HD experts needed

[wheelthrown 0]

I have a 5 month old computer, amd 64x2 5000+ base with vista and a samsung HD321KJ 320GB SATA, 4g ddr2 800 ram etc. One night the computer hangs and when I hold in the button for 8seconds it reboots and bios says "No boot device found"

 

So I go into BIOS and my SATA DVD is on channel 1, and channel 0 is empty???? I reboot again and it shows a device on Channel 0 when I envoke Sata Boot prompt but in BIOS nothing. So I goto store and buy new Seagage ST35000641AS 500GB SATA and put on Channel 0 and reload OS and computer is fine.

 

I want to get data off old drive, so I guessed that the PCB controller on the drive must be bad cuz it would spin up, and light flashes like it's reading, no bad sounds like screatching or repetative clicking. So I find exact drive on internet and order.

 

First I attach new drive to test and BIOS sees it. So I try old drive again to be sure and not seen in BIOS. So I swap PCB boards... and drive with data still doesn't show up... but new drive with old pcb works fine??????

 

So what other than a PCB board being bad would cause a drive to not be "seen" by BIOS.... I want data off my drive and I already got like $200 invested in 2 new drives... LOL...

 

ANY HELP WOULD BE AWESUM!

 

also I tried swithing sata cabels and tried different channels... Samsung doesnt have pins for 1.5G/3G switch it's software and if it wont boot u cant change it... I've considered getting an external Sata/USB enclosure to bybass bios... but dont know if that would help... -J

[wheelthrown 0]

OK! well update... I found out that old drive was 2007.11 and that new drive was 2007.11b even though it only says 2007.11... anyway guy at samsung said that it is the pcb board but because new drive platters were never initialized/or formatted it could work with burnt pcb until i tried to format it then it would crash and be gone... and the old platters couldn't be run by new pcb... so... thanks ... I'm now trying to get a HD321KJ 2007.11 and not a b.. tnx -J