Hard drive crash again-why?

[steve]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I bought my computer 6 months ago and almost immediately had problems, I
posted at the time that something was wrong. The majority informed me it was
the hard drive. I was getting boot disk errors about 2 out 3 boot ups. It
was also suggested that the power supply could be at fault.
The shop changed the hard drive and it has worked fine for the past three
months.
Now the hard drive has gone again. I get a sound like a ping pong ball
dropping when I turn on and a boot disk error message.
The shop are going to put a new HD in again. Thats fine but they don't
accept anything else is at fault just been unlucky with two HD's.
Have I been unlucky or could something make the hard drive go faulty?

Many thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

What brand of harddrive have they been installing. If you've had two fail
in 6 months, I'd go out on a limb and guess that it's a Maxtor. They have
an unusually high failure rate.

--
DaveW



"steve" <lartonnoreply@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:40bdfb41$0$17759$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
> I bought my computer 6 months ago and almost immediately had problems, I
> posted at the time that something was wrong. The majority informed me it
was
> the hard drive. I was getting boot disk errors about 2 out 3 boot ups. It
> was also suggested that the power supply could be at fault.
> The shop changed the hard drive and it has worked fine for the past three
> months.
> Now the hard drive has gone again. I get a sound like a ping pong ball
> dropping when I turn on and a boot disk error message.
> The shop are going to put a new HD in again. Thats fine but they don't
> accept anything else is at fault just been unlucky with two HD's.
> Have I been unlucky or could something make the hard drive go faulty?
>
> Many thanks
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 17:07:17 +0100, "steve" <lartonnoreply@dsl.pipex.com>
wrote:

>I bought my computer 6 months ago and almost immediately had problems, I
>posted at the time that something was wrong. The majority informed me it was
>the hard drive. I was getting boot disk errors about 2 out 3 boot ups. It
>was also suggested that the power supply could be at fault.
>The shop changed the hard drive and it has worked fine for the past three
>months.
>Now the hard drive has gone again. I get a sound like a ping pong ball
>dropping when I turn on and a boot disk error message.
>The shop are going to put a new HD in again. Thats fine but they don't
>accept anything else is at fault just been unlucky with two HD's.
>Have I been unlucky or could something make the hard drive go faulty?
>
>Many thanks
>

Typical causes would be defective, damaged, or poorly designed power
supply (is it a generic?) or severe overheating.

Less likely causes might be a same drive delivery person/environment that
subjects drives to excessive shock or a power supply plug that fits too
loosely, making poor contact.

Maxtor's failure rate is not anywhere near so high that it could be
anything more than an extremely remote, quite unlikely to be the problem.
I'm not so sure there rate is even higher than anyone elses, over a dozen
Maxtor drives here are running fine with no failures for longer than a
year.

 

[steve]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Hi
One was a Maxtor and one was a Generic.

I have the PC back now and loaded everything.
I will have to see if it works for longer than a few weeks.

Thanks for the comments


"DaveW" <none@zero.org> wrote in message news:m0tvc.709$%F2.53@attbi_s04...
> What brand of harddrive have they been installing. If you've had two fail
> in 6 months, I'd go out on a limb and guess that it's a Maxtor. They have
> an unusually high failure rate.
>
> --
> DaveW
>
>
>
> "steve" <lartonnoreply@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
> news:40bdfb41$0$17759$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
> > I bought my computer 6 months ago and almost immediately had problems, I
> > posted at the time that something was wrong. The majority informed me it
> was
> > the hard drive. I was getting boot disk errors about 2 out 3 boot ups.
It
> > was also suggested that the power supply could be at fault.
> > The shop changed the hard drive and it has worked fine for the past
three
> > months.
> > Now the hard drive has gone again. I get a sound like a ping pong ball
> > dropping when I turn on and a boot disk error message.
> > The shop are going to put a new HD in again. Thats fine but they don't
> > accept anything else is at fault just been unlucky with two HD's.
> > Have I been unlucky or could something make the hard drive go faulty?
> >
> > Many thanks
> >
> >
>
>

 

[steve]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

> Typical causes would be defective, damaged, or poorly designed power
> supply (is it a generic?) or severe overheating.
>
Yes its a Generic power supply.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Whilst some dislike the motherboard onboard monitoring tools,
it may be useful to check voltages if that facility exists. Also, there
are various HD temperature monitoring tools - they read the actual
drive temperature as reported under the S.M.A.R.T. system.

Whilst S.M.A.R.T. v.a.r.i.e.s. somewhat, it might prove useful.
For a desktop system you want the HD comfortably away from
a nominal 50oC max operating temp, for a laptop they tend to
average 41-44oC under "doing nothing" peaking at 53-58oC.

HD max operating temperatures are set regarding drive life, if you
run at 10% below max temp you gain drive life and vice-versa if
you run at 10% above max-temp you lose drive life.

"Generic" & "Maxtor" indicates this isn't a 10,000rpm SATA so
basically cooling requirements whilst present are somewhat small.
That said, I assume the CPU heatsink isn't exhausting at the drive,
or airflow in case isn't short-circuited due to empty fan ports?

Physical shock-rating of desktop drives non-operating is <<50G
for 10ms (ignore 1ms nonsense) whilst a laptop will do <<200G.
Operating figures are an order of magnitude lower.

So when they say "Boot the computer", don't take it too literally 🙂
.... wonder how many people have kicked PCs over the years...


If your Operating System is XP or Windows 2000, you can go
to Start / Control-Panel / Administrative-Tools / Event-Viewer.
Check thro the System-Log it for Event 7 or disk Events, you
can apply a filter once you find some - worth examining if they
are grouped starting at a certain date, or progressive over time.

If continual-but-growing from fitting for 2 disks, it does cast a
little doubt on it being just disk related. Combining that analysis
with a temperature check after typical usage would be good.

Two bad HDs in a row tends to suggest some other factor,
(which may still be HD in terms of supply or handling pre fitting).

Good luck - and backup important data frequently 🙂
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.stores.ebay.co.uk/panaflofan for fans, books & other items
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dorothy.bradbury/panaflo.htm (Direct)