Boot up Hard Disk Error, but always passes test

[gurrathreepoint]

Randomly but frequently I get the blue screen at boot up telling my "Hard Disk Error", "Hard Disk 1 (3F1)

1. I run the test, if passes and then boots up normally, until I shut down (normally) and turn the tower back on.

2. Replaced the hard drive, no effect

3. Replaced the SATA cable, no effect.

On a side note the only test that does fail, every time, is the video test but I have encountered no problems with video once PC is up and running, but the VGA and DVI ports work just fine, even with two monitors.

[TheOldMan]

A hard disk warning at startup most likely means the disk is failing.  Since you can still get it to work means that you should get a new drive, clone the old drive to the new drive and get the replacement installed before it is too late.  IMHO, do the replacement now.

[mdklassen]

> Hard Disk 1 (3F1)

Important note: computers start counting at "0", not at "1".

So, this message references a "secondary" disk-drive, not the "primary" (and its replacement).

> 2. Replaced the hard drive, no effect

> 3. Replaced the SATA cable, no effect.

Some HP computers have a tiny solid-state device, connected directly to the motherboard.

It is programmed to emulate a disk-drive's protocol for input/output.

So, if it fails, you'll get the error-message that you reported.

Given that you have replaced the "main" disk-drive, to no effect,  disconnect the AC power from your computer.

Open up your computer, and inspect the motherboard.

Remove that solid-state device.

Reconnect the AC power, and reboot.

My expectation is that the error-message will not appear.

Note: the disk-drive that was replaced probably did NOT have any problem.

[Grzwacz]

Hi

I agree with TheOldMan.

You may have HDD sector corruption where system graphics files are located.

For the heck of it, run a check disk.

Tom

[gurrathreepoint]

I was unable to find any solid state device.  I am very familiar with BIOS and checked there, nothing listed unusual, even reapplied defaults.

For some reason, the motherboard is seeing something that is clearly not present.

I did searching online to see what the solid state device might look like, nothing in the PC that I could see.

[TheOldMan]

If the hard drive was replaced, what was the replacement(make amd model)?  How was the OS reinstalled?  Recovery Disk set or Windows install disk?  Without the model number of the PC, it would be helpful, but it could actually be a motherboard fault.  Some models have reported a controller failure that starts to manifest itself with an error reported that looks just like a hard drive failing. 

[mdklassen]

>  I was unable to find any solid state device. 

> I did searching online to see what the solid state device might look like, nothing in the PC that I could see.

> For some reason, the motherboard is seeing something that is clearly not present.

See: https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1010396/

In the first image, look at the red-coloured rectangle surrounding the slot for the "M.2" solid-state device.

In the third image, do you see something similar when you inspect your motherboard?

No, not the finger-tips! 

[gurrathreepoint]

I found that slot, it is marked m-sata but there is nothing connected to it.  I am still thinking something is wrong with the motherboard, when I run a full test the video fails.

[mdklassen]

> I found that m-sata slot, but there is nothing connected to it. 

Good, but bad.

What happens if you disconnect the data/power cables from the disk-drive, and then restart.

Do you still get the error-message?

> I am still thinking something is wrong with the motherboard, when I run a full test the video fails.

When you eliminate everything else, then what's left is the cause.

[gurrathreepoint]

I tried that, had not yet posted it here.  I changed the SATA cable from SATA0 on motherboard to SATA1 and the blue screen error still appears with 3f2 instead of 3f1.

I know someone mentioned the HD was bad, but I find it hard to believe that I bought a bad hard drive, after all I got this error message with the original HD, got a new one, installed it, and same message.