SATA controller failure?

Hello All,

I'm new to this forum and hope someone can help me with the following problem:

About one year ago I purchased a Dimension 4700 directly from Dell.

I bought a basic system and thus far added a second HD and two optical drives.

First thing that went was the on board sound card after about 2 months. I didn't bother using my 90 day warranty on this and bought a sound card that I installed successfuly.

About six months after buying the system, I started having problems booting the system up. Intermittantly, the system would fail to boot and give me the error massage: "no boot drive found"...trying to troubleshoot the system, I switched the SATA cables (I switched the ports, not the cables) between the two HD-drives and the system started to boot fine, but my secondary HD was not available anymore. So I concluded that the SATA conroller had failed.

I ended up buying a new motherboard, installed it and everything worked fine. Until about a week ago.  Same problem as above, same solution: Switching SATA ports allows me to boot and run the system but I again lost my secondary HD.

 

SO here are my questions:

1) Is this truely th SATA controller failing or am I missing something?

2) Is there a way to repair the controller or is the only solution a new motherboard?

3) If I want to buy a new motherboard, can I but something non-Dell that would fit in my Dimension 4700 case? Is that what is determined by the form factor? And what would fit (Intel, ASUS, etc.)

 

Any help is highly appreciated,

DaddioD