[John Hook]

adorableedgar,

Based on all of your posts - it appears that 1 of 2 things might be causing your problems:

1) The SATA hard drive you recently purchased is faulty

OR

2) There some SERIOUS issue with the hardware/firmware on your motherboard which is preventing it from sucessfully accessing the SATA
Hard Drive that you recently purchased.

You basically need to isolate WHAT is not working - i.e. is it your motherboard OR your SATA drive. The only way to do this is through a process of elimination.

If you have access to another PC / motherboard with SATA capabilities - I would try connecting your SATA hard drive to THIS board and installing an OS or adding this drive as an additional drive within the OS that's already installed on this system. If your SATA drive is able to be formatted as a data drive or you can install an OS on it - then the issue is likely with your other motherboard.

Likewise, if you have access to another known working drive which you can plug into your MB, attach this drive to our MB then attempt to install XP or Linux on this drive. If you're able to do so - then the problem is likely NOT with your motherboard.

If you're able to confirm that your new SATA drive is NOT the problem - I would look at the BIOS/jumper settings on the Motherboard in question. Perhaps you have BIOS, Voltage, bus timing, jumpers or some other settings incorrectly configured on your motherboard.

Don't just assume that the problem is a defective SATA drive. This may be the case - but it could easily by something wrong with your motherboard as well (incorrect setting or fault hardware on motherboard). You'll need to isolate the problem and tackle it based on your findings.

The fact that you're unable to install either Windows or Linux tells me that this is NOT a software issue.

You may want to see if your motherboard MFG has some diagnostics available for download on their website. Perhaps the BIOS you recently flashed your motherboard with is the culprit. You may want to attempt to downgrade your MB's BIOS to a previous version and see if you have different results when attempting to install Linux and/or Windows.

If your BIOS allows it - I would set the BIOS to its DEFAULT settings - disable SHADOWING - configure the most conservative settings before you attempt to install Linux or Windows.

I realize that this is a LOT to consider - but I feel the only way you're going to solve this issue is through a process of elimination.

Hope this helps.

- John

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i have neither an extra mobo, hdd, or computer in general....i have my Vaio desktop but its about 4 years old and the mobo doesn't have sata ports...i do however have a laptop sata hdd that i was going to use on my ps3....i've looked online to try to find a converter but i can't seem to find one anywhere...i dont even know if they exist...if i could save some money on a new hdd by testing the mobo with the ps3 hdd that would be nice....does anyone know if that type of adapter even exists? if so could u post a link to where it can be purchased from? thnx .

[adorableedgar]

i have neither an extra mobo, hdd, or computer in general....i have my Vaio desktop but its about 4 years old and the mobo doesn't have sata ports...i do however have a laptop sata hdd that i was going to use on my ps3....i've looked online to try to find a converter but i can't seem to find one anywhere...i dont even know if they exist...if i could save some money on a new hdd by testing the mobo with the ps3 hdd that would be nice....does anyone know if that type of adapter even exists? if so could u post a link to where it can be purchased from? thnx .

[John Hook]

adorableedgar,

I wouldn't spend any time trying to adapt your suspect PC's SATA drive to the SATA controller on your Sony VAIO laptop. That's going to take you down a path that may not solve anything - but rather, just cost a lot of time, frustration and potentially $$$.

I still maintain the you FIRST need to isolate the problem to either your SATA drive or your motherboard. If your SATA drive was purchased recently and is still under warantee - you may be able to swap it for a new one. The other possibility is to go on the SATA MFGs site and download a diagnostic utility for your drive. In some cases, retailed, boxed drives ship with diskettes or CDs with drivers, utilities, etc to support the drive.

Likewise, I would go your your Motherboard MFG's support site and download any diagnostic programs or BIOS updates specific to your motherboard model. Also - make sure you reset ALL of your motherboard's BIOS values and/or jumpers to their appropriate settings for your CPU/Memory installed and Factory Defaults. If you're attempting to overclock - I know from PERSONAL experience that overclocking can cause hard drive corruption / hard drive accesss errors.

From all the posts here - everything seems to point to your SATA hard drive as the culprit. If there's ANY way you can swap this drive with a KNOWN good SATA hard drive (even if just temporarily) - I would try this first.

Hope this helps.

- John

[adorableedgar]

John Hook,

i was asking if there was an adapter to connect a 2.5 hdd (that i KNOW for a fact is healthy) onto the computer that has OS installation problems, not vise versa. I would use the 2.5 hdd as a 3.5 hdd on the problem computer, if the OS installed successfully then it would be safe to assume its a hdd problem. I didn't make myself clear on my previous post, sorry .

i have already downloaded Seagates diagnostics tool, and after running it, it passed the following 3/3 test
-short test
-long test
-acoustics test
HOWEVER, after using Dban to wipe the hdd, Dban reports that it finished with some non-fatal errors usually caused by faulty segments.

[R White]

I believe that your MBR (master boot record) may have been currupted in one of those installation attempts. I will have to check tomorrow for the name of the utility I used to repair mine when it got corrupted from a Fedora 5 installation. I will get back to you on steps to repair your MBR.

I agree Titan8990
If anyone does not have a floppy, I suggest they get one. It is very important to have a write protected floppy in case of a virus, also, it is important to replace the MBR if at all a virus is suspected. Do not worry, windows will recover with a reboot after replacing the MBR by simply rebooting, if you have grub or lilo installed you will lose them however. to replace the MBR, use "FDISK /MBR from a boot floppy
Have Fun

[adorableedgar]

a year later.....it's fixed! i did soo many different things i dont even recall what the last thing i tried that got it to work.
i just have one problem with sound now. the problem is that it's not loud...i turn the speakers all the way up but it's very very soft.
does anyone have a solution for me this time? lol
thanks in advanced