IDE/PATA drives disappear?

[Mnx4]

Recently, I've been having some problems with two of my PATA drives; my DVD drive and my 120GB WD drive. It seems like every other cold boot or returning from sleep mode will cause these drives to disappear. I've checked the cabling and it'll get the computer to recognize it again, but then if I cold boot or something immediately after that, they might not show up.

Only solution I've read is that there's a problem with those pre-braided PATA cables that they can be too long, causing the communication link to be weak. I was already considering getting some PATA to SATA adapters for my drives and just working with that, but I was wondering if there were any other ideas out there. Gonna check my drivers as well, see if there's an update or something.

 

[engiNURD]

I'd say try new cables. I've been using rounded IDE cables for a while now, and don't typically have any problems with them.

 

[Seb1]

I have the same mobo and I know if you have problems with the JMicron controller, you must change the driver under Device Manager -> SCSI and RAID Controller: from Gigabyte GBB36X Controller to Standard Dual Channel PCI-IDE Controller. (Update driver->No, not this time->Install from a list or specific location->Don't search. I will choose the driver to install->Standard Dual Channel PCI-IDE Controller).
After the driver change you will see in the Device Manager under the IDE ATA/ATAPI-Controller section the newly created entry.

 

[Nenu]

Definitely put new cables on those drives.
I've had a dodgy PATA cable kill 2 hard drives!
I still have the cable labeled "drive killer" lol.
I also have many many old drive cables that developed dodgy connections, it was a regular occurance.

With a faulty cable, even heating/cooling it can make/unmake a connection.