Can overclocking kill your hard drive?

[m1ke101]

Alright I was prime95ing last night and I was trying out the cpu I bought off of Shimmish at 2.5ghz @2v (yes I know thats high but its not going to kill the cpu if I ran it for a couple hours). I left the room and I came back, and the computer had shut it self off. I thought strange, and I tried turning it on again. Every time I pressed the power button, everything would turn on for a second and then turn off. So I'm guessing maybe the power supply somehow got fried, which I really don't understand because I ran another 1700+ at 2v for a couple days and nothing went wrong. I know the cpu was fine, because I'm still using it right now. But the strange this is, my hard drive won't really detect anymore. When I plug it in, it takes forever for the system to recognize it on post, and even when it does, it says my wd800jb is a wd1200bb. After it detects it, it'll just hang there. So I know theres something wrong with the hard drive. Anyone know a way to fix it? I'm using my 20gig hard drive (which was also connected to the system when the power supply died).

 

[amcdonald]

Are you using a board with a locked pci bus?

 

[bgeh]

if your pci bus isn't locked, you may have killed the hard drive if you ran it longer

 

[m1ke101]

running a 8rda+, pretty sure that the pci/agp is locked

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

pci is auto locked
agp is not
but agp is irrelevent

maybe the harddrive just died
try it in another system

 

[LastRide]

I just got a replacement 40 Gig Seagate that went bad on me.I checked it through the Seagate website that it was bad.It would lock up in games and I couldn't understand what it was until I ran the HD tests at Seagate.I definitly think there is a chance of your hard drive going bad by oveclocking.You never know if the HD was bad from a while ago and started showing it now.Some HD's can take a pounding while others you never know when they will die.A lot of people have had no problems while others have,but may not be necessarily related to overclocking.Hard drives have a somewhat high failure rate.Since most of us overclock we sometimes assume that OC'ing is what may have caused it when in actuality the HD was probably on its way out.I wouldn't worry about it.Get a new hard drive and do some more overclocking.

 

[LastRide]

See if there is a test you can run at the website of the HD manufacturer you own.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

if its maxtor then maxblast it
or check s.m.a.r.t. if it's reporting any errors
my maxtor just died on me a while ago...not related to overclocking at all

 

[pspada]

I had this same exact problem with a client's machine. Turns out it as the power switch button, although I replaced the power supply as well, rather than take a chance.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I have a few questions to ask, How many of you who's HDD's died have active cooling for it? How often do you defrag? Does your computer get turned on and off several times a day or more?

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I have a few questions to ask, How many of you who's HDD's died have active cooling for it? How often do you defrag? Does your computer get turned on and off several times a day or more?

1) Active cooling for all my SCSI drives, especially 15k rpm ones. Got 2 x 80mm fans blowing intake air over them.

2) Defrag/scandisk religously.

3) Turn it on/off at least everyday.

 

[pspada]

I got a little gnome who pees on my hard drive to cool it, does that count as "active cooling"?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: pspada
I got a little gnome who pees on my hard drive to cool it, does that count as "active cooling"?

you can call your pathetic excuse for a penis whatever you want man!

 

[EdipisReks]

overclocking isn't going to kill the drive. it may very well corrupt the data on the said drive, but it ain't gonna kill it. unless you are doing something very wrong. like the gnome and piss.

 

[EdipisReks]

oh, btw. i've had the same kinda hd problems after an overclock that is too high for the chip. it always goes back to normal after a nice, long, 20 second cmos clear and unplugging and replugging the IDE cable.

 

[Shagger]

I got a little gnome who pees on my hard drive to cool it, does that count as "active cooling"?

Where do you get a gnome like that? NewEgg?!?!?!

 

[pspada]

Originally posted by: Shagger

I got a little gnome who pees on my hard drive to cool it, does that count as "active cooling"?

Where do you get a gnome like that? NewEgg?!?!?!

I've never had oc'ing kill a hard drive, but I sure have had it corrupt my Winblows installation. Unless you were to short it out installing some unusual cooling aparatus.....

I did order a "cooling gnome" from newegg, but it was dead when it got here, and the RGA (Retun Gnome Authorization) was a real bitch. I had to buy this one at the Fry's "Gnomebody Gnows" sale - but I'm still waiting for the two elf rebate. :evil:

 

[m1ke101]

so strange, all I was doing was doing an overclock. agp/pci was in spec, so that shouldn't have messed anything up. The hard drive looks like its dead now, tried it on a couple different computers and nothing.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: m1ke101
so strange, all I was doing was doing an overclock. agp/pci was in spec, so that shouldn't have messed anything up. The hard drive looks like its dead now, tried it on a couple different computers and nothing.

Try sticking it in a ziplock freezer bag in the freezer overnight then hurriedly removing it connecting it and removing any data you want from it.

 

[msi1337]

I recently had a similar problem on my fiance's system. Got her a used WD 80JB Special Edition drive from a fellow anandtecher and plugged it in... worked fine for about 30 seconds...then pc just shut off. Tried to start it back up and hard drive was no longer recognized. I figure it could of been from two things... either a) USPS banged it around too much when I had it shipped here. or b) the 300 generic power supply couldn't handle the power requirements for the Special edition drive and under fed it power (which can kill a drive).

Anyways, so it is possible that while overclocking you were pulling so much power to the cpu that it neglected to give your hard drive enough power, thus causing it to cease to exist.

p.s.

I checked for my gnome...but he accidently got sucked into my cpu fan and chopped up... poor guy