List your specs.

I have never heard of SATA ports dying left and right. That symptom sounds like a bad ICH10 or something in your system is frying each port repeatedly. 

What's more, when I talked to EVGA tech support just a few hours ago, they said my mobo that I sent in tested OK. So I even took my wife's comp apart, and tried her PS on the dead mobo, no diff. Still dead. Took it out, examined the CPU socket carefully W/stereo magnifier, reseated the CPU, tried again, no attempt to POST, no sign of life exc blue LED. (again using on-board 'start' PB)

Take it out of your case, and put it on card board.

Unplug EVERYTHING.

Use 1 stick of RAM.

Reset your CMOS (hold down for a while).

Plug in only keyboard, power, & video.

Try powering on.

I am betting the reason you were having sata problems was due to the sata cables supplied with the motherboard. I ended up taking ALL the sata cables supplied with the board and throwing them in the trash, and using old ones I hade laying around. No problems since!!!!!

This is for EVGA tech if you are interested in exact troubleshooting information:
I purchased my system components on 11/11/09. Here is the entire system:

Intel Core i7-920 (EM64T) ver #E63261-003 (SLBEJ) stepping D0
EVGA X58 SLI pkg A1 mainboard P/N: 132-BL-E758-A1
Corsair HX3X12G1600C9 SRAM set of 6 (2GB each stick) DDR3 1600 triple-channel memory
Dual ASUS Radeon HD 5850: ASUS EAH5850/G/2DIS/1GD5/A  P/N: 90-C3CH41-L0UAY00T
Kingston Vseries 64GB SSD (MLC) SNV125-S2BD/64GB 2.5" Desktop replacement kit boot drive
4: WD 500GB Caviar Black 32MB cache in RAID 10; WD5001AALS-00L3B2
Cooler Master Silent Power Pro 1000W power supply: RS-A00-AMBA-J3
Zalman CNPS9900LED CPU cooler (air cooled)
DVD multi-writer (CD/DVD DL combo drive) Pioneer DVR-S18MBK
Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Fata1ity Professional series SB0880 (64MB SRAM) (PCIe x1)
Monitor: Dell 1626HT (21" flat screen CRT)
Kingston HyperX KHX-FAN memory fan
Cooler Master HAF 932 case
NZXT Sentry LX "Aluminum" fan control (NOT for fan control, for fan and temp monitoring)
PowerUp GEN-9010 Internal All-in-One Flash Card Reader
Sabrent 56k V.92 Motorola Chipset Data/Fax Modem (PCI)
Windows 7 64b Home Premium
Saitek Eclipse keyboard
Logitech MX-518 optical wired mouse


My out of the box experience

I was disappointed as soon as I built the system because despite the advertised claim of three USB headers on board, there were only two; meaning I could not plug in my card reader AND both sets of front-panel USB connectors. I started out by flashing the BIOS with the newer version, then disbaled the onboard audio. I made a RAID array using the following drive assignments:
SATA0 = SSD boot drive
SATA1 = DVD drive
SATA2-5 = 4x Caviar Black in RAID 10
SATA8 = front panel eSATA connector


BIOS initial settings and Memtest86 v5.0 problem

I then adjusted the Boot sequence in the BIOS to build Windows, as it was defaulting to the RAID array before the SSD. I then built Windows, and loaded all necessary drivers, including Intel Matrix storage manager, and my Soundblaster drivers. When I loaded Logitech setpoint, it searched for and found an update. And on 11/16 I ran Memtest86 version 5.x, and the memory showed errors. It took me a couple of days to discover that I needed a lesser version number in order to test triple-channel 12GB memory. There was nothing wrong in the newer Memtest86+ version 4.0.


