Hard drive clicks, powers down

[LeetestUnleet]

Argh, okay, so this computer randomly likes to kill power to the hard drive. The drive makes two clicking noises then whirs down and all activity stops. Activity resumes a few seconds later, but at what feels like a much lower data transfer rate. I've eliminated the possibility of the drive going bad since I ran it through a full-blown diagnostics the other day in another computer, with absolutely no problems, and the drive is my old 40GB Maxtor IDE drive and ran perfectly fine in my computer and has only been in this computer for about a month, so that leaves it to either be the PSU or the IDE controller I think -- I'm still open to other possibilities though.

MoBo: Biostar M7NCG 400
Processor: AMD Sempron 2400+
PSU: Crappy generic one that came with the case (which is mostly why I'm suspecting PSU) Make/Model: Mustang B350ATX (350W max)
RAM: 512 MB Crucial
Hard drive: 40GB Maxtor (only device on the primary channel)
Other drives: 1 48x Memorex CD-ROM drive on the secondary IDE channel and a basic floppy.
OS: Win2000 Pro

So, I guess what I want to know is:
a.) Any other possible causes (and solutions? )on the problem?
b.) How would I go about testing the IDE controller and PSU?

 

[Fardringle]

If the drive is physically not the problem (even if you ran a diagnostic it still could be), the most likely cause of the problem is the PSU in the computer is dropping (or failing) power to the drive. This is particularly likely considering your description of the PSU in the computer.

The easiest way to test it would be to take the PSU from the working computer that you used to run the diagnostic on the drive and plug it in to the problem computer and see if it resolves the issue. If it does, then you need a new PSU.

 

[mindwreck]

its a power supply problem and i would definitely look into getting new power supply. There isn't enough power going to the hdd