Multiple HDD failure (help please)

[limpangel]

Over the past few weeks there have been major hard disk failures at my workplace. we have about 15 PCs (Dell, MicronPC, other).
First almost all the Maxtor hard drives failed (most of them could not be detected by bios, others stop at windows boot, others just freeze during using and after restart they don't start at all). ok, so i figured they all reached their maximum lifespan (and i personally am not a big fan of Maxtor). But after that all hell broke loose. within a week 3 IBM Deskstar hdd, 2 Western Digital Caviar and 2 Seagate Baracuda (all shared similar problems), so i guessed is not a problem from the manufacturer.
All hdd were from 1 to 4 years old, purchased from different places at different times.
Now i have a brand new Maxtor hdd that failes the bios detection after only 2 weeks. Another 120GB Seagate that has performance problems, also 2 weeks old.
Fortunately I figured that after the hdd failes i can still access it from a computer as a secondary drive, but just once or twice. after i recover all the data, if i restart, it fails and no access is posible from this point on.
I used diagnostic tools and in 90% of the cases the surface scan came clean, so my guess is that the problem is mechanical (but still how could hdd from 4 different manufacturers, with different sizes and on different PC config. crash almost at the same time???).

I'm desperate, this can't all be coincidences.
any ideas, suggestions, anything please.

 

[jonisginger]

Astonishing

Hmmmm

Well the only thing that connects these PCs are

-network :?:
-the power supply (i.e. they are all in the same building)

So, power surges etc can nacker hard drives. Any unusual weather or anything lately?

 

[airblazer]

yep..definitely something very odd about this..could have been a power surge recently or something similiar..no way will 15 hard drivers just go especially seeing as they vary from 1-4 years old.
Any patches etc rolled out just before as well?

 

[glupee]

Ghosts!
it's the only reasonable explanation :lol:
but that is a weird issue u have on your hands. Other than what JonIsGinger suggested, about power surges, Ghosts is the only viable option in my books :twisted:

 

[weilin]

that is definately unusual. I would get a multimeter and test the voltage on the wall first (~115-120v) If that checks out, plug a pc in and then test again (load voltage may be different). If that's not the problem i'd then take a voltmeter to the power supplies. I know OEM PSUs blow lol, but they shouldn't suck that bad and especially not all at once.

 

[TeraMedia]

Any chance a new cleaning person is a little too overzealous with their dusting, perhaps spraying a solvent onto (and into) the computers? Is there painting or construction going on anywhere in the building that might result in airborne particles?