My first (permanent) SATA failure

During this time, on a reboot, the RAID array BIOS screen showed a failed drive, "error occurred" in red, SATA4. When Windows booted, I checked Intel Matrix to find the drive status as "failed." I checked for loose connections, negative. So I tried a different data cable and swapped to another power cable, no difference. I then tried plugging it in to SATA9: The screen showed another drive in lt. blue, indicating a good usable drive; and the RAID screen now showed a missing drive. However, because it was on a different RAID controller, I could not use it to rebuild the RAID volume. So I swapped out SATA1, the DVD drive, plugged that into SATA8 and moved the FP connector to SATA9. Now I had the previously "failed" drive plugged into SATA1. On boot, the drive showed again in lt. blue as a usable drive, and I had to set the boot drive to SSD again. I booted to windows, and the Intel Matrix manager gave me the option to choose the drive as a replacement for the previously "failed" slot, which now showed as "missing". The RAID rebuilt over the next three hours. I had to set Windows power management to "always on" in order for this to happen, because once the screen shut off and the RAID quit rebuilding because of power management. From then on, I always had power management set to "always on".


Another SATA failure

I decided the problem was not worth returning the motherboard over, I wanted to have a gaming rig up and running over Thanksgiving and Christmas week; it just didn't seem worth the effort either - I can live without one SATA port. So I continued installing OS apps and data. I transferred my data to the RAID drives, about 40GB of data. Shortly thereafter, I started overclocking trials, mild low overclocks. During this time, in the weekend before thanksgiving, SATA5 RAID drive failed just like last time, and I took the same troubleshooting measures. I tried plugging the failed drive into SATA4, and it did not show on screen on bootup and neither on Intel Matrix. So I removed the SSD boot drive from SATA0 and removed the front panel eSATA plug from SATA9, plugged the SSD in to SATA8 and moved the DVD drive to SATA9. Now my drive setup looked like this:

SATA0-3 = 4x Caviar Black in RAID 10
SATA8 = SSD boot drive
SATA9 = DVD drive
SATA7 = front panel eSATA connector

And I booted into Windows, and again the Intel Matrix manager let me choose SATA0 for the drive to rebuild instead of the failed SATA5 port. Well, since I still had a fully functional system, and since these failing ports were isolated on the motherboard on the lower corner, I decided that perhaps no more would fail and again I would not try to return the motherboard. I did not call tech support. I checked the forums and did not see any reports of similar occurrances.


Began overclocking

Then I started OC trials, being very cautious and taking small steps, and I always carefully document all the changes I make. I had a hard time with it, it seemed like it would not be stable at just a small OC: 160 Bclock caused blue-screen. Backed it off to 155 and was trying higher voltages, but still getting a few curious random lockups at curious times no matter what I did. Also, sometime around Thanksgiving, I found the computer on when I woke up in the morning, and locked up with a grey or black screen. When I rebooted, I set the BIOS not to wake on PCI card, and verified that Realtek LAN PXE boot ROM was set to disabled. I just assumed we must have had a voltage spike on the phone line, and it woke the computer. We had no phone calls that night/morning.


Radeon HD 5850 "auto" fan doesn't work right

Despite all this, I was able to achieve a nearly-stable overclock of 171 Bclock with 2:8 memory multiplier and keeping the core temps at 76 or less at 100% load. I installed and began playing my games, it was Thanksgiving weekend. Then I began overclocking my crossfire setup. I arrived at an acceptable very conservative ATI OC, and I started seeing a lot (approx. every day or more) of hangs during my game, particularly when I was in the heat of a large battle. Since I didn't understand why at the time, I reset the ATI card to stock speeds; and it helped a lot. In the next few weeks, I still had occasional lockups, but not often; they probably averaged about one per day. On 12/22, during a heat-of-battle lockup after trying some new OC settings, it occurred to me that I never heard the Radeon 5850 fans increase. Doh, no wonder I was having lockups in the heat of battle. So I checked the temp as soon as I could get rebooted, and it showed 52C and sharply decreasing quickly. I checked the fan settings, they were set to "Auto". Since the only other settings were manual fan speed and another with settings per temperature, I chose the latter. Subsequent times that I ran my game the fans would kick in quite audibly and often. It took care of my heat-of-battle lockups, so I restored the ATI OC.


