Bad Hard Drive?

[taz321]

I just put my new system together and I having trouble with my Seagate ST3640323AS 640GB.

When I turn on my pc an get into windows after about 2-3 mins everything freezes I get BSOD blue screen on Windows XP Pro, then the computer reboots. If I go into the BIOS to check the drive it is not detected. It is as if it has completely disappeared.

I have to cycle power to get the computer to recognize it and boot. Then everything is fine for awhile.

I tried everything from replacing the SATA Cables and also changing the Sata Port on the motherboard. But problem still occurs!I tried running all the Seagate Diagnostic tools, but it passed all the tests

Should I RMA it and get the WD WD6400AAKS what do you guys think?

 

[Foxery]

It sounds like this is a secondary drive, not your boot drive - in which case a bad drive shouldn't be able to cause blue screens. Windows would just tell you there's something wrong with it, and carry on. Are you sure you didn't knock something else loose in the case, like the CPU cooler or a fan's power cord?

 

[taz321]

It is my boot drive.

 

[heymrdj]

Get Hiren's boot disk if you don't have the Western Digital tools CD that came with the hard drive and boot into it. Run an extended diagnostics. If it fails you have 1 of 4 issues to sort out. 1. Bad power connector from your PSU is not working with the drive. 2. Your sata cable isn't tight to the drive or the motherboard and is coming disconnected just barely enough to cause intermittency. 3. Your motherboard port is bad, or your entire motherboard. 4. Your drive itself is bad and needs RMA'd.

Good luck!

 

[john3850]

Got a p5e-d48 recently put in a new Seagate drive.
Formated it using Seagate software.
Left most bios on default.
Few days later started getting bsod never the the same.
Windows also had problems with it and kept running chkdsk on start ups.
2 days latter no c ntfs or drive not readable the 2 other partions were good.
Refomatted using only windows this time.
1- poor Seagate sortware.
2- Some how mem got set to low. no pci lock only gussing.
Flashed a 410 rampade bios to it.
Been up 3 months just got a eo8400 for it.
Dropped settings to the fastest still runs great.

 

[john3850]

Reformat using window tools only before rma it

 

[Foxery]

Jesus. Do they speak English in What?

OP: Come to think of it, did you run a full format on the drive? (It would have taken an hour+) If you opted for a quick format, then there could be system data on bad sectors. Other than that, unless you can *hear* the drive making unusual noises when the system crashes, I would still have a hard time believing a hard drive could be the problem.

 

[RebateMonger]

While this may be stating the obvious, it appears likely that your PC is rebooting because it's losing the hard drive. Windows doesn't like it when its system drive disappears.

I had a client's PC that wouldn't find the hard drive sometimes when the PC was first booted in the morning. After it "warmed up", it'd work fine all day. But that was a seven-year-old PC and, when a round of troubleshooting didn't pinpoint the problem, we just replaced the PC.

Hard to tell. It could be either the drive or the motherboard. If it was me, with a large assortment of MB and drives, I'd swap them around and see which was at fault. You may not have that same luxury of many PCs and drives.

 

[taz321]

Thanks for all the sugestions guys, I am RMA'ing the drive.

Foxery, I did do the longer version of formating before installing windows.
Replaced all cords, tryed another PSU, ran all of seagates tools also ran HD tune it pasted everything.

I am going to try the WD6400AAKS.

 

[PaulAlex7000]

Well, ths reply is about 3 months late, but the guys over at pimp-my-rig (http://www.pimp-my-rig.com/200...-wd6400aaks-sata.html) had the same issue. They said it was an incompatibility between the Seagate and the Asus Maximum II Formula motherboard, which I noticed you have.

They did not say whether the incompatibility they concluded was arrived by anecdotal evidence (experiencing the issues) or whether Seagate told them that.