Why do my hard drives keep crashing?

[russianheman]

I built a computer system some time ago. It worked great for a few months, then my hard drive failed. I couldn't even recover data off of it with a USB adapter. So I sent it back. The new drive checked out fine in BIOS. After booting Windows installation, the HDD was no longer detected. I rebooted and the HDD had vanished from BIOS too. So I replaced the motherboard and the hard drive. The same scenario repeated with the new components. I tried a different brand HDD, but the result was the same. Cables and SATA ports are tested and good. HELP ME!!!

ASRock A780LM motherboard
Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD 160 Gb
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400
Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit

 

[bazza]

either your extremely unlucky or the PSU is at fault

 

[ctmk]

My suspect:

PSU (bad/unstable power supply can burn harddisk chip easilly)

SATA Cable (bad cable may cause raw data error)

Environment ( read http://www.dfrsolutions.com/uploads/publications/2007_08_creep_corrosion_on_lead-free_pcb_in_high_sulfur_environments.pdf )

The model of the hard disk itself. (160Gb seems quite old)

 

[allanonmage]

how about case temps? other environmental factors like smoke, airflow (or lack thereof) can kill things too. Static discharge? I've seen kids rub their feet on the carpet and poke somethign metal on the case to make a PC reboot.