I know if all drives are on the same rail? What would be the best way to test this?

[slick]

Although the PSU still might be an issue, I think I solved my problem.

I finally just reinstalled windows again since the fixmbr/boot wasn't working. I unplugged all the 2TB drives and left just the Raptor and the DVD Burner. I install W7, shut down and plug all the drives back in. When I get into W7 (booted with no issues) I went to Administrative Tools and went to Computer Management to wipe the 2TB drives and format. I noticed that one of the drives had a 100mb (or maybe 200mb) partition on it that read "Boot". Since I had the drives connected the last time I installed W7, I am assuming that a page file or something was created automatically on that one 2TB drive. Does this make sense at all?

Everything seems to be working just fine, I restarted it a bunch of times with no issue. I guess I just need to make sure my PSU is up for the task and I should be all set.

Thanks for all the help on this guys, I really appreciate it

[Haroldfern]

hi...ya you can definitely more than one HDD in your system. It all the work properly without any problem with the help of jumper setting. I think you should contact any hardware engineer for jumper setting.