motherboard or ssd - which is the culprit?

[sans0four]

Built system about 5 years ago (latest bios ended 2016), running 2 ssd (one windows 10 boot, 1 data) and 1 mechanical drive.

I run my computer for a few hours a day and turn off after. Had the most recent ssd (data) for about 3 years now. For some reason over lately, about every week that same drive won't be detected in bios on boot. The solution so far seems to be power down, then plug into a different sata port. Then works fine for another week or so. The other two drives have had for many many years with same system and no issues.

Bought a no name pciex to sata (also has seperate nvme port) online since was about 1/3 the price of a replacement hard drive. Windows won't even detect this card. Not using an m.2 or nvme drive, so could it be a motherboard compatibility issue? Although isnt that the point of this adapter card using sata mode? For interest sake, I watched a few youtube videos and they just plugged the cards in, attached to hd and worked. As I would have expected.


So I'm a bit of a loss as to how do I go about figuring out if it's the hd or sata ports on motherboard? Really don't want to spend the money to buy another ssd. Would be sata since motherboard is so old has no m.2 or nvme support. Not to mention if it is the motheboard, then would be annoyed have to purchase a new system incl an m.2 nvme drive.....

 

[JD]

A simple starting point, did you try a new SATA cable?

If it's a name-brand SSD, the manufacturer should offer some software as well which should have some diagnostic tests you can run to determine the health of the drive.

If you could post your motherboard model and the SSD model that might help us point you in the right direction too.

 

[sans0four]

Tried three different cables, same issue. The drive in question is a samsung 860 qvo. Tried downloading the official magican software. The other (boot) ssd is a samsung 850 evo. Just get a message that netiher of them support diagnostic testing. The only suport the software has is smart and says all the drives are ok.

asus a88m-a motherboard. So old doesn't even support m.2 let alone nvme.


spent a bunch of time searching forums posts about using the addon pcie to sata addon cards. All could find was clover software to to boot off them. So I can only assume that the card should just be a passthrough...

 

[crazyea]

Try a usb cable like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Sabrent-2-5-I...-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

 

[JD]

When the issue happens, have you tried just the powering off (I'm guessing unplugging power cable) and not swapping SATA ports?

In Windows, do you see any unknown devices with the addon SATA card connected? Generally I'd just expect them to work, but perhaps it's missing drivers. Could be a faulty card too for that matter. And perhaps a silly question, but you put the card in either the 1st or 2nd slot? The 3rd slot on your board is old PCI, so a PCIe card isn't going to work in there.

 

[sans0four]

If power down the system, the power up again without changing sata ports on the motherboard. The drive in question still isn't detected.

In terms of the sata addon card. I somehow didn't notice or understand that what m.2 standard is completely different than sata. One port on the card was obviously completely physically different, the other was meant for an sata cable. So that is why the card doesn't detect any of my drives. Not sure why my system doesn't detect the card, but that is a moot point.

The addon card only phsyically will fit in one of the slots. Had to look up online to make sure compatible. Still not 100% sure on what pcie x1 (smaller of the two is for).

 

[sans0four]

Wish I would have thought of the usb to sata cable in the first place. Would have costed my half of the addon card did. Not to mention wouldn't have had to have waited two weeks to ship within Canada.

 

[JD]

Sounds like you bought a M.2 adapter card? It probably has 1 slot that is for a NVMe drive (PCIe) and another for a SATA M.2 drive in which the SATA port on the card would connect to your motherboard. Something like this? https://www.amazon.ca/Valuegist-Adapter-Controller-Expansion-MKeyBkey/dp/B08M3VTY6D

Would have wanted something like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Expansion-4-Port-Controller-Adapter-Larger/dp/B08KTFRFZW as it contains it's own SATA controller to bypass your motherboard.

Anyways, if you have a USB to SATA ordered now, that should help you rule out the motherboard all the same

 

[sans0four]

Now that I think of, I might even have one somewhere. The question is how long do I want to spend to try and find it