Drive 0 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-0 Alert!

Question

A user at work started getting the following message ' Drive 0 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-0 Alert! Failed to detect one or more during POST. Strike F1 key to continue. F2 key to run the setup utlility, or press F5 to run onboard diagnostics.' The past couple of mornings when the user arrives to work her computer has the error I stated above and when she hits the F1 button and a message states ' No boot device available' and then all of a sudden I guess it works because she is then able to login to windows and she is able to use it all day without a problem or the computer being slow. She claims she has not done anything to the workstation or made any changes. The workstation is  a Dell Optiplex 755. So I went to check it out and after restarting the pc everything seems normal and I did a dell diagnostic and did not get any error codes. I also ran spin rite and it does not show any error or problems with any sectors on the hard drive. I shutdown the pc and powered back on by the power button and noticed it took a minute or so to get past the bios and then a black screen comes up with a blinking dash and it shows this for several seconds and then finally windows xp comes up and the log in screen appears. Whats weird is that the first time I looked at this after shutting the pc completely download that when i went into the bios setup F2 and checked the bootable drives I did not see the option for the hard drive like before so it is like it is not even there. I tried booting again and get the drive 0 not found message. After this i restarted the pc once more and then in the bios it did show the hard drive as a bootable device. This is odd normally if a hard drive is going bad spin rite will indicate so. Can anyone give me advice on how to fix without having to get a new hard drive?

ejn63 · Answer

Hard drives do cause intermittent problems before they fail completely -- it sounds like that's what is  happening here.

Barbara · Answer

I'm no expert, but I had the same thing happen and thought it was the HD.  So, I bought and installed a new HD and that did not solve the problem.  It was the MoBo and it was going so sometimes I could boot and sometimes not.  Take it for what it's worth which is only my personal experience with what you describe.   Hopefully, everything is backed up.

Digitalhyper · Answer

Strange.. I stumbled across this post as I went on vacation and came back to find both my computers down.  It's odd.. both have the crucial SSD's in them.. same exact ones.  One is a Dell and the other is my BoxxTech computer.  The only thing I know of that happened, was the power blinked in the building but that's happened many times before.  My Dell had this same screen and now if I leave my computers up when leaving to go home, the dell has this screen and my Boxx has just the underscore blinking on black.  I cut them off by hitting the shutdown button on the PC's .. then boot back up and everything works fine.  As long as your on the computer.. it works, but as soon as you leave them, they both go down.  I have had both SSD's for the same amount of time, so wondering if this is a problem with these drives?  Again, this is the first time this has happened to me.. and it happened while I was on vacation this week.  I like to leave them up so I can remote in if needed.  So, maybe this will help us get closer to the answer.

Digitalhyper · Answer

Thanks.. my Boxx is right around 5 years old now.. and my Dell is roughly there too.. I have APC's for surge protection, but who knows.  Just seems strange both did it at the same time.  As far as my stuff, I only put my OS on the main harddrive with applications.  My data is stored over a network or other drives.

osprey4 · Answer

Hi Digitalhyper, Sorry but I'm not clear from your message. Are you getting 'drive 0 not found'? Also, what is the mode and OS of your Dell?

Digitalhyper · Answer

Yes.. but good news.. both my PC's have the Crucial M4 SSD's in them and I found this article:

www.theverge.com/.../crucial-m4-ssd-firmware-update-fixes-recurring-bsod

I did that on both and so far both computers are now working fine. So, I'm unsure if other people have installed SSD's or particularly this Curcial M4..but the firmware seems to have fixed it. I'll know in the morning when I come back in.. but typically they didn't even last this long before rebooting.

osprey4 · Answer

Ok, good to hear. Thanks for the update and link to the f/w update.

AZINSJ · Answer

yes that is what i am getting..   opti plex  gx150 series wind xp(not sure) could be 98 too

Storage, Drives & Media

Was this post helpful?