Replacement of original hard drives

However, the computer still locked up occasionally, about once every couple of days, so I backed off the OC for the ATI video. The occasional lockups continued without change of frequency. They were usually black-screen and sometimes gray-screen. I got worried about my RAID drives, particularly that I did not have a spare, and I wanted to buy a terabyte drive for my wife's computer anyway. What's more, I had discovered that my Kingston SSD did not support TRIM, and it was getting very full, so I decided to replace it with a 300GB WD velociraptor. On 12/28 I ordered these HDs and a power supply tester (Apevia). On 12/27 I tried using "XMP memory profile", I had to reset the BIOS in order to even get to BIOS setup again. Immediately I disabled onboard sound, turned back on the RAID array, adjusted the boot sequence, and re-programmed my previous overclocks. Sometime in the next couple of days I found the computer on again after I had turned it off. When I rebooted, I set the BIOS not to wake on PCI card again, and verifyed that Realtek LAN PXE boot ROM was set to disabled. This did not happen again.


My third SATA failure, all on ICH10R RAID array

On approximately 12/30/09 while testing a new overclocking setting for stability, my computer hard locked during a game, black screen, no keyboard response, no caps lock functionality LED, no keyboard lighting (standard for a black-screen hard lock). I hit the hard reset. When it rebooted the BIOS RAID showed that SATA1 had failed, it said "error occurred," and when Windows booted the Intel Matrix manager said the drive on SATA1 had failed. This time, after checking for loose connectors, I replaced the SATA data cable with a longer one; opon reboot it still showed the same errors. So I shut down the computer, and moved the data cable to SATA7. On reboot it showed a functional drive plugged in to SATA7. So I tried it in SATA4, and SATA5, and again in SATA1; it would not work in these failed SATA ports. So I left it plugged in to SATA7 and awaited my terabyte replacement, as my RAID volume was now irreparably degraded since I only had 3 working ports left on the Intel ICH10R. I kept all my data backed up on a NAS. I tested the PS with both the Apevia PS tester and my DMM, it all showed OK.


RMA'd the board and tried Asus Rampage II Extreme

On 1/4/2010 I submitted a support ticket to EVGA, they said it must be a motherboard malfunction, so I started an RMA and it was approved on 1/7. In the meantime I transferred all my data to the new terrabyte drive and disconnected the RAID drives. I also ordered a new Asus Rampage II Extreme motherboard to replace the EVGA on 1/7. I left the EVGA Windows build on the SSD, and when I received the new Asus board I built Windows on the new raptor instead. This way when the replacement EVGA board came I could merely plug in the SSD boot drive and get up and running quickly. I sent the EVGA board away and I installed the Asus board. I had to RMA the Asus board because it refused to boot when the board is warm - I had to wait 10-30 minutes before it would boot again. And the EVGA replacement arrived on 1/29.


EVGA replacement motherboard dies in less than 1 hour

On 1/30 I replaced the mobo with the EVGA replacement. On startup, I flashed the BIOS with the newest (11/30 - SZ2Z) and began setting the BIOS settings, beginning with disabling the onboard sound. I tired to boot to the SSD which had not been used since the last EVGA mobo, and windows would stop loading during the black screen animated windows logo and begin a reboot loop. So I tried selecting Windows repair, and after about 10 minutes it said windows could not repair itself. So I tried to boot to safe mode, that failed exactly like regular windows load attempt. I then thought well I will have to rebuild Windows again, so turned off the computer with the power button on a black-screen BIOS POST time to get the Windows DVD. When I returned and attempted to start it again, the computer would not start. The blue LED was on, no other sign of life. I tried unplugging the PS for 30 sec, and tried to start it again, same prob. I disconnected everything but the CPU and NB fan, and the mem, soundblaster, and video, and it still would not turn on. I tested the power supply, it tested OK. I then disconnected everything, including the fans, except one stick of RAM in blue slot A0 and the PS plugs of course. Still would not boot, not even a LCD code. The PS fan was not coming on either. I tried the PS tester again, it worked OK, the fan came on when I did that. So then I took my wife's computer apart and tried her power supply, still nothing. I tried a different stick of RAM, nothing. I checked the CPU socket for visibly bent pins using a stereo magnifier - I had done so before I installed it as well - and I replaced the CPU in the socket. I tried starting the board again, out of the case, still, blue LED but no other sign of life.


