Before you have ago, searching only found "Sorry no answer could be found" and no other documents seemed to show.

Before I return my drive for a new one, I'm wondering if someone could help me. I custom built a new pc about a month ago. Worked fine, until yesterday. The motherboard got stuck at the splashscreen and just wouldn't go past it. After researching I found that hardware could be 'confusing' the motherboard. And so I sent about an disconnecting my hardware to find that once my hard diskwas unplugged, it posted fine and went past the splash.

As expected, reconnecting it made it freeze at te splash again, I wanted to backup and format the drive. So I instaled Damn Small Linux to a memory stick in an attempt to boot up and access the drive (somehow) and backup then format it. No luck, it didn't actually find the drive, I am on a laptop now or I'd try the drive in another PC. But, I'm looking to see if someone else has had/fixed this problem and can help me. The last thing I want to do is get a replacement and lose all my data.

Help MUCH appreciated.

If the drive is recognized in the bios, you can run manufacturer diagnostics.
If it is not recognized in the bios, check the power and data connections, otherwise I tend to think it is dead.

When the drive is plugged in, it won't actually get out the splash screen, when the USB is connected, it takes forever to move. Thing is, it must be running somehow if it manages to hang the motherboard. Why would it die so suddenly.

without knowing the make,model,size,or type of connection of the hdd in question one can only give generic answers.
so get the diags from the manufacturer create a floppy for same,run same,read message output take appropriate action..
it dose not seem likely,but not impossible,that a new hdd would go south in only 1mo,,??,,could be that drive is not electrically hooked up properly,you have checked the jumper[s] on the underside of the hdd,i know zilch about sata drives,but ide drives should be set for cable select,xp loves cable select..:> )

Completey new computer. SATA drive, Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB Drive. So there aren't any jumpers on it at the moment, or at least I didn't have to set them up.

In case it helps, My pc:

ASUS P5K Premium Wifi-AP (Black Pearl)
NVIDIA 9800GTX 512MB
Q6600 2.4Ghz Processor, No clocking done
4GB Corsair Dominator RAM (2x2GB Sticks)
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB HDD

Is there nothing I can do, I have important data on there.

Try a different sata port, use a different power connector - swap out the sata cable. These things will help you to isolate the issue to the primary components involved in making a disk drive function. What's left will be the motherboard, the power supply, and the sata drive itself.

If it's the mainboard then putting a different sata into your system won't change anything...so you can exclude the mb that way.

If you have access to any other sata cabable system you can try accessing the drive through it, which can lead to recovering your important data.

Lastly, check the settings on the motherboard to be sure it recognizes the sata correctly.

Ok I'll go try that now. I have a second SATA drive somewhere I can try. Which will exclude the mb as you said. If that doesn't work, I'll go round a friends and see if I can hook the sata to theirs and access it. Will reply with info.

Which splash screen do you mean? The windows one or the one where it tells you what BIOS you have and stuff. Can you boot from a CD at least? If so, try Gnome Partition Editor (GPartEd) by making a Live CD from your laptop if you can and boot from it on your computer with the HDD connected. Maybe it will detect the drive.

Also, since you want to back up your data do you have another hard drive? You should try another hard drive and see if you have same issues to make sure its not the motherboard. Seems like it isn't but just to make sure.

That's what I just went to do. Second SATA drive was recognised, or I assume so as it said 'No OS found' instead of freezing at the splash. The splash is the one on the motherboard.

ASUS P5K PREMIUM splash screen. Just before the POST message. I already tried booting into a live cd (used Damn Small Linux on a memory stick) it didn't find the drive, so it seems the drive is dead, is there no way I can take it to a shop who can fix it up? I'm still going to try it in another pc.

Ok so something new happened. I reconnected the drive, just to see what happened. I managed to get to the BIOS! Only to find that the list of SATA devices only found the DVD Drive, I reset the bios using the option there (hadn't tried it yet) and then quit. Suddenly it went past the Splash, it then said.

'Please insert proper boot medium then restart, or insert boot medium and press any key' or something to that line. I could then hear the drive burst into sound. Resting my hand against the top I could feel the drive spinning. Then it quietened down, I pressed space and heard the drive suddenly spin back up. So, it seems to be finding the drive but... not reading it possibly.

Could it possibly be that the head is jammed? I'm not an expert on these thigns but it's working, I can hear/feel it. If that's the case, would it be safe to give it a jolt, or even to just take to a pc shop for backup (seeing as it's spinning).

What happens if you try it in another computer?

I have to travel a fair way away to do that, to a friends house. I'm going to do that before I get a replacement, but I can't do that now. It's almost 9pm. Looking for another option first.

However, when I plug my other sata drive in it says 'No OS found', it's finding the drive. So it's not the mb that's at least confirmed.

If it is not a bad sata cable, or bad connection, then I suspect that the druve is dead, and it is RMA time.

There are companies that will recover data from damaged drives, but that could be expensive.

In the future, protect your data on an External device.

Ok, connected that exact sata cable to my second sata. Found it fine, complained about there being no master drive though. So the drive is dead. RMA time? Can you explain? And usually I backup, it was this one off chance. It OBVIOUSLY knew I hadn't backed up, and decided to take the piss.

RMA=Return Merchandise Authorization.
No master is curious, ide drives need a master, sata does not.