Help! Seagat 1 TB HDD Died TWICE - Something is killing my HDDs?

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cococabana

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Jul 24, 2012
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So heres the thing, I made a new rig (specs at end) and the HDD crashed after approximately 2 Months (1 -2 Weeks of Power On Time). I didnt think much of it and just RMAd the HDD and got a new one. Now it has crashed AGAIN. So something is killing my HDDs. Question is what?

Mobo: Asrock Z77 Extreme 6
PSU: Xigmatek Tauro 600W (shows 12.12 on the 12v rail but it does have a suspicious coil whine)
HDD: Seagate 1TB (ST1000DM003)
RAM: 8GB G.Skill RipJawX DDR3 (Memtest x86 and Windows Memory Diagnostic Passed)
Soundcard: XtremeMusic (in the new rig, it sometimes started giving a very loud tone which grew louder and louder till it sort of cutt off, then no sound for a second, then everything fine. This never happened on old pc but i just chalked it off to creative's shitty drivers)

The same thing happened BOTH Times:

>At first nothing happened except the occasional hang.
>Then the HDD became unbearably slow (6mbps Max (200mbps normal) on HD Tune). I had also lost a couple of weird data like my Firefox theme and settings. And a settings of a few other programs.
>Problem is ALL SMART Tell Tales were 100% all right. Here they are. The HDD also passed ALL Tests of SEATools EXCEPT Short DST. Which might have been failing because of the fact it was super slow.
>I ran SeaTools' Fix ALL and qued ChkDsk, restarted ChkDsk ran and every thing was perfectly fine.
>After a few days it failed to boot. And then stayed that way.

Now before i RMA the HDD AGAIN, What is killing my HDDs?

P.S. I know i have an old thread when my hdd first showed signs of dying but it has now been abandoned and i need urgent help :(
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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Jan 5, 2014
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Unless you're just really unlucky, I would suspect the PSU. Here's a good reference for replacements to look at:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1804779/power-supply-unit-tier-list.html

Xigmatic has some good PSUs but most of them are mediocre at best. Even small power inconsistencies, if they're constant enough and go long enough will take their toll on your hardware, and HDDs are not that hardy at the best of times.
 
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cococabana

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But xigmatek is listed in the second highest tier lol. Secondly i use a modified sine wave inverter based UPS system. However in my old PC i had a Xigmatek NRP402 psu, which was an absolute beast in terms of reliabliity. It never had coil whine and never gave me headache of any sort. I suspect the PSU too, 1) is the Xigmatek Centauro 700W better? 2) could it be the Mobo? the only thing that concerns me is that the failure pattern was identical in both situations is that even possible if the reason is a faulty PSU?

I got a sealed new unit and i specifically told them to give me one from a new batch. Like volcanoscout said above, unless i am super unlucky, this is almost certainly not the HDD's fault :(
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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The Xigmatiks in the Tier 2 list are MC and HC series. Here's a quote from Pinhedd, one of the moderators here: "Xigmatek PSUs are manufactured by a variety of OEMs, none of them outstanding, but there are some well known ones such as CWT and Sirtec."

I don't have any personal experience with Xigmatiks, but I would stick with one of the better known manufacturers like Corsair, XFX, Seasonic and Antec. I've had a bunch of WD and Seagate HDDs (currently have half a dozen Seagates) and have only had failures on the WDs, which is why I'm phasing them out of my personal inventory.

The only things I can think of that might cause something like you're experiencing is a wonky PSU or maybe a short somewhere in your system. Or as I said earlier, you've just been really unlucky. You could try it one more time - twice could be a coincidence, three times is a pattern.
 
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cococabana

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Warranty is not really an issue, i can RMA easily. I just want to make sure the new drive doesnt befall the same fate BUT read below V.


Well, i pulled the HDD and put it in another PC and ran chkdsk on the windows volume, the prompt fixed some stuff and even said it repaired a bad sector. I put the HDD back in my rig and it seems to be working. I am sure it will stop working sooner or later so i need to figure out whats going on. This probably means that the windows directory is being written wrongly? The obvious answer is RAM but i already tested it with Memtest x86 can it still be faulty?

Can it be my Mobo? or is it assuredly the PSU that is causing this?

Here is the old and present SMART tags, can someone read these and tell me if the HDD has suffered any physical damage or is the windows directory the only thing that suffered soft damage.

KDng2bX.jpg


 
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rhapdog

rhapdog

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I had the same problem a while back. Bought a new hard drive and everything, and the new drive started the same issues.

Turns out, I had a memory problem. It's what in your memory that gets written to disk, and if the memory has a spot that corrupts, then you will get corrupted data written to the disk.

I would recommend you to a clean boot into a Memtest86 setup. Let it run for several complete checks. If no errors, at least you have eliminated that as a source. The types of errors you are having, however, where there seems to be no actual hardware failure, is typical of an issue with bad RAM.
 
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cococabana

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I have started elimination method on my ram sticks. Will post here if all goes well, or if it doesnt :/ idont know how long it will take to degenerate again.
 
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cococabana

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Haha, yeah. It must have :p We have a very few PSUs available where i live (pakistan) and most of them are quite bad. In the past I have had a choice of Corsais GS, Cooler Master Xtreme, Thermal take value ones and Antec Earthwatt. You can imagine why i go for Xigmatek every time :p My NRP 402 was an absolute beast lets see how good the Tauro 600w is.
 
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