EVGA claims original motherboard was good

So on the same day I called EVGA tech support, and reported the problem. He said that it must be a defective motherboard, so I must RMA it again. He also said that my previous motherboard had been tested and checked out OK! (Actually this was before I took my wife's PC apart and tried that PS). So he said that he wasn't sure, the prob might be my PS. But they would RMA and cross-ship, that I should be able to start that process Monday 2/1/10. On 2/3 I shipped the second RMAd motherboard back to EVGA.


Enlightenment: My troubles may be directly related to USB failure complaints on EVGA forum

Also on 2/3 I read on the EVGA forum about multiple people having trouble with USB devices quitting, and their USB keyboard would stop responding and the caps lock etc. would stop responding, if they had USB keyboards. Their mice LED would go out, and all the USB devices. Some people who had PS2 keyboards were able to continue working in Windows without their mouse. Then it occurred to me, that both the USB and the SATA come off of the southbridge (SB). And that was not so different than my lockups. So I now believe that both the failures of the SATA and the failures of the USB are related directly to the same problem.

Please call EVGA techncial support at 888-880-EVGA. If you do not get what you believe to be a satisfactory answer then contact me via PM and reference this forum post

140.00 with free shipping. Powers everything in my sig
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009

expedision

140.00 with free shipping. Powers everything in my sig
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009

Power supply calculators tell me 932-1000W for my monster of a rig. I will not throw money at a lesser wattage PS.

No sign of prob, joy!

OK I have replacement EVGA 758 now and changed my PS to Corsair HX1000W 1 day and no sign of hiccup. Ran LinX all night 6-1/2 hrs) prob size 37700 mem 10873 27 passes, with mild OCs. RealTemp 75-79C core 0, 72-76C other cores. I noticed that LinX runs the temp up about 3C higher than P95 Large FFT, ran that for few hours too. Artic Silver 5 only applied for about 12 hrs when LinX test above started.

Driver versions and USB lockup concern

I have left my FP connectors off, will leave off for few months to rule out them as possible prob if USB lockup issue begins, and I will not update my Realtek gigabit LAN drivers; they are: "Realtek RTL8168D/8111D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)" ver "7.002.1125.2008 built by: WinDDK" (Rt64win7.sys) and are the ones Windows automatically installed without update. FYI USB drivers are ver 6.1.7600.16385 and I don't know if they have been updated, they have not been updated since my build W/Asus (X58) used on my EVGA now.

Old mobo HDD build didn't work

I had two sets of HDD, one from my last build of EVGA X58 SLI and one from my build of Asus Rampage II Extreme (X58). I had reserved the EVGA build HDDs for use W/the replacement mobo, that I received yesterday, and when I tried to use it the boot into Windows would not complete. Later I had found that I forgot to put the corssfire connector on, but I don't think that was the prob as I experienced the same issue with the last mobo I received that went dead after less than an hour - and I didn't forget the cross-connect on that build (I was never able to try the second HDD set on that mobo as it died first). BTW, I couldn't even boot to safe mode, and Windows repair said "Windows repair cannot repair". So I used my other HDD set, as my Asus was refunded anyway and I no longer need that build. That set booted without an issue, exc the Asus utilities that crashed when load attempt, and my squished screen at my desired res 1280x1024 (see other thread). Also W/my new build I notice that E-Leet says "stepping: 5." Did that say that before? Shouldn't it say D0?

