IDE channel 0 not detecting drives -- advice?

[h2ospa]

This is strange but I guess some of you might have encountered it before.

I am working on a socket 7 board. I have a harddrive connected to IDE channel 0 and a DVD drive on IDE channel 1.

Last night. While the machine is running properly (I have Windows 2000 installed but that shouldn't matter I think), Win2K turned into a blue screen, then it reboots. However, when it reboots, the motherboard/BIOS can no longer detect the harddrive.

So, the normal diagnostics...
1. Bad cable? Switched the cable. Not working
2. Bad harddrive? Connect another harddrive. Not working
3. How about the DVD drive? Connect the DVD drive to channel 0. Nope
4. How about channel 1? Harddrive detected with correct C/H/S settings when connected to channel 1. So does the DVD drive on channel 1. In fact, win2k runs just fine after I reinstall it (it fails to run since the harddrive is no longer on channel 0.
5. How about manually setting the C/H/S in the BIOS? BIOS reported harddrive not found on channel 0.
6. CMOS setting? Clear the CMOS. Still the same.
7. Anything else? With the harddrive on channel 1, Tested the other things -- power supply is fine, video card is fine, memory is fine, all PCI/ISA slots are fine.

Is the IDE channel toasted? I am pretty surprised it happened. The machine was not overheated or anything, just a normal usage. Moments ago it was booting up and working properly, then the IDE channel no longer works, but everything else seems to work just fine.

Any advice? Thanks

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Did you try a different power supply?

In addition to that, you may try reflashing the BIOS.

Sounds like a power supply issue. It may have damaged the IDE controller.

 

[Timo W.]

Sounds like a power supply issue. It may have damaged the IDE controller.

Err... what? That's the weirdest conclusion I've ever read.

Probably just one of the buffer chips for channel 0 that has failed. You know, any sort of component can just fail, that's how it is. Also, the controller chip itself may have gone bad. After-effects of ESD damage for example. Again, that happens. "Normal usage" does not prevent electronic components from failing with age.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Err... what? That's the weirdest conclusion I've ever read.

I come to that conclusion, because I've run into it time and time again.

Seemingly random drive failure, changed everything and nothing works. Then change the power supply and suddenly everything starts working fine. Either caused by a bad power supply, or an overloaded power supply having so much ripple or brownouts that cause drives to misbehave. During the capacitor plague years, I ran into this constantly, power supplies with failing caps, one of the first symptoms was a hard drive that started acting erratically.

It is entirely possible there is damage on the motherboard to the disk controller, but changing the power supply out first and hoping that fixes it is easier than having to go straight to board level repair.