Dying Hard Drive Causing Graphics Card Problems?

[LordErrant]

My graphics card suffers from an error where the screen goes dark and "Graphics driver stopped responding and has recovered", usually when playing games. I originally thought it was the card, an AMD R9 270X, then I thought maybe it's the PSU because it's old but now I think it might actually be the hard drive.

The hard drive is over 5 years old and when given a SMART test it turns up with a bunch of errors which range from mildly worrying to "get a new hard drive". Speedfan rates it's fitness at 0%. Also I've had a few inconsistent start up blue screens and a few blue screens seemingly at random which mention amd_sata.sys. Also I switched out my new card with an old card and after about 40 minutes of playing some Dota 2 everything but the HUD went black and then the game crashed out, hence why I've since discounted the new card.

Is it possible that an unhealthy hard drive could be causing these graphics driver crashes and blue screens?

UPDATE: Memtest86 reports no errors on both sticks of RAM.

Specs:

AMD FX8320
Asustek AMD R9 270X 2GB / PNY Nvidia GTX260 1GB
8.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 RAM @ 803MHz (11-11-11-28)
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 990XA-UD3 (CPU 1)
698GB SAMSUNG HD753LJ SATA Disk Device (SATA) <- this is the disk at 0% fitness, contains drivers and Windows folders
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-1CH164 SATA Disk Device (SATA) <- this disk is almost as new and where my games are stored

 

[cin19]

1) What is your MB and the PSU?
2) It could be HDD, RAM, GPU, MB.
So
3) You can test the HDD with Seatools. http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/
4) Test the RAM with Memtest86+ http://www.memtest.org/

 

[LordErrant]

1) What is your MB and the PSU?
2) It could be HDD, RAM, GPU, MB.
So
3) You can test the HDD with Seatools. http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/
4) Test the RAM with Memtest86+ http://www.memtest.org/

My MB is the Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 and my PSU is a Corsair GS600W.

I've run two SMART tests on my HDD and they both come up as "Oh god abandon ship". I tried Seatools but it got halfway through loading and then my PC stopped accepting any and all commands and the program crashed and I had to restart to fix it.

Before I bought my new PC parts and put it together I was getting messages like "Windows suggests you back up because your hard drive is about to join the great beyond". Everything in the machine is brand new except my PSU and HDD.

I'll try Memtest86.

 

[cin19]

If the seatools does not pass the test, then the problem is from HDD, then the black screen error cause by the HDD, I call it chain reaction, HDD-GPU-whole PC shut down.

 

[LordErrant]

If the seatools does not pass the test, then the problem is from HDD, then the black screen error cause by the HDD, I call it chain reaction, HDD-GPU-whole PC shut down.

SeaTools actually installed this time. I've run all the tests and my suspect hard drive fails on the "short drive self test" setting. Does that mean anything in the great scheme of things?

 

[cin19]

When the PC got the black screen and that error, you need conside all the components, some cases are from RAM, some case are from HDD, PSU or MB. So you need test individual component to find out which one is bad. For your PC it most likely is the HDD, so try to disconnect the 2TB to see your PC will go black screen or not, then if you have other HDD then try to put on the OS to see what happens.

 

[LordErrant]

When the PC got the black screen and that error, you need conside all the components, some cases are from RAM, some case are from HDD, PSU or MB. So you need test individual component to find out which one is bad. For your PC it most likely is the HDD, so try to disconnect the 2TB to see your PC will go black screen or not, then if you have other HDD then try to put on the OS to see what happens.

I tried all the test methods I could find for my HDD. It fails the long generic SeaGate test, it fails the self test and Speedfan and HDSentinel both report that it's at incredibly low health. I'm getting more and more sure that my primary drive is the problem here.

 

[cin19]

Buy the new HDD before the old one is gone and otherwise you will lose all the data/files.