Sudden Harddrive failure due to software!?

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argitoth

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Nov 11, 2013
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EDIT: Solution is found, see my last post. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1877741/sudden-harddrive-failure-due-software.html#12068232

I have two WD HDs. One is a 400GB, older. One is a newer HD 500GB. The newer one has been working great for a few years now. Suddenly today it stopped working, and I blame software.

I was trying to open a MediaPlayerClassic exe (I just downloaded from PortableApps), but somehow the exe was corrupt and caused my computer to hang. It was accessing my 500GB drive at the time. No form of "end task" would stop the drive. So then I try to restart. Metro restart screen comes up... and the computer never restarts. I hit my case reset button. Upon booting back into windows, my 500GB drive shows 100% usage, but 0 read/write speed. My disk usage case light remains fully on, no blinking. I disabled the drive in Device Manager. After re-enabling it, it goes straight to 100% usage again even if I don't try to access it. When I try to access the drive, some files are accessible... as soon as I try to go deeper into the folder structure, HANG! Once again, windows cannot restart on its own. So I hit the reset button.

I use Recuva to recover all the files. Slow-format the drive. Check for bad sectors. No errors. I go to replace the backed up files... HANG!

I remove the drive from my case.

I believe this was the problem: I hard-resetted the computer during windows restart. Resetting during windows restart must be very bad, same thing goes for Shutdown. Lesson learned. I will never attempt to use Windows restart during computer hang. If there's a hang, I go straight for reset button.

ps - windows/programs were still functional during hang, but explorer would crash.

I have another piece of evidence that might suggest that windows restart is baaaad time to hard-reset. This happened maybe 3 or 4 times. After hard-resetting during windows restart, I could hear high pitched beeping/tones (same frequency the entire time) and I believe it was coming from my SSD even when performance meter showed 0% usage. My 500GB hd was off during some of the time I heard these sounds, so it wasn't that. After less than an hour, the beeping goes away completely.

QUESTIONS:
Can software be so harmful?
How bad is hard-resetting or hard-shut down during windows restart or shutdown operation?
Was my hard drive exhibiting symptoms of failure?
 
Solution
A
I was about to throw away my 500GB harddrive, but I connected it to my computer one more time just to make sure it really didn't work. And guess what? It's working. No idea what the problem was before... loose connection? Who knows.
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Szyrs

Szyrs

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Yes. There are viruses and software available that are designed to damage hardware. In the old days people used to make simple viruses just to scrash computers, we used to pass them around at school. One old favourite was one that initialised when you booted into windows. Through a line or two of code, it would load a text file that caused your system to reboot. The victim then had an endless stream of reboots to deal with, without ever actually being able to access their desktop. It pretty much meant formatting the harddrive and doing a clean install. I recently found a program on MajorGeeks that is an .exe designed to nuke all of the connected hard drives when launched. You seem to have downloaded a pirate version of retro software, did you scan it first? Have you scanned the data that you recvuva'd? You might have been stung by a prankster...
 
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argitoth

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MPC is not pirated nor is it retro. It's free and it was updated just a few months ago: http://mpc-hc.org/

here's the portableapp version: http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mpc-hc-portable

I just scanned every file on my computer with Malware bytes. It didn't find anything. I never scanned the files in question though, those files are long gone.
 
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Szyrs

Szyrs

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From the website you just linked:

"Many thanks to everyone who supported development without having access to the source repository.

MPC-HC is based on the original MPC version © 2002-2006 by Gabest (e-mail unknown)."

It certainly looks like they've ripped it off the Windows and tweaked it a bit. Agreed that it's not what I thought you meant though.

I'm a big fan of MalwareBytes but there is plenty of stuff that goes under the radar of even the best software, paid or not.

I'm sorry that I can't help you. I've had issues doing hard resets while windows was working but it's only ever effected my boot into windows. I can't say that it's ever effected a storage drive and I fail to see how it could.

As far as I am aware, no hard drives come with crystals in them, so it seems more likely that your beeping tone was emitted by your motherboard - pure speculation though.

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by this:

"my 500GB drive shows 100% usage, but 0 read/write speed. My disk usage case light remains fully on, no blinking"

What do you mean by 100% usage? you mean it's full? Where are you expecting to see this read/write speed?

Later you say this:

"My disk usage case light remains fully on, no blinking."

What disk usage light? You don't mean your CPU LED indicator, on your system case? Do you in fact mean to say that you are using an external hard drive? Is that where this disk usage light is?

If you are using an external hard drive, I might venture a guess and say that your hard drive caddy has failed. Have you tried the drive in another caddy?

 
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argitoth

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To answer your questions quickly and efficiently:

The one blinky light on my case, that's CPU? Not HD?

100% statistic and read/write speed is from Task Manager --> Performance

500GB Harddrive was clearly spinning at all times at and high speed (could hear audible constant hum from it).

It's internal.

Motherboard making beeping noises is one idea... but the beeping was not like motherboard bios post beep. It was high pitched very irregular (while in Windows), quieter than a post beep, just strange.
 
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Szyrs

Szyrs

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On your PC case? That's cpu, to the best of my knowledge...

The beeps made by computers are electrical currents being passed through Piezoelectric Crystal, they are mono-tonal. As I say, I've not heard of one being installed in any other components, or of one PC containing more than one.

Any kind of sound coming from your HDD that was not there when it was brang new, is an indication of some sort of fatigue. It's not induced by software. More likely a hardware issue.

Task Manager > Performance = CPU + RAM

Task Manager > Performance > Resource Monitor > Disk Tab = Disk Statistics.



 
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Szyrs

Szyrs

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There you go! I try to avoid any lights but I have two in the middle of one motherboard that seem to be there just to keep me awake at night. Glad I won't look like such a n00b next time someone asks hahaha too bad this time!
 
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argitoth

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Nov 11, 2013
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I was about to throw away my 500GB harddrive, but I connected it to my computer one more time just to make sure it really didn't work. And guess what? It's working. No idea what the problem was before... loose connection? Who knows.
 
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