two hard drive failures in a month

[Mike]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.

--
mike

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Mike wrote:

> Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
> with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
> now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
> Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.

At that age might have been bad luck, but I'd look for a problem with the
power supply or cooling. Note that the voltages may be right on and then
all of a sudden for no apparent reason one may drop for a little while and
then come back up. I've seen that happen with several power
supplies--turned out there was nothing wrong with the disks--I've got one
right here that's working three years after I replaced the power supply in
that particular machine.
>
> --
> mike

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[cjt]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Mike wrote:

> Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
> with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
> now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
> Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.
>
> --
> mike

There's really no way to know. If something killed them, it was
probably:

heat (poor circulation, perhaps due to a failed fan or dust clogging?)
voltage (power supply off-spec or transients due to e.g. lightning?)

The summer months, especially in the south (assuming you're in the
U.S.), are hard on electrical equipment because of the heat and the
power problems due to A/C loads and thunderstorms.

Static electricity can be an issue, too, but not normally for an
installed drive.

Mechanical shock sufficient to damage a drive you would probably know
about.

The bottom line is check the fans, blow out the dust, and perhaps
check out or (since they're so cheap) replace the power supply.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Mike" <michael.owen@hushmail.com> wrote in message
news:567f0a34.0407030151.7b71ee2e@posting.google.com...
> Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
> with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
> now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
> Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.


Make sure the drives are well cooled.