NP9170 / P170EM - Center drive bay not recognizing drive

I have a Sager NP9170 (Clevo P170EM) with a drive issue. The center drive bay is not recognizing hard drives occasionally. It does not happen everytime, however most of it. I've tried both ssd and hdd drives, which work fine when plugged into my desktop.

What is weird is that I can put it on the desktop, and it works. Then plug it into the laptop and it works sometimes. I immediately reboot (no removing or fiddling with the drive), and its not recognizing. Even in bios it won't "see" the drive. None of the other drives (another ssd in the bay under the optical drive, or the m.2 ssd I have placed into the "tv tuner" port) have this issue. Just the center drive bay. Everything has worked fine until just the other day. First real issue I've had with it since I bought it back in 2012.

Anyone else had this issue? Maybe it needs a bios flash?

 

I would start with a BIOS flash, but also it could be the a failed port.

 

Have you tried the Bios flash OP?

Also I would suggest you immediately stop using any drive that you deem valuable in that port. Test with a spare drive if at all possible.

 

Check that the connector is not able to move and that the soldering still looks ok.

 

Yeah, I'm more of the school of thought that this is a problematic connection/port, or possibly a malfunctioning SATA controller.

Are you using any other SATA ports with any [intermittent] issues?

 

The other ports seem to be working fine. Just that one. Nothing seems loose. No connections on the port in question have any that is visually out of place.

 

It could still be the pins in the connector but that can be really hard to spot or a chipset issue.

 

Update:

I started the laptop up 3 days ago and it booted fine. The laptop was left on until last night, when suddenly the drive just was not longer there. Meaning it was inaccessible through windows 7. I opened a harddrive utility, and the computer could no longer "see" the drive. It was basically not there Upon rebooting bios did not see the drive either. However, like before the drive works on my desktop.

Once I access the drive on my desktop, I can put it back in the laptop on the same port and it works fine for a while. Once the computer cannot "see" it again, I can again put it on the desktop and it works, then right back into the laptop. Then again it works for a while. Weird.

Any thoughts?

 

It sounds like some physical/electrical issue with the connector or power circuitry driving it.

 

Try another drive - if available - on the same port for awhile. Same issue: problematic port or board.

How long do you typically leave the drive connected to your desktop for (i.e. is it used long enough to possibly reproduce the issue)?

 

It is not connected very long. However, I've put another harddrive that I know is good on the port, and bios failed to find it upon restart. I'm pretty sure its the port now...

 

That's quite the sig you have, might want to shrink it a little