OCing and need to test W/Sins of Solar Empire yet

Well now I have set to mild OC hoping that it would be stable right off the bat without testing stock clock overnight first. And joy, it worked (see first paragragh above). I am still holding back final stability assessment until I play SoSE in a big battle though, I find it was a real good test of stability as it caused my sys to lockup when I noticed the 5800 series auto fan prob, and then a few times after I fixed that, once when another of my SATA ports failed permanently (could have been caused by the USB lockup prob elsewhere on the EVGA X58 forum). I think I am going to try it first W/my previous mild graphics OC, then back to stock if hiccup.

My present OC heat too high for summer

Anyway, now I am unsatisfied with my OC settings bc I think the heat too high, as I don't have AC and it gets up to 90F+ inside just about every year here. But I have not fiddled with the OC settings (Vs) yet to try to lower the heat, and possibly eek out a few more Bclocks with lower heat. My Vreg is running up around 79C when LinX, 75 W/P95.

My Corsair mem latencies are now sky high!

But here's an interesting and unfortunate prob I have: With these same settings, except mem latencies set to 10-10-10-30-auto-auto(2T) and Bclock 161, Windows would not finish booting. It was during the Asus graphics utilities loading that Windows was effectively hung (there was evidence of continued Windows activity, and USBs worked). Graphics were set to stock exc fans set to "SmartCooling." Then I tried 11-11-11-31-88-2T and the problem went away! And my 9-9-9-24 Corsair memory was only at mem stock speed! The 11-11-11-31 settings are the highest possible settings in the BIOS! Now I am up to 166 Bclock OK. Any ideas about maybe what's wrong and how to fix? Do you think I have bad mem (it is 4 mos old now no refund)? I have ran Memtest86+ v4.0 all night long several times no errors.

Here is my present BIOS settings:

Mother Board ( EVGA X58 SLI E758 )                                                       
Drivers ( ? )
Bios ( SZ2X )                                                                                                     
CPU (920 D0 E-Leet says "stepping: 5" )
CPU Cooler ( Zalman CNPS9900LED (air cooled), AS5 )
Memory (Corsair HX3X12G1600C9 SRAM set of 6 (2GB each stick) DDR3 1600 triple-channel memory 9-9-9-24 1.6V )
PSU ( Corsair HX1000W )
GPU (Dual ASUS Radeon HD 5850 in crossfire )
Drivers ( 8.660.0.0, "Driver packaging version 8.66-090918a-088905E-Asus" )
Operating System (Windows 7 64b Home premium )


Frequency Control
CPU Clock Ratio ( 20X )                                                                                         
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ( 166 )                                                                      
MCH Strap ( DRAM ratio )
CPU Uncore Frequency (Mhz) ( auto )                                                
CPU Clock Skew ( 0 ps )
Spread Spectrum ( Disabled )
PCIE Frequency (Mhz) ( 100 )

Memory Feature        
Memory Speed ( Standard )
Memory Control Setting ( Enabled )
Memory Frequency ( 1663Mhz / 2:10 )                                                                
Channel Interleave Setting ( 6 Way )
Rank Interleave Setting ( 4 Way )
Memory Low Gap ( Auto )
tCL Setting ( 11 )
tRCD Setting ( 11 )
tRP Setting ( 11 )
tRAS Setting ( 31 )
tRFC Setting ( 88 )
Command Rate ( 2T )


Voltage Control
EVGA VDroop Control ( Without VDroop )
CPU VCore ( 1.275V )                                                                                                
CPU VTT Voltage ( +150 / 1.25V - E-Leet says 1.35V monitored, but 1.25V set )
CPU PLL VCore ( Auto / 1.8V )
DIMM Voltage ( 1.65 )
DIMM DQ Vref ( +0mV )
QPI PLL VCore ( 1.2V )
IOH VCore ( 1.2V )
IOH/ICH I/O Voltage ( Auto / 1.5V )
ICH VCore ( Auto / 1.1V )
PWM Frequency ( 800 )


