Question Brand new hard drive starts failing after a few hours of normal operation

plshelpimdumb

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Jul 11, 2019
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About a week ago, I experienced a sudden computer crash while streaming some TV. Upon attempting to boot up my computer again, it got stuck at the "preparing automatic repair/diagnosing PC" screen for Windows 10. I tried booting up the computer a few more times but I couldn't get past the repair-preparation screen.

My first assumption was that my PSU had failed because it was very cheap and well past its warranty, so I bought a new one and installed it. Strangely, the computer still refused to boot up, but it managed to get past the "diagnosing PC" screen and actually attempted to repair my hard drive. After a while, it displayed a blue screen that said there was an I/O error, which, when I looked it up online, suggested the hard drive was either dead or dying.

I decided to purchase a new SSD (to install Windows on), a new Hard Drive, and new SATA cables to back up some of my old data. Windows managed to install correctly with both new drives and the old hard drive connected to the motherboard. Everything seemed to be going okay, so I got to work backing up some files onto my new hard drive. The old hard drive was very slow and some of the data couldn't be read/copied, but I was able to get most of the files I needed.

At this point, everything appeared to be running smoothly, so when Windows prompted me that it needed to update I let it do its thing. The update installed reasonably quickly and Windows started without any problems. I decided to take a break from working on the computer and came back to it a couple hours later. Unfortunately, this is where the computer started giving me some new headaches:

Upon trying to access the new hard drive (not the old one), the computer stalled for about a minute before giving me a popup stating there was an I/O error. I tried restarting the computer, but when it failed to shut down I had to turn it off manually. When I turned it back on, it showed me the motherboard splash screen and did not progress past it.

I shut it down and turned it on again, this time holding F12 to access the boot menu. I chose to boot from the SSD and got treated to the familiar "attempting to repair hard drive" screen, although it didn't specify which hard drive it was trying to repair. After a 40 minute wait, Windows managed to start successfully.

I proceeded to back up all of the remaining files I needed. The computer continued to function normally for a few hours until yet again, the new hard drive produced an I/O error, rendering it inaccessible. This was yesterday.

Today, I removed the old hard drive from my computer as I suspected it was somehow causing problems for the new hard drive, though I'm not sure how that would be possible. I turned on the computer and it started repairing the new hard drive (it explicitly said E:\ this time) for about 10 minutes. Windows then booted normally, albeit slowly.

Upon opening up file explorer, my entire computer froze for several minutes. Once it finished, I navigated to "This PC" and saw that the new hard drive was listed but had no name or space remaining shown. Trying to open it froze file explorer for a few minutes before it told me that it couldn't be read and that I would have to format it to use it.

I shut down the computer and pulled out the new hard drive. When I turned it back on - just the SSD this time - it booted up perfectly; everything was very fast and responsive, file explorer didn't freeze, and I've had no I/O errors.

Here's what I'm wondering:

• Is it safe to assume the new hard drive is faulty?

• Could another computer part be causing both the old hard drive and the new one to fail?

• Is there anything else I might be missing?

Thanks in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

sonofjesse

Distinguished
Pretty long post. (might have better responses if you condense it).

A bad drive will make windows do funny things, did you run check disk? Did you run spin rite? Did you run crystal disk or SMART tools to see the bad sector counts?

Did you try a different SATA port, not impossible, but more rear you could have a bad SATA port on the MB.

Once you confirm the hard drive is the issue, I would RMA the item for warranty.

Hard drives have moving parts and its not uncommon for them to experience issues.

P.S
when posting like this its best to list your full system specs, models, makes etc. The more specs the better. Like for example did you buy a new old HD, that were a rash of bad ones? etc

Good luck!
 
Before you conclude faulty hdd, I'd recommend you do the following:
  • Test the same HDD in another computer for a while and see it it behaves the same.
  • Also, do check the S.M.A.R.T values too - if you want, you can upload it here and hopefully somebody can confirm that the hdd report a defect about itself.
 

plshelpimdumb

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Jul 11, 2019
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Make and model of said PSU? Also, full system specs?
when posting like this its best to list your full system specs, models, makes etc. The more specs the better. Like for example did you buy a new old HD, that were a rash of bad ones? etc
The PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 550 Ga, 80 Plus Gold 550W (purchased brand new)
The new HDD: Toshiba N300 8TB NAS 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive HDWG180XZSTA (purchased brand new)
The new SSD: SAMSUNG 870 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-77E1T0B/AM) (also purchased brand new)
CPU: Intel Core i5-3450
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL

For the past few days the computer's been working perfectly with just the SSD plugged in. This morning I plugged the new HDD in so I could run some of the suggested tests, but Windows, CrystalDiskInfo, and GSmartControl didn't detect the drive. After rebooting a few times Windows finally detected it so I tried running CrystalDiskInfo, which was unable to detect the drive. GSmartControl was, however, able to detect it, and this is what it gave me on the Error Log page: https://pastebin.com/WrhZtYbQ
 
The drive is going bad. It has already replaced 352 bad sectors with spares, and there is one more sector whose replacement is pending.

The SMART log is full of read errors.

If your data are important. I would clone your drive with HDDSuperclone or ddrescue. Both tools understand how to deal with bad sectors or bad heads. HDDSuperclone is arguably better at dealing with bad heads, and it tries to skip over them until the last pass.
 
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plshelpimdumb

Prominent
Jul 11, 2019
11
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520
Have you tried different sata cables?
Yes

The drive is going bad. It has already replaced 352 bad sectors with spares, and there is one more sector whose replacement is pending.

The SMART log is full of read errors.

If your data are important. I would clone your drive with HDDSuperclone or ddrescue. Both tools understand how to deal with bad sectors or bad heads. HDDSuperclone is arguably better at dealing with bad heads, and it tries to skip over them until the last pass.
Okay thank you, I will check those out and RMA the drive.