Does this sound like a failing HDD?

[JasonSix78]

UPDATE 2
So yesterday I was dealing with the same freezing problem listed below in my OP. I reach down and push on the corner of the HD and it starts booting up normally. As soon as I let go it freezes again. Just as soon as I start pushing again it boots up into XP normally. While in XP, on the net or accessing files, if it would start to freeze like it normally does I would do what I described above and it would unfreeze. This makes no sense. I've checked to see if there was a short to the case with a voltmeter but nothing showed. What would cause this? I've checked that all connections are secure (cables/power connectors). This has me baffled.



UPDATE
Got the new PSU installed last night. Ran a normal format on the HDD and installed XP again. During the XP installation, after it loads the files and then reboots to the part where you enter your product key, it froze up. I rebooted several times and it finally went through and installed normally. In XP, I go to install my mainboard drivers and halfway through it blackscreens and freezes on me so I reboot. It does this twice. On the the third time it installs them successfully. Installed video drivers and soundcard drivers. After that I tried to install AntiVir, halfway through that I got a BSOD. Tried again and again and it finally installed.

Basically it would BSOD on me at different times. Seemed like things would lag occasionally and sometimes wouildn't come back (BSOD). I cleared CMOS on my mobo and nothing changed. Now, I removed 1 stick of RAM and it took several reboots to get back into XP but now it's running 100%. I installed windows updates, newest version of Antivir, everything is working great. I'm going to leave it like this for a few days and see if that's whats causing my problems. It still seems to lag for a second or two sometimes but I haven't experienced any BSODs since.

UPDATE 2: BSOD again, several attempts to reboot and I finally got back into XP.
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I've been experiencing problems with my rig for about a month now. My WD 60GB backup HDD crapped out a few weeks ago and I think my Maxtor is going now.

Symptoms: (all happen randomly in no particluar order, sometimes it boots up perfectly)
1)During boot up, system passes CPU/RAM check and then freezes on IDE drive check
2)Freezes sometimes on Nvidia Raid "Detecting Array......" even though I'm not running Raid and never have.
3)During boot up, error: "IDE Channel 1 no 80 conductor cable installed.....Floppy disk(s) fail (40)"
4)Disk Boot Failure
5)During non-taxing tasks (like surfing the net) system locks up randomly and blue screens with only stop error, no file error is displayed

Solutions I've tried:
Different HDD (Good HDD, did #1)
Different IDE cables (worked fine for one week, then problems started again)
Swapped IDE channels with Optical drive
HDD running on channel 0 alone and channel 1 alone
Ran Maxtor HDD Diagnostic Utility from bootable CD, checked out fine

Today after letting it sit for a few hours and several reboots I finally got into XP and it says "Windows cannot load the locally stored profile......." then something about security rights or corrupt file.......loading temporary account.

So right now, I'm thinking it's the HDD even though the Maxtor utility says it's fine. Either that or my IDE channels may be bad. I've got a new power supply on the way from NewEgg. My DVD/RW drive started giving me problems when all of this started. I replced it with a new NEC DVD/RW drive from the Egg a few weeks back, it's been working flawlessly now.

Any ideas?

System Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR
WinTec (2x512MB) PC3200
MSI NX6600GT
Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 120GB U-ATA 133
XP Pro SP2

EDIT: Power Supply Voltages
Vcore------------(1.50/1.52V)
3.3V-------------(2.94/2.97V)
+5V-------------(5.05/5.08V)
+12V-----------(12.28/12.34V)
-12V------------(-12.28V) (stable)
-5V--------------(-5.14/-5.20)
VBAT(V)--------(3.10V) (stable)
5VSB(V)--------(5.01V) (stable)

Unless "stable", voltages fluctuate in one second intervals. Probably normal but I posted the lowest and highest readings anyway.

 

[nomagic]

Dont worry! Here comes the noobish man!!!

Unfortunately, I think you power supply is failing and taking down other PC parts along with it. (eg., your WD hard drive) I know it sounds scary, so you should quickly test the power supply before it also takes down your Maxtor, and possibly your whole rig.

