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I know that there is another similar question out there, but it did not provide enough information, so please do not mark this as a duplicate.

I just built a brand-new computer will all new parts. It works fine, but my hard drive does not seem to work. I tried another hard drive (from my alternate laptop) and it worked fine, but this hard drive is recognized by Ubuntu, but cannot be read or written to by Ubuntu.

I tried to follow the other question mentioned earlier (although most of the answers were 'replace your hard drive') and ran the SMART tool. I was able to run it without any errors, but then it says that the "Self-Test Failed". Does that refer to not being able to successfully run the check, or does it mean that the hard drive did not pass it?

Anyways, here are my specs:

  • AMD A6-6400K processor
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 1 TB WD Blue desktop hard drive
  • FM2A58M-VG3+ R2.0 ASRock motherboard

I have already done the following:

  • Tried using multiple disk checks
  • Moving the SATA cables around

Just to be clear, because I can't install anything on the disk, I cannot install any third-party programs. Thank you for your help!

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Before you give up on your hard drive, always try re-seating the data cables and try different cables and motherboard ports to see if it is just a cabling issue. However, a SMART test is usually something that the drive performs itself, so if it fails a "self check" that is initiated by the drive itself, it is likely just a bad drive. Checking cables is so cheap and easy it often pays to check those.

If you have another computer that you can plug the drive into you can rule out your motherboard BIOS or power supply causing the problem. If possible, I would not use the same cable if you move to another PC to test it. That way you eliminate that as a possible suspect. If your drive fails the same way in another machine, you definitely have a bad drive.

If the drive is an SSD, make sure you check for firmware updates from the manufacturer as well. I doubt this is the cause of your issue though, since SSDs are usually tested and work out of the box in most systems from the factory. Firmware updates are usually to solve efficiency problems or bugs.

Good luck!

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  • I'm really sorry, but again, my only other computer is a laptop, and the hard drive that I used in my desktop is one that is not external (it came with the computer) but you can remove it externally, and it instead uses a connection at the back of its bay to hook up. To hook up my desktop hard drive, I would have to have a SATA power cable, which I do not currently have and I also do not want to go into my PSU to find one. Do you have any other ways to fix this? Also, I have already tried moving around the SATA cables before. Jan 26, 2016 at 2:09

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