Q4OS Forum

Leon

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2026-09-20

Posts: 6

Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

Hello,

I hope this is the right place to post this, as I'm very new to the forum and this is only my second post.

I have a strange hardware problem, so this is nothing Q4OS-related, with two identical Samsung HD502HJ 500 GB / 7200 rpm SATA HDDs in an older PC, and I would be grateful for any advice.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 with an AMD 970/SB950 chipset. The PC has a 350 W PSU, two HDDs, one SATA DVD drive, and three case fans.

The problem is the following:

On a cold boot, both Samsung HD502HJ drives do not spin up.
They are therefore also not detected by the BIOS under Hard Disk Boot Priority.

This also happens when only one HD502HJ is connected, so it does not seem to be caused by the combined power consumption of two HDDs.

However, if I disconnect the SATA power connector from the HD502HJ and reconnect it while the PC is already running, the drive immediately spins up and becomes detectable. I know this is not a recommended procedure; I only did this as a diagnostic test.

Both HD502HJ drives behave in exactly the same way.

The drives work perfectly when connected externally to another PC.

Windows 8 has already been installed successfully on this machine once the drives were running.

I also tested an older Samsung HD501LJ 500 GB / 7200 rpm / 16 MB HDD. Interestingly, this drive starts immediately on a cold boot using the same SATA power connector, with the DVD drive and all three fans connected. No other hardware was changed.

I also checked the HD502HJ drives with hdparm -I.

For both drives, the relevant output is simply:

Power-Up In Standby feature set

There is no * in front of this line, so as far as I understand, PUIS is supported but not enabled.

The SATA controller is configured as AHCI in the BIOS.

So at this point, I am wondering whether this could be some kind of spin-up/power-on compatibility issue specific to the HD502HJ, perhaps related to the motherboard, SATA controller, or the PSU's power-on behavior.

Has anyone experienced this with a Samsung HD502HJ or a similar older AMD 970 motherboard? I've never encountered a problem like this before, and I must say I'm at my wit's end.

Any suggestions for further tests would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

Taige

Member

Registered: 2025-08-19

Posts: 89

Re: Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

Yes, it is a problem of incompatibility known to Samsung at the hardware level and is specific to the Spinpoint F3 series of disks, among which there is your HD502HJ.
If they are combined with certain Sata controllers such as Amd chipsets of the SB850 or SB950 series and some older generation Intel chipsets (such as P67 / H67) here is where the problem manifests itself.

The disk remains off or inert on cold boot, but it boots and works perfectly if hot-plugged back in or on other computers is just the classic symptom of this Sata bug.

Take a look here:
https://www.seagate.com/em/en/support/k … -223631en/

Last edited by Taige (2026-09-25 13:57)

Midas

Member

Registered: 2017-12-15

Posts: 274

Re: Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

Don't have a solution but I'd venture the HDDs aren't being supplied with enough power at power up -- I recently had a similar problem with an external 3.5 HDD that would be detected over USB(3) but would remain unavaialble...

The problem disappeared when external power was supplied. YMMV though. 

Last edited by Midas (2026-09-25 13:55)

Leon

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2026-09-20

Posts: 6

Re: Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

Yes, it is a problem of incompatibility known to Samsung at the hardware level and is specific to the Spinpoint F3 series of disks, among which there is your HD502HJ.
If they are combined with certain Sata controllers such as Amd chipsets of the SB850 or SB950 series and some older generation Intel chipsets (such as P67 / H67) here is where the problem manifests itself.

The disk remains off or inert on cold boot, but it boots and works perfectly if hot-plugged back in or on other computers is just the classic symptom of this Sata bug.

Take a look here:
https://www.seagate.com/em/en/support/k … -223631en/

Thank you, I'll try that. I really didn't know that was even a thing!

Taige

Member

Registered: 2025-08-19

Posts: 89

Re: Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

Yes, it is a problem of incompatibility known to Samsung at the hardware level and is specific to the Spinpoint F3 series of disks, among which there is your HD502HJ.
If they are combined with certain Sata controllers such as Amd chipsets of the SB850 or SB950 series and some older generation Intel chipsets (such as P67 / H67) here is where the problem manifests itself.

The disk remains off or inert on cold boot, but it boots and works perfectly if hot-plugged back in or on other computers is just the classic symptom of this Sata bug.

Take a look here:
https://www.seagate.com/em/en/support/k … -223631en/

Thank you, I'll try that. I really didn't know that was even a thing!

You're welcome! Let us know if you were able to solve the problem. 

Leon

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2026-09-20

Posts: 6

Re: Samsung HD502HJ HDDs do not spin up on cold boot

I have one quick question: how do I flash the HDDs? I've never done this before, and AI is failing me miserably.