Can you test a SATA controller?

[Diggs]

I've got a client with a Dell laptop. Says he's been fighting hard drive problems since the first month and said Dell has sent him 3 drives and they all failed. He asks me to put a new drive in and load up Win10. I'm a little skeptical of the history, but I put in a 500GB WD Black. Win10 loads up and validates great. I run through a few tests and check SMART and all is good. Return the laptop to the customer. Two weeks later it's back and the WD Black has failed. Booting it into BIOS and just sitting there you can here the HDD thrashing. The HDD fails Dells built-in boot diagnostics.

I'm pretty certain it's the SATA controller on the motherboard that is going/gone. How do i test/prove it? (I can't seem to test from Linux either. It lists fine in Linux but how would you test it?)

 

[katz]

It's been awhile since I looked at this, but I seem to recall some tests on the UBCD that gave the status of IDE/SATA controllers, other devices as well. Don't know how detailed the info. would be, though. Also, is there another sata port that you could use?

 

[Diggs]

It's been awhile since I looked at this, but I seem to recall some tests on the UBCD that gave the status of IDE/SATA controllers, other devices as well. Don't know how detailed the info. would be, though. Also, is there another sata port that you could use?

UBCD is worth running. I've still got it on CD. The laptop only has a single bay for only one HDD so I'm not expecting another SATA port. Unfortunately the MB is buried and I can't really see without a full pull.

 

[Porthos]

If I had that issue the new drive would be a SSD. That would rule out rough treatment/ Vibration issues killing those drives.

"IF" the SSD failed then you know its a MB/SATA issue.

 

[Markverhyden]

Did you put the drive you installed on another machine to see what it looks like?

 

[seedubya]

Did you put the drive you installed on another machine to see what it looks like?

↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ .... this .... ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑

 

[Diggs]

Did you put the drive you installed on another machine to see what it looks like?

Yes and on a Win7 machine the system wants to format the drive, but rejecting the format, Disk Management can read enough of the drive and eventually shows the correct structure with 3 partitions. GParted in Linux takes forever to resolve the drive and listening to it try is disturbing. Sounds like the drive heads are banging from park to stop and back. It's chattering up a storm and this from a drive that is normally hard to hear. Eventually (5 minutes?) GParted shows the four partitions (recovery partition shows hidden) and shows three of them with issues.

SMART shows an astounding 198 sectors to be reallocated.

 

[Porthos]

Yes and on a Win7 machine the system wants to format the drive, but rejecting the format, Disk Management can read enough of the drive and eventually shows the correct structure with 3 partitions. GParted in Linux takes forever to resolve the drive and listening to it try is disturbing. Sounds like the drive heads are banging from park to stop and back. It's chattering up a storm and this from a drive that is normally hard to hear. Eventually (5 minutes?) GParted shows the four partitions (recovery partition shows hidden) and shows three of them with issues.

SMART shows an astounding 198 sectors to be reallocated.

I still suspect the client might not be telling you something. Bouncing a laptop around when it is running will do that also. Hence the suggestion of a SSD.

What model Dell?

 

[katz]

Could a sata/ide defective controller cause physical damage to the drive as you are describing - heads thrashing around, etc.? Seems like a stretch...

At this point, I would be more apt to think that the owner is handling the pc roughly.

 

[Diggs]

Rough handling was my concern because the laptop belongs to his young son but after the previous drive problems, they are telling me just to be sure that wasn't the problem the laptop never left his desk after this last drive was put in. Said they used it like a desktop.

And yes, I did try to go the SSD route, but the kid is a gamer and had a 1TB drive. The 500GB WD Black is what I stock for laptops. They didn't want to go smaller and didn't like the price of SSDs in the 500+GB range.

It's a 15" Dell P49G.

 

[Porthos]

they are telling me just to be sure that wasn't the problem the laptop never left his desk after this last drive was put in. Said they used it like a desktop.

"Heard" that one before.

didn't like the price of SSDs in the 500+GB range.

There not going to like the price of a motherboard and a new drive (if the drive was not in warranty) either.

 

[Diggs]

"Heard" that one before.

There not going to like the price of a motherboard and a new drive (if the drive was not in warranty) either.

Agreed, but something on the MB is cooking multiple HDDs. A SSD may hide the problem but there is still something wrong here. I can hear the HDD thrashing when just sitting on a BIOS screen.

 

[Porthos]

Agreed, but something on the MB is cooking multiple HDDs. A SSD may hide the problem but there is still something wrong here. I can hear the HDD thrashing when just sitting on a BIOS screen.

Now it is time to think about the white flag. Time and money that has gone in to this could have had an other computer.

My fear if I was in your shoes, After new board it still does it.

 

[Diggs]

Now it is time to think about the white flag.

Thanks. I appreciate the reminder. I tend to chase these things down the rabbit hole for way too long.

 

[lcoughey]

My guess is that it isn't the laptop, but the environment it is in. It could be that the desk it is on is getting bumped a lot by the kids or that the owner slams the lid down when the walk away.

 

[Diggs]

My guess is that it isn't the laptop, but the environment it is in. It could be that the desk it is on is getting bumped a lot by the kids or that the owner slams the lid down when the walk away.

Good possibility which is why I am/was trying to test the SATA controller independently. And, with a repeat drive failure history from Dell and I can show a bad controller the (repeat) client may have some leverage with Dell on a replacement laptop.

Which reminds me, I'm seeing more and more laptop manufacturers installing g-force monitoring apps along with the rest of their bloatware. In this case it would be useful but since I installed a clean copy of Win10, nothing like that is running.

 

[Porthos]

nd, with a repeat drive failure history from Dell and I can show a bad controller the (repeat) client may have some leverage with Dell on a replacement laptop.

Is the system still in warranty? If not good luck with that.

 

[seedubya]

Good possibility which is why I am/was trying to test the SATA controller independently.

PREFACE: This will seem a bit harsh and it is, I suppose. I apologise for not being able to find a way to clearly state what's below in a more constructive manner.

I think that your approach to this problem has been wrong headed from the start. The idea that a SATA controller could cause actual physical damage to a drive is just plain wrong. Electrical problems - possible but unlikely, fs corruption very possible but actual surface damage to the disks? If you don't know that already, just do some research. If you do know that then why are you continuing with this approach? Everyone on the thread has tried to tell you nicely or persuade you otherwise but you seem to just be looking for validation of your approach - you agree with what's said and then continue going on about the controller. Newsflash: it's not the fscking controller. Maybe it's just a run of bad drives - that's infinitely more likely than it being the controller.

 

[Diggs]

All I asked was "Can you test a SATA controller?". Why the over-reaction? Everyone is pointing me every which way (which I appreciate) but dude, this isn't my first rodeo. The situation made me ask a simple question I've wondered about for awhile now.

 

[Markverhyden]

I think @seedubya is just trying to say that laptop + young kid gamer=potential environmental problems. Years ago some Dad brought in his son's laptop when I was at CompUSA, both hinges had been sheared and the cable torn, for a warranty repair (LOL!!!). He swore that his son did not do anything "wrong". We gave him a hinge we had lying around and asked him to show us how easy it was the break the hinge. They are cheap pot metal, but not tin cans. He got the point.

Back to your original question. There is no method available to us that will directly test the SATA chipset per se, that I am aware of. But Linux has a cli command, hdparm. This allows one to directly access some of the HD firmware by bypassing the overlying OS. You should be able to script the commands to test the SATA and HD together, looping commands.

Personally I've only seen a couple of times where I suspected the motherboard for something like this, multiple HD failures. In both cases I just ordered new MB's and never saw the customers again. Of course I have no way of knowing what the real problem was.