Cause of hard drive failure?

[Bonnie.]

I purchased a HP Media Center PC approx 16 months ago. Shortly after I
purchased it I started getting what appeared to be an intermittent hard disk
error - the screen would suddenly go black, system would attempt to reboot
and I would get a message in the lines of "SMART FAILURE predicted... Windows
detected a hard disk problem... Immediately back up your data and replace
your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent." Then it gives some options
to to go to the BIOS or to continue. Sometimes I can reboot immediately
(usually reboots to safe mode first, then will reboot normal), other times I
need to reattempt several times before it will actually reboot (the SMART
FAILURE screen pops up each reattempt). Once I am able to reboot it's pretty
unpredicatable when this screen will show up again... sometimes a day or so
later, other times it would be stable for a few weeks.... the reason I was
able to 'test' for a while is 1.... after the problem occurs I backed up and
removed all important data from the drive and 2... since the computer was
only a few months old HP was sending me a replacement warranty drive.

Once I recieved the replacement drive I created an image of the original
drive, copied it to the new drive and sent the 'faulty' drive back to HP. I
assumed everything was fine, but the problem started occuring about 4 months
later. So again, I made sure everything was backed up, created an image &
contacted HP for another warranty drive. Once again, everything worked
fine... for a while. Now, one year later out of the blue this 'hard drive
failure is imminent' problem is popping up again.

On each occasion I have run chkdsk and scandsk diagnostics and there are no
problems detected so that's a bit confusing to me. Is there anything else I
should be checking that could be creating the problem - perhaps a faulty
cable or something else. My computer has 2 hard drives - the primary C drive
is the one that is 'failing' and it is mounted 'vertically' on a chasis. The
second drive is mounted 'flat' on the bottom panel. Would it make any
difference if I swapped locations of the two drives???? Only thing I can
think of hear is the primary drive is in use more (since it has the OS and
all program files) and perhaps the constant spinning creates a vibration
since its mounted on a chassis, causing the cable to vibrate a little
loose????

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[IkidUnot]

I would also doubt that any connectors should be coming loose. If the drive
is vibrating that much, it's definitely got bad bearings, and would not be
able to write data reliably over the long term. Vibration that extreme would
cause the drive heads to touch down (this is called a crash) and damage them
or possibly the platter(s).

Is it possible that the environment inside your PC is just too hot?

Can you try to intall your primary drive (the one that's failing) into
another PC as a secondary? This would allow you to get an independent test -
presuming the PC you put it into has SMART monitoring.

It shouldn't really matter, but can you mount the drive horizontally when
you replace it? If it concerns you that it's vertical, you could try this. I
wouldn't recommend changing the orientation of the current drive. This can
lead to read errors, slowing performance because the drive has to re-read
data.

 

[w_tom]

On each occasion I have run chkdsk and scandsk diagnostics and there are no
problems detected so that's a bit confusing to me. Is there anything else I
should be checking that could be creating the problem - perhaps a faulty
cable or something else. My computer has 2 hard drives - the primary C drive
is the one that is 'failing' and it is mounted 'vertically' on a chasis. The
second drive is mounted 'flat' on the bottom panel.

First, those are not hardware diagnostics. Those are Windows
diagnostics. It is an HP. Computer manufacturer is more responsible
- provided comprehensive hardware diagnostics that give numbers and
detailed messages. Without those numbers and messages, then the few
who can actually answer your question will not post.

Only one 'disk drive computer' controlled both drives. If either
drive is defective, then the one computer will report a failure. Is
the defect in drive two but you keep replacing drive one (because
drive one controls drive two)?

Second reason for failure are completely and always defective power
supply voltages. Completely defective power supply can boot a
computer. The naive then assume the power supply is good. Power
supply causes strange things to happen once every month. Does that
sound like your computer? 'Sound' means nothing. Again, the numbers.
Voltage measurements are the only way to identify or eliminate that as
a reason for a failure.

Heat is not a problem. Your computer must be in love when a room is
100 degrees F. A computer that is failing in a 70 degree room does
not have a heat problem. It has a hardware problem. How to find a
completely defective machine? Operate it even in a 100 degree room.
If it fails, a hardware problem probably exists - another reason why
more responsible computer manufacturers provide comprehensive hardware
diagnostics - to find that failure even when heat makes the failure
easier to find..

Step back. Is your problem with hardware or software? Windows does
little to find hardware failures. Windows works around hardware
failures - does everything possible to ignore those problems. However
Windows also has system (event) logs so that months after a problem
occurs, then a hardware guy can identify the problem. What (exactly
letter by letter) does each failure message in those logs say? Just a
few suggestions that would go after a problem rather than its
symptoms.

 

[IkidUnot]

For hardware diagnostics, you'll need to know who manufactured the hard disk
(Western Digital, Seagate, etc). Then you may be able to get diagnostices
from their site.