Maxtor: 3rd hard drive crash in 2 months

[Guest]

Hi all

I'm desperate so I really hope somebody here will be able to help me

Short description
My Maxtor and Seagate 500 Gig SATA hard drives keep crashing but never while the computer is in operation, always when I try to boot.

Hardware:
Motherboard: Asus P5E-VM HDMI
Ram: 4 gig Corsair XMS2 800 Mhz
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700
Tower: Antec Veris Fusion 430w

Software:
Windows Vista premium 32 Bit
Office 2007
NOD32 Anti-virus (Latest version I guess)
I don't think anything else would be running unless I activate it.

In the beginning of September my Maxtor Diamondmax 22 500 Gb crashed and I took it to a professional and the drive was spinning but it was not connecting, which usually means dead.
Then I got another Maxtor Diamondmax 22 500 Gb and it died on the 22nd of October and tonight my Seagate 500 Gb died.

I have noticed that at times the hard drive and CPU is working hard, even if Im not working on the computer or at least working at a minimum like watching a music video, running Winamp etc. Which means that the computer is doing something but I don't have a clue to what it would be doing.

Is my Vista killing my hard drives or is something else doing it? Does Seagate/Maxtor have a problem?
I really don't know what to do
I have been building computer both my own and for friends for 12 years now and I have never had a hard drive crash until September 2008.

TIA
Kim

 

[dokk2]

personally i would not take a maxtor if they were giving them away,,but the fact that your system is killing hdd's from two sources suggests that there might be a problem with the mobo,[even tho seagate owns maxtor],,the only suggestion that comes to mind is,,can you try a western digital hdd,maybe an older 80g or such and if ,,,IT,,,fails then you can almost be certain that it is the mobo,specifically the onboard controller...
Can you get either hdd to work without the other,it just occured to me that,,way back when that maxtor hdd's did not play well with other hdd's,,,,,,,,????..