Is my hard drive dying?

grk77536

grk77536

New Member
Hello all, my computer has been exhibiting strange and rather disconcerting symptoms lately. These symptoms only occur occasionally and I will explain how I navigate through them after I explain what happens. While I am in the middle of playing a game, surfing the web, or just listening to music the computer becomes totally unresponsive. I press and hold control+alt+delete to get to the task manager, but an error message pops up saying that the task manager is unavailable and that I can press escape or press the button on my computer to reboot the system. After rebooting the system, the computer gets hung up on the motherboard start up screen. (not sure what this is called exactly...it displays the brand of your motherboard etc.) Then after waiting a few minutes a message is displayed saying that a boot device is not detected and I need to select the proper boot device and restart the computer. I restart the computer and enter the bios menu and my hard drive is no longer listed as the primary boot device or sometimes not listed at all. Occasionally my computer will start up and display the message: "Disc read error." If I open up my computer, disconnect the sata cable and reconnect it, the computer will start up normally...most of the time. I have tried multiple sata cables and ports, but neither of those seems to be the issue. I can use my computer without fault for several months before it exhibits these symptoms again. Does anyone think that my hard drive is faulty? Also, maybe the boot sector is corrupt or the mother board sata hub is intermittently failing? Any response would be very much appreciated, and I would like to thank you all in advance for your patience and help.
 
Definately scan the hard drive for errors using western digitals drive diagnostic program. Create a bootable cd and run the extended test on it. Other than that, it could be excessive vibration or bad sata cable.
 
Thank you for the speedy reply. I ran the quick scan of the drive using my ultimate boot CD, but I'll try the extended scan.
 
Alright, I will try that. Thanks. Also, I have tried 3 or 4 different sata cables thus far and it happened over and over again.
 
It is unlikely that your hard drive itself would be failing unless there was some reason (e.g. being dropped). Another long shot could be that you have a virus. Is that possible?
 
evti said:
It is unlikely that your hard drive itself would be failing unless there was some reason (e.g. being dropped). Another long shot could be that you have a virus. Is that possible?
Click to expand...

It can, but this issue with what he described seems hard drive related, not malware.
 
johnb35 said:
It can, but this issue with what he described seems hard drive related, not malware.
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Just putting it out there :) Better to check first since replacing a hard drive can be expensive (assuming it's not in warranty)
 
i had a seagate do that- i took serial #'s off it and went to seagate website
and they had a new firmware version for it- i installed it and all was fine
maybe that's it??? also i had same symptons as stated above
 
Hey guys, I have been trying to run the DLG diagnostic V5 program for diagnosing Western Digital drives. The program cannot even detect my drive. The funny thing is, after not using my computer for a few days this week, I decided to start up my PC. It ran like nothing ever happened until it became totally unresponsive after 30 minutes of running. It is exhibiting the same symptoms as stated in the above post. Am I using the wrong diagnostic?
 
I have been thinking about buying a new HDD, but I don't want this to turn into a parts changing operation.
 
grk77536 said:
Hey guys, I have been trying to run the DLG diagnostic V5 program for diagnosing Western Digital drives. The program cannot even detect my drive. The funny thing is, after not using my computer for a few days this week, I decided to start up my PC. It ran like nothing ever happened until it became totally unresponsive after 30 minutes of running. It is exhibiting the same symptoms as stated in the above post. Am I using the wrong diagnostic?
Click to expand...

it's version 5.04 from that link I gave you. As long as you created the bootable cd and boots to the test then your doing it right. However, are you running in ahci mode? If so, change the sata controller to IDE/comapatibility to see if the test will detect it then.
 
I am running the extended test now. I got it to recognize the HDD after unplugging the data cable and reconnecting it. I just cannot see how the sata cable could be bad...again. I will try yet another cable if the test comes back clean. God I hope it's not the motherboard. Thanks for your continuing help.
 
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