Does this sound like a MOBO issue?

[beavereater]

I just got my MOBO summer 2011.

In the last month I've had sudden issues with my system. I have my PC on 24/7. It goes into sleep mode when I'm away. I would come home and instead of a Windows screen I'd have a DOS screen with "System could not load, missing boat device manager" I'd eventually have to go in and manually set the startup HD back to the one with my OS on it (I have 3 HDs in my system).

In the past couple of weeks I've had my system hang, not ctrl-alt-del possible and I would have to hit the restart button. Sometimes it wouldn't go beyond the initial post screen for the MOBO and just hangs there. Other times it might, but it would be really really slow and it wouldn't see all my HDs during the check.

On occasions it would then hang on Loading Operating System. Sometimes it would say "Could not boot because of Disk Error" Or something like that. Sometimes the screen would just go black.

I would turn off the system, let it sit for 10 seconds, restart and everything would move. Sometimes it would take a couple of power downs.

Today, I came home and my system was off. I asked my wife if she turned it off but she said no. When going through all the above steps to try and get things moving again, I tried plugging in my HD's to different ports. It still wanted to do a repair diagnostic but couldn't fix any errors. Once I did get it moving, I pushed my computer tower back into it's original position, and this for some reason shut off my computer. I double checked to make sure my PSU connections were OK and all seemed OK. My computer restarted but my keyboard (USB) was not available for me to select an option as to how to start Windows. I didn't want to go through another repair so I restarted and finally got on here.

Any ideas?

[zoobie]

check your HDD and ram with the mfg's software

[jman98]

Turn off sleep mode. At best this will fix your problem for a while but it means that sleep mode is no longer reliable for you. If it doesn't help then you've got serious hardware issues somewhere.

[Constant Gardener]

If your PC is hanging when searching for SATA devices, check your SATA cables and devices. Disconnect all except the boot drive and power up; if no joy, swap the SATA cable and try again. Could be bad memory - try running with just one stick, then the other. Check the drives for errors. The idea is to narrow the problem to one component, preferably a cheap one. Oh, if you haven't done a backup lately, now would be a good time.

[beavereater]

check your HDD and ram with the mfg's software

Where can I get this software? Is it anything like SeaTools? I used SeaTools for a short-generic test and all drives passed.

If your PC is hanging when searching for SATA devices, check your SATA cables and devices. Disconnect all except the boot drive and power up; if no joy, swap the SATA cable and try again. Could be bad memory - try running with just one stick, then the other. Check the drives for errors. The idea is to narrow the problem to one component, preferably a cheap one. Oh, if you haven't done a backup lately, now would be a good time.

Next time it powers down I will disconnect the cables to all but the main driver with the OS. Do cables go bad that fast (Bought all new cables with my HDD this last summer.) I will do the same with memory when I run into the problem again. I actually took a nap and during that nap time the machine just shut off (Power).

[beavereater]

Short DTS - FAILED on one of my drives. The recommendation by the Seagate Tools for DOS check...apparently able to repair bad sectors.

[jman98]

Short DTS - FAILED on one of my drives. The recommendation by the Seagate Tools for DOS check...apparently able to repair bad sectors.

IF this works, and I think there is a higher chance that it will NOT then you realize, all it will do is buy you time. You need to copy any critical files off that disk drive and replace it ASAP. Again - at best this will just buy you enough time to get your files off and replace the drive. When you start having bad sector problems it's just a matter of time before an unrepairable disaster occurs.

[Nelson37]

I would immediately replace ALL of your SATA cables. IMO due to the stiffness of the cable, I have had a fair number of these cables go bad, far more than the older PATA cables. The fact that just moving the PC resulted in a shutdown points to this. Bumping a bad drive would not usually shut the PC down, bumping a potentially shorted cable would be much more likely to do so.

Whether or not the bad cable can cause permanent, physical damage to a drive is unknown. Unreadable drives sometimes work fine with a new cable, sometimes are still unreadable but a partition and format and intensive disk check gives a usable drive with no errors.

Disk utilities do NOT repair bad sectors, they simply mark them as not to be used. Bad sectors usually multiply, generally due to the coating on the platters flaking off. Just like chrome on a bumper.

[beavereater]

I copied all my important files to a working drive and now I'm in the process of getting all the less important drives onto an external drive.

Since turning off 'sleep mode' I've had no issues. I will look at replacing the cables and see if this gets me anywhere. This really sucks though as the drive is only about 6 months old.

[jagabo]

This really sucks though as the drive is only about 6 months old.

No, it's good because it should still be under warranty. You can get a free replacement.