Pteroduck Posted April 26, 2014 Posted April 26, 2014 So I just built my friend a computer on a z77-3770k platform He's having problems with his HDD, whenever you plug in the ssd only, it boots fine, but when you plug in the WD black HDD it wont boot and gives an a2/a3 errorWe switched that HDD out with another HDD and it boots up fine. Any ideas? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted April 26, 2014 Posted April 26, 2014 Go into bios and make ssd the first boot device and check the wd to see if there are jumper pins on it, if so set it to slave or take them off all together. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteroduck Posted April 26, 2014 Posted April 26, 2014 Go into bios and make ssd the first boot device and check the wd to see if there are jumper pins on it, if so set it to slave or take them off all together. The SSD is the first on the list to boot, but the HDD booted fine the first time we turned on the computer but now it doesnt work Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted April 26, 2014 Posted April 26, 2014 Kind of confused here, is the os on the ssd or the hd ? And is the wd hhd a data drive only or is there an os on it ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteroduck Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Kind of confused here, is the os on the ssd or the hd ? And is the wd hhd a data drive only or is there an os on it ? According to the user, the OS is on the SSD and the WD HDD contains all his data Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
l1il Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Three things that I would guess : 1: BIOS Settings Remove the WD Drive from the boot list and set this port to be something ELSE than AHCI. Spike, the jumper thing is a good guess but SATA drives don't have them, only IDE ones. SATA pins are for enterprise features, like spread spectrum clocking. 2: He plugged the WD drive into a SATA 3 ports (that is just a guess, knowing that it should be retrocompatible). Usually the first ports have a different color than the last ones. I would suggest him to plug the SSD into the SATA 0 port and the HDD in one of the last set of SATA plugs. Otherwise he could look in motherboard manual for specific use of SATA ports. 3: As ridiculous as it looks, a faulty SATA cable. I have seen my share of those. Stay away from those rounded ones, as I had more problems than flat ones. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Yes Stef, I know sata drives have no jumper pins, but I thought he might be using an older wd ide for data drive, it's kind of hard to give help when we don't have all the pc specs, your advice was good but for all we know the hd could be bad. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteroduck Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Three things that I would guess : 1: BIOS Settings Remove the WD Drive from the boot list and set this port to be something ELSE than AHCI. Spike, the jumper thing is a good guess but SATA drives don't have them, only IDE ones. SATA pins are for enterprise features, like spread spectrum clocking. 2: He plugged the WD drive into a SATA 3 ports (that is just a guess, knowing that it should be retrocompatible). Usually the first ports have a different color than the last ones. I would suggest him to plug the SSD into the SATA 0 port and the HDD in one of the last set of SATA plugs. Otherwise he could look in motherboard manual for specific use of SATA ports. 3: As ridiculous as it looks, a faulty SATA cable. I have seen my share of those. Stay away from those rounded ones, as I had more problems than flat ones. We tried setting that HDD to IDE to just see but that didnt work either. It goes to a3 error if i do that. SSD is in SATA 0, the sata cable has been switched but still not working Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpikeSoprano Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Did you try the hd in any other machine, if another hd worked with no problems it's very possible this one is faulty or dead. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteroduck Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Did you try the hd in any other machine, if another hd worked with no problems it's very possible this one is faulty or dead. Oh, I didnt think of that. I'll tell them to try it in another machine Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wevsspot Posted April 28, 2014 Posted April 28, 2014 All of his data on it.................. Meaning he wants to put all of his data on it, or it already had lots of data on it from a previous build? If the HDD is from a previous build, was the OS installed on it too? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteroduck Posted April 30, 2014 Posted April 30, 2014 All of his data on it.................. Meaning he wants to put all of his data on it, or it already had lots of data on it from a previous build? If the HDD is from a previous build, was the OS installed on it too? The HDD did not work in another machine. The HDD is brand new from newegg, it does have his data from day 1 on there. No OS was installed though Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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