Dazed and Confused

[imported_cblake]

I had an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe rev. 2 mobo, WD 120 gig HD, 2 WD 160 gig SATA HD's, ATI 9800 Pro 128, SB Audigy 2 sound card, AMD XP2800+ CPU, and 1 gig of PC2700 RAM. I had done a format after a HD crash about 4 months ago. Well, about 2 weeks into this new format, my WD 120 HD started doing the same thing as the other drive. There is some random clicking of the drive and then it either locks up or runs. If I shut down though, it's a gamble if the computer will come back up without incident. Well, I had been away for the last 4 months, but when I got home the other day, my computer would not work properly, just the way I left it. I got it to actually boot all the way to Windows the other day, and it seemed to be sluggish, but working. The biggest thing I noticed was the mouse was intermittent. I thought that maybe my mobo was about to die or something, so I ordered a new ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe.

Well, I got the new mobo today, installed it and I was still experiencing the same problems. So I went and bought another new WD drive, this time an 80 gig one. I am still having problems. So far, I have the SATA drives unplugged completely from the system. Here is what I am getting. I start the machine, and sometimes it 'sees' the HD, sometimes it doesn't. If it gets far enough, it boots off of the WindowsXP Pro CD and starts the installation. At some point though it will either freeze up, or in the case of the last time I tried, I get an error of an unmountable partition. This is really starting to upset me. Surely there is no way, I am getting 2 Western Digital HD's over a 5 month period and they're both bad!

I am at my wits end here. If anyone has any ideas of what I can try so I can narrow down the exact problem, I would really appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

Chuck

 

[amdskip]

What power supply are you running? Cheap power supplies are known to cause problems with hard drives dying, etc.

 

[Gufran]

i had a similar problem, went through 2 harddrives and the dude at the computer store recommended changing the power supply and magically the problem disappeared:thumbsup:

 

[imported_cblake]

I am using an Antec 480 True Power PSU. It is just over a year old, if memory serves me correctly.

 

[imported_cblake]

Problems are solved gentlemen, thank you for all of your great inputs. I went and got a new Antec TruePower 430 and she's working great. This must be a newer edition of the TruePower series, there is a dedicated line just for SATA setups, something that I did not have with my old 480. Now I have all my fans dedicated on the fan line, my DVD and CD-RW on another with the floppy, my main drive and slave has their own and now the graphics card has its own.

Thanks again!