CPU Feature
Intel SpeedStep ( Disabled )
Turbo Mode Function ( Enabled )
CxE Function ( Disabled )
Execute Disable Bit (Enabled )
Virtualization Technology ( Disabled )
Intel HT Technology ( Enabled )
Active Processor Cores ( All )
QPI Control Settings ( Enabled )
QPI Link Fast Mode ( Enabled )
QPI Frequency Selection ( Auto )
OC Recovery ( Enabled )

PnP/PCI     PCI Express
Maximum Payload Size ( 256 )
 
Power Management Setup
ACPI Suspend Type ( Default / S1 (pos) )   
HPET Support ( Enabled )     
HPET Mode ( 64-bit ) 
 
My system now:

Intel Core i7-920 stepping D0 (E-Leet says "stepping: 5") lot 3928A567
EVGA X58 SLI rev SZ2X
Corsair HX3X12G1600C9 SRAM set of 6 (2GB each stick) DDR3 1600 triple-channel memory 9-9-9-24 1.6V
Dual ASUS Radeon HD 5850 in crossfire
WD Velociraptor WD3000HLFS boot drive
Corsair CMPSU-1000HX 1000-Watt Power Supply
Zalman CNPS9900LED CPU cooler (air cooled), Arctic Silver 5
CD/DVD DL combo drive Pioneer DVR-S18MBK
SB X-Fi Titanium Fata1ity Pro SB0880 (PCIe x1)
4: WD 500GB Caviar Black 32MB cache in RAID 10; WD5001AALS-00L3B2
Monitor: Dell 1626HT (21" flat screen CRT)
Kingston HyperX KHX-FAN memory fan
Cooler Master HAF 932 case
NZXT Sentry LX "Aluminum" fan control (Not FOR fan control, for fan and temp monitoring)
PowerUp GEN-9010 Internal All-in-One Flash Card Reader (disconnected Feb thru 4/2010 for diagnostics)

I just wanted to say that my first e758 a1 showed strange drive corruption problems plus has weird usb drop out and system freezes.  That mb is currenlty undergoing the stepup process to the e760 classified.  I bought a second e758 a1 which I'm currently running on until the classified gets in and then I'll put it up as a spare but it doesn't exibit the same behavior as the first one.  While both say revision 1.1 the original had green/black memory slots while this has grey/black slots plus other connections are different colors on this and the ich10 revision is newer.  Again it doesn't misbehave like the first one did and then again I've got ek waterblocks on this instead of stock mb/pwm cooling.  When the stepup is completed I'm going to waterblock it as well.

hooti3, no, that was nothing like what I experienced. Mine was sudden and complete failures, no POST delay, and it detected the drive but said something like "error occurred". But mine was configured as RAID (10), so if yours wasn't you could see different things on POST. But I experienced the same ports ("4 & 5") failing on me first, before SATA1 a month later. Then when I RMAd the mobo, they said it tested OK - I don't believe they test according to what the complaint was, but that may be an unimportant complaint. Perhaps you should remove the CMOS batt for 10 mins, press reset after replacement, and try it again and see if the port functionality returns? I'm not saying that it will fix permanently, just that maybe it resets the problem that occurred. That's the only thing I can think of that would've caused my old board to test good. I'm assuming here that you did try the drive in another port and that it worked OK there.


expedision, I experienced the exact same behavior in memory latency at Bclock 161 (1610MHz).

OK I just tried Bclock down to 160, and have now booted to 9-9-9-24-auto(74)-auto(2T). Mem is now stock speed and latency. I am now running LinX to test. But it seems expedision is right, it was my bitsy 3.75% overclock that did it, apparently also just a 0.625 overclock can cause the prob too, but haven't tried suggestion from MJinZ yet. Whoops, LinX just erred after just 13min! I will try setting tRFC to 88 and test. I will edit this same post with results.

