Had 3 drives die in a week - possible cause?

[Robert P]

I've run into a rash of 3 h/d deaths within a week - developing a "whirrrr-click" no-respond issue which I've previously only encountered with drives that had some years on them.

The first was A.) an under year old WD 320 gig IDE/PATA system drive, B.) a month old 2TB Seagate SATA that was being used as a storage drive, and C.) the days-old WD 320 gig SATA drive I got to replace the WD drive A above as a system drive.

I copied a few months old Macrium image of the first drive A. above to drive C. Before making the images, I always scan with Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware, clear out the temp files cache and defrag.

A day or so after making the clone of the drive I ran a scan and found a virus, don't recall what it was. Don't know if it was included with the drive image or was newly acquired.

Wondering if the cause of the rash of drive deaths could be a virus they all came in contact with, some issue with my rig - voltage spikes? - or just a run of bad luck?

Running a Core2 Quad Q9550, XP Pro SP3, mobo is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Rev. 2 which has been problem free.

PSU is a PC Power & Cooling 470 Silencer that doesn't have that much mileage on it that I swapped from another machine about 6 months ago.

GPU is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 460

Any thoughts, suggestions?

I'm using my game drive on the same chassis as per above to write this. So far this one hasn't had any problem. I'm going to format a new WD 320 gig drive and reinstall the O/S, and see what happens.

Thanks.

 

[Cromewell]

Did try to move the case or otherwise bump it while the drives were running?

What do the drives do now if you plug them in and try to power on? Do they spin up at all?

If I had to guess I'd say power problems but you should see that in a lot of other places. It's not likely a virus.

 

[Okedokey]

PSU is my call

 

[Robert P]

Did try to move the case or otherwise bump it while the drives were running?

What do the drives do now if you plug them in and try to power on? Do they spin up at all?

Two of them are returned now - they and the one I still have would power up but won't/wouldn't do anything but whirrr-click.

 

[Robert P]

PSU is my call

Hmm...it's a PC Power & Cooling unit. I realize no device can be considered bulletproof but my understanding is they have very high quality standards. And it doesn't have that much mileage on it. Another drive I have that I use strictly for gaming that gets used hard hasn't experienced the same issue at least so far.

How would you go about testing a PSU to see if there's an issue?

 

[Life]

Did you make sure that your hard drive would be compatable with your parts before buying it?

 

[Robert P]

Did you make sure that your hard drive would be compatable with your parts before buying it?

??

Like for example? The mobo is made to accomodate SATA and IDE drives. The PSU has SATA and Molex power connections meant to plug into off the shelf drives etc., has more than enough wattage. What else would one do to verify compatibility?

 

[Life]

??

Like for example? The mobo is made to accomodate SATA and IDE drives. The PSU has SATA and Molex power connections meant to plug into off the shelf drives etc., has more than enough wattage. What else would one do to verify compatibility?

Oh, I forgot to ask, did you build, or buy the computer? And let me try to explain my previous post, when building a computer, you need to make sure everything you buy will work together. So say you bought a ecs elite group micro atx mother board, and then bought the newest graphics card, the most likly thing to happen is that the card won't work. It won't work, because it exceeds the compatibility requirements for that mobo. same with my hard drive that I have, If I with my old motherboard, hooked up my new hard drive, it wouldn't work. So if you have a new mobo, and old hard drive, or vice versa, then more that lily, they are not compatible. The only way to truly get to the bottom of this, is to give me or someone here, all you information on you motherboard, and hard drive.

Does this at all make sense?

 

[Aastii]

??

Like for example? The mobo is made to accomodate SATA and IDE drives. The PSU has SATA and Molex power connections meant to plug into off the shelf drives etc., has more than enough wattage. What else would one do to verify compatibility?

Oh, I forgot to ask, did you build, or buy the computer? And let me try to explain my previous post, when building a computer, you need to make sure everything you buy will work together. So say you bought a ecs elite group micro atx mother board, and then bought the newest graphics card, the most likly thing to happen is that the card won't work. It won't work, because it exceeds the compatibility requirements for that mobo. same with my hard drive that I have, If I with my old motherboard, hooked up my new hard drive, it wouldn't work. So if you have a new mobo, and old hard drive, or vice versa, then more that lily, they are not compatible. The only way to truly get to the bottom of this, is to give me or someone here, all you information on you motherboard, and hard drive.

Does this at all make sense?

It does not make sense, because it is wrong.

Yes, you need to make sure parts are compatible, DDR2 memory won't work in a DDR3 board for instance, but the manufacturer of a component doesn't affect the compatibility.

A motherboard is no more or less compatible with components that another just because one is made by Asus and the other by MSI.

All you need for compatibility of a hard drive is the correct power connector and data connector (Answers first quote). If your board has only SATA connectors and no PATA and you decide to go and buy yourself an IDE hard drive, it won't work.

The simple fact that OP's drives were working in the first place answer your question of compatibility.

@OP, you have listed the possibilities. You can guess at luck, but unless the manufacturer's tell you what the fault was when the drives are returned, you aren't going to find out what the cause was without investigating. If you have fully clean drives and it happens, you know it isn't a virus. If it happens with the new drives again, a failure rate of 4 from 6 or even higher if the others die too is extremely high, even if it is only a small sample. At that point I would consider the PSU the issue. That does not rule out just really bad luck though. It is one of those things without a straight forward answer

 

[Life]

It does not make sense, because it is wrong.

Yes, you need to make sure parts are compatible, DDR2 memory won't work in a DDR3 board for instance, but the manufacturer of a component doesn't affect the compatibility.

