Hard disks or controller failing?

[SamP]

Hi there,

I have a WD 74 GB Raptor SATA drive (2.5 years old) and a newer Maxtor 300 GB SATA drive (4-5 months old). They were both connected to the Intel ICH5 controller on my P4P800-E Deluxe MB (2.5 years old).

A couple of months ago I started to get "disk controller" failures when trying to copy large amounts of data on my (secondary) Maxtor drive. I tried swapping the SATA cable, but the errors persisted.

A short while later (a week or two), my main drive (the WD) started to get similar errors and freezed a couple of times. I assumed then that it might be the ICH5 controller that was failing, so I reconnected both drives to the secondary Promise controller on my MB.

That seemed to fix it for a while (a couple of weeks), but then I started getting "error detected during a paging operation" type errors a couple of days ago on my main (WD) drive and the system froze once.

I find it hard to believe that both drives would start getting errors at nearly the same time, or that both of my controllers started getting errors at the same time.

Does anyone have any theories, or suggested trouble-shooting steps? I've looked for any helpful diagnostic tools but couldn't find anything for the MB and the drive diagnostics wipe your drive. It's also hard to trouble-shoot because the errors are intermitten. It might be a day or a week between errors.

The only thing I can think of is that around the time that the drives started failing it was rather hot in our apartment and perhaps the drives (or MB) were damaged from insufficient cooling. We've moved since then and don't have the same cooling issues, but perhaps the damage was done then?

 

[aldinh]

I alredy have the same problem with SATA 2 discs.I do a ghost from last disk,and i think that was everything ok.But i try to copy some files from new discs to another,and machine freezes.I try to format new drive and format freeze on 35%.New disc is wd2500 js sata 2.I test sata 1 hdd-s wd800jb and maxtor 6y120mo and i have no errors on them.I try to format new SATA 2 disc on another mashine with sata 2 controler and format pass with no problems.

I think that is incompatibility between sata 2 and sata 1 controler on motherboard or version in intel raid rom (on wd site it writes that wd2500js is tested with ASUS P4C800 which have on latest bios upgrade version Intel raid rom 3.5.4 ,but our motherboard ASUS P4P800 have 3.5.3.0003 version of intel rom).

I alredy had a new post on this site and i waiting ansver what is wrong.

Sorry on my english

 

[martyjs]

The best tools to use are the ones provided by the hard drive makers. Not only are they accurate but the suppliers always except there outcome. Best way Iv'e found to test drives is to test one at a time plug in by them selfs. Sometimes one faulty drive can cause the other one to act screwy.
:?
Also if it's a SATA I conflicting with SATA II either put them on seperate buses or set the SATA II to SATA I via the jumpers.
8)
Good Luck