Thoughts: I really don't think a 3.75% increase in Bclock, or even a 6% increase in Bclock, is worth dropping my mem speed to 80% (that would equal 83% with extra core overclock). Especially so considering that I don't think the core temps will be lower. However, if I could then increase my Bclock by more than 10% (without going over 75C), then that might make it worth the reduction. But I will play with it some more in the next week.



* * * EDIT * * *: I just tried "auto" MCH strap. I noticed that the default tRFC changed from 74 to 88. But LinX still erred in 13 min. I will now try 10-10-30-88-2T with "auto" MCH strap.


* * * EDIT * * *: 10-10-30-88-2T with "auto" MCH strap ran LinX 3 passes OK. But the fact remains: I cannot run my mem stable at stock mem speeds yet, I will try VTT as suggested.


* * * EDIT * * *: I tried increasing the VTT all the way to +350, and LinX would always either never finish a pass or it would fail, at 9-9-9-24-auto(88)-auto(2T). So as far as I can tell, my memory won't run at the rated speeds. Now I'm going to try SoSE with 10-10-30-88-2T, Bclock 160, and VTT at +100 (1.2).


* * * EDIT * * *: SoSE hard-locked after a couple hours play. Keyboard unresponsive, but lit and mouse lit - so I don't think it was the USB freezup issue. But I have since attached a PS2 keyboard to try on lockup to be sure (2 kybds).

I noticed that when I OC my 5850s too far WO/enough V, I get "gray screen" lockups. I call them gray bc although they are blue-gray, they are lighter and grayer than a BSOD: The type that gives a "stop" message. This time it was just a hard lock, screen froze for a minute, then went black (power mgmt off). Also I was hearing my 5850 fan(s) so I don't suspect a 5850 lockup.

Now I'm going to try lowering OCs 'till my game is stable.

xandypx

Just a quick note, (OK not so Quick) and this doesn't have anything to do with the actual Mobo issues.

In a couple of your posts, you indicated that you were unable to do a windows7 "repair install"...  I can tell you why, and it may also be the cause of some of the failed boots you had had in the past.

Windows7 has this bad habit of, what I call... "Hide the Boot Record".  When you install windows, and you have multiple HDD plugged into your system,  The "recovery" partition that win7 creates, along with the "Bootrec" files, can end up on any drive that is attached to the system.  In a best case senario, this partition, and set of files, should reside (in a seperate partition) on the primary drive where Windows is located.

If the bootrec file ends up on a different drive, you will typically not notice a problem with windows, except when you do any of the following (which in your case happened a few different times):

1. You disconnect the drive that contains the Bootrec.  Win7 will not start, or repair.
2. You move the drive that contains the Bootrec to a different SATA port, and again windows cannot find the bootrec, therefore no boot, and no repair functionality.
3 The drive itself fails

[snippage]

Apologies for continuing the thread hijacking.  Maybe we could/should move this somewhere else.  It's good stuff.

Hey xandypx,

This got my attention, since I seem to be a**  deep in boot issues on a regular basis.  Not so much problems, as fiddling the details building multi-boot boxes.  Seems like you know your stuff, so I'll bounce this off you.

I did a fresh install of Win 7 in a box with 3 HDs already installed.  I did the main drive partitioning in advance and directed '7 to install into the 1st partition, just to avoid it creating a boot partition.  It happily did so, and didn't put its boot files anywhere else.  I'm reasonably sure of that, since I boot via grub on my 2nd partition and have control over what gets booted - and where.

When I did an install of '7 on my StinkPad it insisted on adding a boot partition, even though I tried to install into an existing partition.   It warned me that it was creating another partition.

My guess is it did what I wanted in the desktop case because all primary partitions were already assigned, but not in the laptop case because I had only assigned one partition in advance.

[edit] IIRC, I hadn't assigned all 4 primaries, but had assigned all the space.

What do you think?

Z.