A motherboard is no more or less compatible with components that another just because one is made by Asus and the other by MSI.

All you need for compatibility of a hard drive is the correct power connector and data connector (Answers first quote). If your board has only SATA connectors and no PATA and you decide to go and buy yourself an IDE hard drive, it won't work.

The simple fact that OP's drives were working in the first place answer your question of compatibility.

@OP, you have listed the possibilities. You can guess at luck, but unless the manufacturer's tell you what the fault was when the drives are returned, you aren't going to find out what the cause was without investigating. If you have fully clean drives and it happens, you know it isn't a virus. If it happens with the new drives again, a failure rate of 4 from 6 or even higher if the others die too is extremely high, even if it is only a small sample. At that point I would consider the PSU the issue. That does not rule out just really bad luck though. It is one of those things without a straight forward answer

That is not what I mean, I know that brands don't matter, I have 5 different branded parts in my computer. It was an example of models, and requirements. My ecs elite group mobo, would not take a brand new, just reliced hard drive. And you are right tho, it could be a virus, and it might only need a fresh install. btw, good talking again

 

[Cromewell]

Hmm...it's a PC Power & Cooling unit. I realize no device can be considered bulletproof but my understanding is they have very high quality standards. And it doesn't have that much mileage on it. Another drive I have that I use strictly for gaming that gets used hard hasn't experienced the same issue at least so far.

How would you go about testing a PSU to see if there's an issue?

No matter how good a supply is it can still fail. You can test it with a multimeter by connecting it to the various lines. Like I said, I'm guessing power as it seems the most likely, I would expect other problems though.

Oh, I forgot to ask, did you build, or buy the computer? And let me try to explain my previous post, when building a computer, you need to make sure everything you buy will work together. So say you bought a ecs elite group micro atx mother board, and then bought the newest graphics card, the most likly thing to happen is that the card won't work. It won't work, because it exceeds the compatibility requirements for that mobo. same with my hard drive that I have, If I with my old motherboard, hooked up my new hard drive, it wouldn't work. So if you have a new mobo, and old hard drive, or vice versa, then more that lily, they are not compatible. The only way to truly get to the bottom of this, is to give me or someone here, all you information on you motherboard, and hard drive.

Does this at all make sense?

Not really... If the board supports the bus spec (i.e. PCI Express) then the card will work. It will probably draw more than the bus can provide but that's why there are external power connecters on them.

 

[Aastii]

That is not what I mean, I know that brands don't matter, I have 5 different branded parts in my computer. It was an example of models, and requirements. My ecs elite group mobo, would not take a brand new, just reliced hard drive. And you are right tho, it could be a virus, and it might only need a fresh install. btw, good talking again

That is your board lacking a certain feature, not ECS in general not supporting certain devices.

It is like taking an old Gigabyte board with only PCI and AGP slots and saying oh darn, my new PCIe graphics card won't fit in this, best to not get Gigabyte boards because they don't work with the latest graphics cards!!

You see how ridiculous that sounds? That is what your ECS not supporting certain features sounds like. You are confusing certain models with an entire brand

 

[Life]

That is your board lacking a certain feature, not ECS in general not supporting certain devices.

It is like taking an old Gigabyte board with only PCI and AGP slots and saying oh darn, my new PCIe graphics card won't fit in this, best to not get Gigabyte boards because they don't work with the latest graphics cards!!

You see how ridiculous that sounds? That is what your ECS not supporting certain features sounds like. You are confusing certain models with an entire brand

That is still not what I mean't. Just because I stated the brand, doesn't mean I that I mean it has anything to do with it, it just means that I am stating what brand I have. And I worded it wrong. And why are you hammering me anyways?
I'm just trying to help, and instead of you doing the same, you hammer me on my suggestion.
correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't think you are approching this correctly.

 

[Okedokey]

Life, what you're saying is basically wrong. PCIe cards are almost always backwards compatible, and where you have interfaces such as HDD they're too. Nothing so far you have said is actually correct.

 

[Life]

Life, what you're saying is basically wrong. PCIe cards are almost always backwards compatible, and where you have interfaces such as HDD they're too. Nothing so far you have said is actually correct.

well, I have has that problem with my hard drive before, so that is why I was saying that, but thanks for saying it nicely, and not hammering me YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG style.

 

[Aastii]

That is still not what I mean't. Just because I stated the brand, doesn't mean I that I mean it has anything to do with it, it just means that I am stating what brand I have. And I worded it wrong. And why are you hammering me anyways?
I'm just trying to help, and instead of you doing the same, you hammer me on my suggestion.
correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't think you are approching this correctly.

say you bought a ecs elite group micro atx mother board, and then bought the newest graphics card, the most likly thing to happen is that the card won't work. It won't work, because it exceeds the compatibility requirements for that mobo

If you have ECS board, it will likely not work with the latest graphics card. What else can be ascertained from that?

I am not hammering you, I am just pointing out that what you said isn't right, which is in the ineterest of OP, who questioned what you said, and anyone else that may see this post and potentially learn from it, so preventing the spread of misinformation

well, I have has that problem with my hard drive before, so that is why I was saying that, but thanks for saying it nicely, and not hammering me YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG style.

Can I make a quick suggestion that you re-read my two replies. When you find a part that sees me pointing out your flaws, rather than the flaws in something you said, we can chat further about this and I'll throw an apology your way.

 

[Okedokey]

To the OP, you could also try ensuring you hvae the latest SATA drivers and MOBO bios.