Storage Devices Not Detected

[temigin]

Apologies if this issues has been dealt with before, I haven't seen mention, but it's a big forum.

 

The Story:

I recently bought a Rampage II Extreme and it ran fine for a while then the PSU died, at least I thought it did. I then bought a Corsair HX1000 in an attempt to remedy the situation, no joy. I RMAed my Rampage and got a new one and installed it. I'm basically running a new board and PSU. Now the is issue that on boot the system would post but it will not detect any of my storage devices HDDs or Opticals. As a result therefore I can't load my OS.

 

I have tried every cable configuration I can think of including running drives directly from the board (The blackbird carries a powered backplane than can caddy 5 SATA HDDs). I really don't know if this is a power problem, since the HX1000 is modular and can be over loaded if you put too much on a single rail, all of the board controller have failed, all the HDDs have failed, possible but not probably, or something else that I can't think of as happened. Again, I can post this board pretty consistently and enter the bios so it's not a total dead stick but near as I can tell the HDDs are not even spinning up.

 

I have a 8pin from the PCIe to a 10pin to my Backplane. VGA using the attached cables and another 8 pin to the boards ATX plug. I can add additional cable configs but these are the biggest power draws and this post has gotten long

 

Any help would be appreciated. I'm at my wits end and out of ideas.

[RAM GUY]

I would disconnect anything that you do not need to get the system to post to BIOS. Leave a single memory module, a single graphics card, and disconnect everything else from the motherboard and PSU. Once the configuration is down to the bare bones, I would reset the BIOS/CMOS and then test with a single hard drive and see if you can get it to be detected. You will want to try different PSU connectors and different SATA ports on the MB to see if you can narrow down the problem. If the HDD is still not being detected then there is either a problem with the motherboard, the BIOS or the drive itself, and you may want to contact HP to see if they have an updated BIOS for the system.

 

If you can get an HDD to be detected then I would add each component back to the system one at a time and see if you can isolate which component is causing the issues you were having. Let us know your results!

[temigin]

OK I pulled everything and started adding bits back one by one. If the indication I'm getting is correct i.e. a bad drive will stop the pc from powering up then I have lost 1x500GB (my OS HDD) +2x250GB Drives+1 Blu-ray+1 DVD player :( . How the heck does that happen. I've been doing this forever and never managed to fry so many components in one go.

 

My drives, the few survivors including a backup OS HDD I had, are still not showing up on initial post but are visible in the bios so I'm still being told no drives detected even after a cmos clr.

 

I would add one of my potential mistakes (unconfirmed at the moment) might have been running my caddy from the rail with PCIe connections (8pins). I did this because they are no 8 pins on the other rail and my caddy carries an 8 pin on the psu side and a 10 pin on the caddy side so it's a natural action but apparently a potentially catastrophic one assuming this is what cased the issue. It might be good if you guys consider adding 10pin connection or adapter and cable for this purpose.

 

Thanks for the assist RAM Guy.

[RAM GUY]

It sounds like the caddy probably needs to use a proprietary connector/adaptor to work with a standard ATX PSU. The 8-pin PCIE cable should only be used on video cards and it provides power from the 12v rail. I am suspecting that your caddy requires a connector with 12v and 5v, and that is why the drives failed. I would contact the company that makes the caddy and see if you are either missing a cable for it, or if they can tell you how they recommend connecting it to the PSU.