New PC, gigabyte ga-h77m-d3h mobo, seagate barracude 1TB hdd, LG superMulti DVDRW, decent psu and video card.

After a few weeks, dvd disappears from windows.

So I replace with a new one.

After a few more weeks, it disappears again, but this time, the sound is also gone.

So I look over everything carefully:

• HDD: I had updated the firmware (CC4H) when I first assembled the PC, and there hasn’t been any new firmware release
• I update the motherboard firmware to F6
• I updated the LG DVDRW firmware (GH24NS90) to IN01

After all the firmware and Windows updates for hardware, the sound and DVD drive started working again.

But…

A few weeks later, the DVD drive disappeared again!

What could it be now?

I ended up trying the microsoft fixit (in case the registry got corrupted), but fixit could not detect the drive.

And the bios also couldn’t detect the DVDRW

Since fixit mentioned checking that the drive was plugged in, I opened the PC and looked at the drive and cables.

This motherboard has 6 SATA sockets: 4 “traditional” sockets (SATA2) that face out from the circuit-board… so you just plug the cable plug straight (perpendicularly)  into the socket on the board.

But the first two SATA3 sockets are sideways, on the edge of the motherboard.

I had both the Seagate HDD and the DVDRW plugged into the SATA3 sockets.

So I figure: why not plug the DVDRW into the older SATA2 sockets. Besides, a DVDRW isn’t fast enough for sata2, let alone sata3… so it won’t really make a difference.

And lo! the bios detected the DVDRW, and then windows 7 did as well.

OK, the next step is to try the drive back in the SATA3 socket…

Woe! Windows detects it in the SATA3 socket as well…

I now have 2 very similar (new) computers that are displaying similar problems… what could it be?

As a last resort, I change the SATA cables, give it back to the customer, and hope the problem doesn’t re-surface.