Red light on tower, computer freezing from HDD?

Lumpychan

New Member
Hi all,

I've been having problems with my computer for a while now with it freezing and crashing after only 10 minutes of being on. At first I thought it was the psu due to a squeaking noise that came from it, but I soon learned that after replacing it, my computer still froze after several minutes of being on.

I have noticed, however, that there is a red light on the front of the tower that comes on when I power up the PC. From what I've read it might have to do with the HDD, but I'm not entirely sure. I use a WD blue caviar 1TB HDD and running a quick diagnostic on it gives me this:

Quick Test on drive 1 did not complete!
Status code = 07(Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97(Unknown Test)
SMART self-test did not complete on drive 1!

I also can't run a full diagnostic using the tool (Western Digital Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows) because my computer will freeze and crash before it's finished. What should I do?
 
Thanks for the feedback, looks like the warranty expired on 7/12/2014. Ironically enough I think that's when I started getting these issues. Do you know of any quality 1TB HDDs I could get for under $100 or would it even be worth it?

Edit: I'm looking for drivers to update the HDD with since the last driver update was in 2006, but I can't find anything online. Do you think it'd be related to that?
 
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No, updating drivers won't do anything. The drive is defective and needs to be replaced.

You can find 1TB drives for $65 on Amazon or Newegg. Look at Seagate or Western Digital.
 
I know the seagate was recommended by an earlier post, but I don't recommend it. My first seagate 500GB worked fine, but my second one I purchased about 4 months ago is having issues.
 
I know the seagate was recommended by an earlier post, but I don't recommend it. My first seagate 500GB worked fine, but my second one I purchased about 4 months ago is having issues.

You're aware there are different models of the same size drive, right? Just because you have an issue doesn't mean others won't.
 
All hard drives fail, my dad has had a WD external drive fail, yet ive built five computers with WD blues and have several small external WDs, and they work fine

At this point, just buy either a WD Blue or Black, or a Seagate Barracuda
 
Maybe So...

I would have recommended that he find a HDD that he knows it works. Preferably that already has an OS installed just to narrow down the possibility that there isn't some other issue going on.

My first thought was the processor fan had gone bad, therefore the time for the processor to heat up would have caused the computer to shut down.

Just my 3 cents... :cool:


Replace the HDD, its bad. Pretty sure it has a 2 year warranty so contact Western Digital for an rma. You can also check warranty status here.

http://wdsupport.wdc.com/warranty/warrantycheck.asp?custtype=end

Just enter the serial number of the drive to see when the warranty is up.
 
I would have recommended that he find a HDD that he knows it works. Preferably that already has an OS installed

That wouldn't work. He'd have to reinstall the OS. In any case, he still needs to replace the drive.
 
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