sata hdd problem

[tommyboy39]

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a WD 74gb raptor (10,000 rpm). I use it as my os drive and it works great. In the last week my computer has frozen up twice and I have had to turn it off manually via the power button. When restarted, the bios did not recognize the drive and hence the computer would not boot up (ntldr missing). At this point, I unplug everything and I re-insert the sata cable into the controller and all is well again.

Are the sata cables supposed to fit into sata controller on mobo snugly? When I wiggle the cable a little, I can see the connector moving on the controller. Since this is my first sata drive, I don't know if that is normal or not. I would think not. Perhaps a new cable is in order? Any other ideas?

Thanks!

[golfcart]

Welcome to techIMO

I don't think you can get an ntldr missing error if the drive is not detected. With no OS drive, it doesn't know to look for ntldr.. That doesn't mean that it's not a cable problem though. It would be easy enough to try a new one. Are you doing any type of overclocking?

[tommyboy39]

No, no type of overclocking. That's what I would think too, but I got the ntldr message and the bios did not recognize the sata drive.

[sechs]

You would get the ntldr message if your system drive (the one that you boot off of) is different from your boot drive (the one with the system on it).

In my experience the cables should be snug, but different connector combinations may yield different results.