Hard drives keeps crashing.

[lucky10382]

Is there anything other than the hard drive itself that would cause hard drive failures or crashes. I have had 3 hard drives on my computer and my computer is less than 3 years old. The first drive was 1.5 years old and had registry error issues and it kept running checkdisk but found no errors. I reformatted, but then got more registry errors shortly after, so I decided to buy a new drive. This drive lasted about 2 months and then it was extremely slow one day and locked up so I reset it. It wouldn't boot back up, so I tried to reformat it during the reload and it wouldn;t recognize the drive, so I used a 3rd drive. This one worked for a while and did the same thing. For whatever reason both of them aren't recognized when I try to reload, but if I disconnect them from the computer for a while and plug them back in they are recognized and I can reload it again with vista. I have tried reloading again, but with both drives they last a couple of months and then do the same thing where they lock up and when I do a hard shut down the drive won't boot windows and have to format and load again. Rather than continuing down this cycle of buying more hard drives is there something other than the hard drives that could be causing this?

 

[lucky10382]

All parts are about 2 years old.

#

* 1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
* 1 x GeIL Value Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GX24GB6400DCKA - Retail
* 1 x Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM
* 1 x ZEROtherm BTF90 92mm Silent UFO CPU Cooler - Retail
* 1 x ATRIX CSCI-C8040-C43 Black/Silver SECC steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 480W Power Supply - Retail
* 1 x BIOSTAR A770 A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
* 1 x AMD Phenom 9500 Agena 2.2GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor Model HD9500WCGDBOX - Retail

 

[lucky10382]

A radeon 5500 comes to mind, but I'd have to double check. The power supply was a generic.
That sounds like a good option to try. I likely won't know for a while if it works, so thanks in advance for the suggestion.

 

[Stinks]

Hi, I've been having a similar issue.

I had two raptor 10k harrdrives, 75gb, in raid 0. After a year and a half, or so, one went out. I formatted and reinstalled windows on the other and got a replacement drive (which I never installed). After another year, the other went out. I called WD and they upgraded my bad drive to a velociraptor and sent me a replacement. When it came in, I reinstalled windows with the velociraptor and the original refurbished drive (the one I had never installed). 3 months later (last night), the raptor went out....I also have a WD My Book that is a couple years old that also crapped itself recently (clicks a few times when I power it on and windows doesn't recognize it)...which really sucks cause it has all our home videos and pictures on it. Data recovery estimate is $700-2500 (awfully broad estimate).

Was wondering if you'd have the same advice for me? If so, which voltages should I be monitoring?

Would bad power cables do it? I was blaming the raptors at first, but 3 going out AND an external drive? Maybe its all just bad coincidence.

OS : Windows Vista 32bit
PSU : Thermaltake toughpower W0117RU 750W
Mobo : EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i
GPU : EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800 GTX
CPU : Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
RAM : 2GB Corsair
Drives : 2x Sony Optiarc 18X DVD±R DVD Burner
CURRENT Harrdrives : 150GB Velociraptor, 1TB WD Caviar (Black, I think)
Misc :
ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

 

[Kate3064]

I have the same if not worse issue...

I'm not a techy and don't know all the details of my custom built system but here is some of it.

Windows Vista 64
4 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda HD's 2 of them are mirrored
12GB RAM (yes 12GB!)
CPU Intel i7
Not sure what the graphics card is but I was told it is the top of the line. I'm a photographer and use CS4, Lightroom and other graphic programs.

Two of the HD's failed within about a 4 month window of each other. Replaced each one as they failed with new Seagate (same model) drives. A third HD failed a few weeks later.

Decided to change entire system to Win7 64bit and upgrade to 4 x WD 1TB caviar black drives. I am currently running two WD drives with the old Vista system and two WD drives with Win7 and am in the process of getting everything off Vista drives and on to Win7. I got all my programs and data copied on to the Win7 system two weeks ago but had not yet converted the two WD Vista HD's over to Win7. Two days ago one of the Win7 WD drives failed!!!!!

Heat is not a problem, I have two internal fans and a program that monitors temp. I have been told it "must be" a power issue so had an electrician in to check everything, and no problems. Our home office has 4 PC's, 5 monitors, a laptop and two printers all on a dedicated circuit. My PC is the only one having repeated HD failures. I'm wondering if it's ME! I get zapped (static shock) all the time. Could I be shorting something in my computer???

BTW, this PC is less than 1yr old. I upgraded to this "mega system" because my last couple of computers had the same problems. We thought all the graphic work I do was killing them. My brother in-law builds our computers...he is not some "basement geek" (no offense) this is his profession, he builds entire network systems for huge corporations and he is brilliant at this stuff...but this has him totally baffled.

 

[Jim 4266]

I have 2 seagate Hdd's crash within months of being fitted and now strongley suspect the plugs on the power leads.
My theory is that they just dont maintain a sutable conection with the controler card on the drive.
I have an older sata drive (60 GB) that has the old IDE type powre conector and have had not one problem from it in 4 years.
Going to go a bit crazy with a conector and crush it a little with a pair of pliers to try and get a tigher grip on the card as Im just about ready to take to the entire system with a hammer I figure I got nothin to lose And I just mite sort out an extreemly anoying problem

 

[Patrista]

I've had the same thing happen with mine. Installed the 3rd WD hard sata hard drive and I've been using the third one with no issues or about a month until today when I turned on the dual monitor to connect into the TV with a cable hooked into my second connection on the video card going into the HD connector on TV. It leads me to believe there is something happening with the connection here so am turning off the dual monitor and not using it again to see if that helps. Kudos to WD, I sent each HD in and they replaced them without any issues. Is there some kind of video card problem that would cause this?