Crash After High Work Load to "Drive 0 Not Found" Message

[aldenoneil]

After multiple clean reinstalls of Windows 7 (over XP), here's what happens:

During high workload (like transferring files in bulk between hard drives, or having multiple programs open) or after leaving the PC on unattended for an hour or so, Windows 7 crashes to black with the message "Drive 0 not found: Serial ATA, SATA - 0." That's the drive my OS is on. It boots fine otherwise, it's just when it crashes that I receive this message. Hitting F1 to continue brings up the message, "NTLDR is missing."

Perhaps related, perhaps not, I'm getting a report of "System Maintenance" in my Action Center most times I start up Windows, and the result of performing maintenance is always "Disk Volume Errors" are found. I've seen on other forums that this particular issue is happening to others.

I have a Dell:
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz
2 GB RAM
32-bit Windows

Please let me know what other information would be helpful - I've been struggling with this one for days now.

Thanks for any help you can offer,

Barry

 

[Zoron]

Your hard drive is failing... either completely or possibly after it reaches a certain temperature. It's also possible that the controller on the board is overheating and failing... but if you have multiple drives on that one controller and you're only having issues with one of them, that definately points to a drive failure.

Feel the hard drive after it fails. It will definately be warm, but it shouldn't be so hot that you can't touch it. Check for dust or other contaminants... especially on the motherboard.

It's clear that something is failing after reaching a certain temperature... I'm just not sure if it's your drive or your controller.

 

[aldenoneil]

Thanks - I'll check it out. I hadn't even considered it being an overheating issue.

I also updated my chipset driver, and my system hasn't frozen since, but I'm terrified to claim the problem's fixed.

I appreciate very much the input.

 

[aldenoneil]

It can't have been this simple, but I think it was: I turned off "hard drive sleep" in the power settings. Western Digital's support page (buried deep) suggested this, and it worked. This was only the last of many problems I had with the install, but I think I'm cured.