I will explain why I think the PSU is failing. The chances of two hard drive dying NATURALLY in the same month is quite slim. Also, you started to experience all sort of strange problem. This is the classic syndrome of PSU problem.

Quickly!!! test the PSU!!! before its too late!!!

If it is not the PSU, then I am sorry that I wasted your time.

 

[JasonSix78]

I think, and hope, you're right on the money NoMagic. The new PSU will be here Friday.

I'll post voltages here in a minute if you, or someone else, can tell me if the numbers look good.

-Jason

 

[JasonSix78]

Bump for the day crew. Open to any other ideas/suggestions.

-Jason

 

[BadThad]

/me scratches head

I'd kind of be surprized if it's the power supply, but anything's possible. Do you have the latest BIOS installed?

 

[JasonSix78]

Yeah, I have the latest BIOS installed. I reverted back to older mainboard drivers earlier because I was using a none-WHQL set someone put together on guru3d. I also ran disk defragmenter. No change. I've never been able to hear my HDD but lately it's been grinding a little when accessing files, that's the reason I was thinking it maybe the HDD. If this power supply doesn't do the trick I'm just going to build another rig. I don't want to dump anymore money into this S754/AGP system.

-Jason

 

[JasonSix78]

^

 

[JasonSix78]

Updated OP with weird "solution" to my freeze-ups. What do you guys make of it?

-Jason

 

[BadThad]

I think I'd toss that HDD in the trash and get a new one. Somethings definately flaky with it!

 

[Googer]

It could be an operating system problem, have you run chkdsk /x yet? If not try doing that.


EDIT: IF you think it is a component failure then do not run chkdsk since you could loose a lot of data. Instead replace the faulty component and then run chkdsk to recover damaged OS files.

 

[JasonSix78]

Thanks Googer! I ran chkdsk last week but not chkdsk /x. Any difference? I've been running a CPU stability test for the past 14 hours and 38 minutes to see if it could be my CPU, everything's looking good so far. CPU temps have been running at a steady 42 C. I'll sometimes get a 1-2 second freeze up but it hasn't crashed yet. When I reboot I'll run chkdsk /x.

-Jason

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: JasonSix78
Thanks Googer! I ran chkdsk last week but not chkdsk /x. Any difference? I've been running a CPU stability test for the past 14 hours and 38 minutes to see if it could be my CPU, everything's looking good so far. CPU temps have been running at a steady 42 C. I'll sometimes get a 1-2 second freeze up but it hasn't crashed yet. When I reboot I'll run chkdsk /x.

-Jason

Just plain Chkdsk when run under the CMD prompt will operate chkdsk in a read only (scan) mode and does not fix any problems. Chkdsk /r will repair the bad files that are not in use. Chkdsk /x is the same as r but will dismount the drive from the OS and allow for a full scan, repair, and recovery of lost bytes. The X switch will require a reboot of the PC and may take 2 to 3 hours to complete. Personaly I would make sure that the drive or PSU is not failing. A failing drive or PSU can cause errors on the disk that will not go away (I learned this from IBM a long time ago). Also a bad PSU can cause memory errors that can lead to those bad bits to eventualy get written to the hard disk.

I do not know if it helps but I often do a chkdsk /r/x . I suspect that the R is null when you add the X but I do it anyways since it does not hurt at all. Oh and if you are running Windows 2000, I recomend you plug the HDD in to a machine that is runnng XP since the version of chkdsk is better on XP than it is on 2k.

 

[JasonSix78]

I'm running XP Pro w/ SP2. I ran chkdsk /x and it's set to run when I reboot. I'm going to let this CPU test run for 24 hours (finishes at 11:49 tonight)to get a stability certificate and then I'll reboot it. I replaced the PSU last Thursday btw. I'm going to start Memtest tonight and let it run for 24 hours to make sure my RAM is still good. I just ordered the parts to build a 939 rig so maybe this one will continue to be stable until Friday. I opted for a 3200+ instead of the 3700+.

-Jason

 

[Googer]

The 3200+ is still a very fast processor. And at newegg.com it is $20 cheaper than the 3000+!