Drive Failure

Radio91PRadio91P Layton, UT New
edited August 2009 in Hardware
I now have a failed hard drive again. I had one originally that we thought was bad and replaced. We still had issues and replaced the motherboard. It seemed to resolve the issue. No one has used this PC for about a month. I just received the RMA board(P35-DS3L-Gigabyte) and tryed to reinstall windows. During the installation a message said that a particular file could not be copied. I then installed Vista without issue until it boot into windows. A screen appeared saying that drive failure was very likely. I am wondering if this is just a fluke that I received two dud drives, or could something be causing the drive failure.

WD 160GB
P35-DS3L Gigabyte
2x1GB G-Skill 800
Thermaltake 430w

Comments

  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Failing RAM can cause symptoms that make it look like your hard drive is not behaving. Try running Memtest86 for a few hours and see if it catches any errors. If not, then maybe it is just a fluke.
  • Radio91PRadio91P Layton, UT New
    edited August 2009
    I ran memtest before I even suspected the HD and no errors. I just bought another HD it is running fine now. Must have been two dud drives.

    Thanks Bean
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited August 2009
    I agree with lordbean, always think RAM is a possibility. But you should test that drive too. Some manufacturers (Dell for one) have a diagnositics built in that will test the drive itself. If you know the brand of the drive, go to their site and download their diagnostics test. You'll have to burn a CD and boot from that usually. But at this point, stop guessing and get some more data on what failure you have.
  • Radio91PRadio91P Layton, UT New
    edited August 2009
    I am not guessing. I had two bad hard drives. My question is something causing them to go bad. I received the new drive and working great now. Thanks
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2009
    Radio91P wrote:
    I am not guessing. I had two bad hard drives. My question is something causing them to go bad. I received the new drive and working great now. Thanks

    Agreed, as soon as he was done with memtest without finding a problem with RAM, it was no longer a guess. He had two bad hard drives on his hands.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited August 2009
    lordbean wrote:
    Agreed, as soon as he was done with memtest without finding a problem with RAM, it was no longer a guess. He had two bad hard drives on his hands.
    It could have been a bad optical drive too. I had a computer a while ago that perplexed me and made me think every hard drive I tried in it was bad. I tried all sorts of diagnostics which all passed fine but when I installed an OS, it would inevitably have problems from day one. I finally swapped the CD-ROM out and reinstalled, bingo, no more problems. System has been running ever since.
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