Strange Hard Drive Failure Problem

[richanton9]

I built my son a machine about 3 months ago from parts of other
machines laying around. His 60 gig hd that had been perfectly fine
prior to that point failed immediately. So I replaced it with a 40gig
that had been laying around. It worked about a week and failed. So
I thought maybe it's a power supply problem, and I replaced the supply
and put in my old 200g hd. That has worked for about 6 weeks. Now it
is starting to fail. I hear a tapping noise once or twicw. Then the
machine freezes. Anyone have any idea what's going on. Is it
possible that the motherboard has a problem?

 

[Arno Wagner]

I built my son a machine about 3 months ago from parts of other
machines laying around. His 60 gig hd that had been perfectly fine
prior to that point failed immediately. So I replaced it with a 40gig
that had been laying around. It worked about a week and failed. So
I thought maybe it's a power supply problem, and I replaced the supply
and put in my old 200g hd. That has worked for about 6 weeks. Now it
is starting to fail. I hear a tapping noise once or twicw. Then the
machine freezes. Anyone have any idea what's going on. Is it
possible that the motherboard has a problem?

Not really. Are you sure you are handling the drives carefully
enough?

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

I built my son a machine about 3 months ago from parts of other
machines laying around. His 60 gig hd that had been perfectly fine
prior to that point failed immediately. So I replaced it with a 40gig
that had been laying around. It worked about a week and failed.
So I thought maybe it's a power supply problem, and I replaced the
supply and put in my old 200g hd. That has worked for about 6 weeks.
Now it is starting to fail. I hear a tapping noise once or twicw. Then
the machine freezes. Anyone have any idea what's going on. Is it
possible that the motherboard has a problem?

No, a motherboard cant kill a hard drive.

What are you doing cooling wise ? Unusual to kill hard drives in the winter tho.

Exactly how did the first two drives die ?

Its obviously possible to have two bad power supplys in a row, unlikely tho.

Could be that furious drunken grave dancing you were warned about but wouldnt listen.

 

[Michael Cecil]

I built my son a machine about 3 months ago from parts of other
machines laying around. His 60 gig hd that had been perfectly fine
prior to that point failed immediately. So I replaced it with a 40gig
that had been laying around. It worked about a week and failed. So
I thought maybe it's a power supply problem, and I replaced the supply
and put in my old 200g hd. That has worked for about 6 weeks. Now it
is starting to fail. I hear a tapping noise once or twicw. Then the
machine freezes. Anyone have any idea what's going on. Is it
possible that the motherboard has a problem?

You ever consider just using a new harddrive that you hadn't discarded
previously?

Also, a new but crappy brand PSU won't be too helpful. Don't go for the
cheapest brand, go for quality like PC Power and Cooling, Fortron, or
Sparkle. Make sure it's sufficiently large for all the components.

Lastly, if there is the possibility of power fluctuations for where that
PC is set up, get a nice UPS for it.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I built my son a machine about 3 months ago from parts of other
machines laying around. His 60 gig hd that had been perfectly fine
prior to that point failed immediately. So I replaced it with a 40gig
that had been laying around. It worked about a week and failed. So
I thought maybe it's a power supply problem, and I replaced the supply
and put in my old 200g hd. That has worked for about 6 weeks. Now it
is starting to fail. I hear a tapping noise once or twicw. Then the
machine freezes. Anyone have any idea what's going on. Is it
possible that the motherboard has a problem?

So I assume you tested to see that those failed hard drives are actually
failed by putting them back in your own system right?

Have you turned SMART monitoring on in the BIOS?

Yousuf Khan

 

[richanton9]

So I assume you tested to see that those failed hard drives are actually
failed by putting them back in your own system right?

Have you turned SMART monitoring on in the BIOS?

        Yousuf Khan

I did recheck the drives in another machine. They remained dead.

The 3rd drive is working again. I changed the power supply yet again
and eliminated Ituneshelper which seemed to cause the drive to grind
forever on bootup. Not sure why it's working, but it is. Hopefully,
everything will stay working now.

 

[CJT]

I did recheck the drives in another machine. They remained dead.

The 3rd drive is working again. I changed the power supply yet again
and eliminated Ituneshelper which seemed to cause the drive to grind
forever on bootup. Not sure why it's working, but it is. Hopefully,
everything will stay working now.

They're probably overheating. Check temperatures.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I did recheck the drives in another machine. They remained dead.

The 3rd drive is working again. I changed the power supply yet again
and eliminated Ituneshelper which seemed to cause the drive to grind
forever on bootup. Not sure why it's working, but it is. Hopefully,
everything will stay working now.

Try the following disk monitor program, Hard Disk Sentinel
(hdsentinel.com). It has some of the best disk health reporting systems
that I've ever seen, even in the unregistered trial-ware version.

Yousuf Khan

 

[westom1]

I did recheck the drives in another machine. They remained dead.

The 3rd drive is working again.  I changed thepower supplyyet again
and eliminated Ituneshelper which seemed to cause the drive to grind
forever on bootup. Not sure why it's working, but it is.

It’s probably not working. For example, the original power supply
could have always been defective. Normal is for a defective supply to
still boot a computer. But since you used shotgunning (not numbers),
then you still don't know what was or was not defective. Any labor
should result in a list of what is definitively good and definitively
bad. You list still has zero items listed. Nothing was accomplished.

For the power supply 'system' (which is more than just a power
supply), then means numbers from a 3.5 digit multimeter. Then a
definitive answer exists and you stop shotgunning power supplies.
After the power supply system is known good, only then move on to
other suspect and don't even look back. You are still wondering which
power supply is defective. Both could still be defective based upon
what has been learned even after all that labor.

Also important is information from the system (event) logs, Device
manager, and maybe even the Disk Manager. IOW long before fixing or
replacing anything, first, one gets these facts.

Responsible computer manufacturers provide comprehensive hardware
diagnostics with their machine. You don't have that. So download
those diagnostics from each component manufacturer. What did the disk
drive diagnostics report? But again, first identify the problem
before replacing or swapping anything.

You will probably be back with the same problem. Use these concepts
to save time and finally fix it. Don't shotgun.

 

[Chris]

They're probably overheating. Check temperatures.

That's my thinking too. There is also a (remote) possibility that your son
would rather have a new and better machine and is (inadvertently) causing
the drives to fail.

You could try a SSD drive.