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WD SATAs Receiving bad sectors

Tags:
  • Hard Drives
  • Western Digital
  • Computer
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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October 22, 2010 2:04:09 PM

Hello,

I bought an MDG computer a couple years back, and Ive had constant problems with Hard Drives getting Bad Sectors to the point of un usability. I have actually gone though 5 Hard Drives (on my 6th right now). All western digital SATA 500GB - 750 GB drives. Luckily replaced under warranty each time, but i'm sure the warranties will be up soon if not already.

The computer doesn't get moved around, and I don't have any power outages, so I believe this is is related to another piece of hardware, but i don't know how-to troubleshoot this.

One friend thinks the MOBO is to blame, I have a gut feeling its a PSU voltage issue, but dont have a voltage meter to even confirm this.

This last HD (WD Cavier Black) i put in, I tried something new, formatted a 10 GIG partition with ubuntu to NFTS for my windows 7, and created a separate Partition of about 700GB to FAT32 as storage, media, downloads, work will go here. So far so good, but i im confident it wont stay good for long through previous drive experience with this machine. Every night i run a defrag and a chkdsk with repair bad sectors if found. Nothing yet, but like I said, i don't believe it will stay good. Any input or advice would be appreciated.

More about : satas receiving bad sectors

a c 415 G Storage
October 22, 2010 4:32:20 PM

I would suspect the power supply. The only thing a bad motherboard might do is to make the SATA connection flaky - but that wouldn't cause bad sectors, just I/O errors.
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October 22, 2010 4:45:43 PM

does the Motherboard do any voltage regulating to the HD?
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a c 392 G Storage
October 22, 2010 5:49:30 PM

The hard drive gets all it's power from the PSU. The only connection the mobo has to the hard drive is for data. Flaky voltage to the mobo may cause I/O errors like sminlal said, but it can't cause bad sectors.
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October 22, 2010 8:54:53 PM

Awesome, thanks for the tips, I'll try a different PSU, or maybe buy a new one that has SATA power directly instead of using the attachments / converter cord.
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a c 415 G Storage
October 23, 2010 1:03:11 AM

Jstern said:
does the Motherboard do any voltage regulating to the HD?
No. The motherboard can request various voltages for the CPU or RAM, but the 5V and 12V power supplies used for disk drives are fixed and should not vary.
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