Hard drive keeps restarting every half an hour or so

[chesss]

System:
ASUS m2a-vm mobo
2 gb ram(2 sticks, one corsair, one simmintronics)
AMD 4000+ X2 cpu


Problem: for the past few days , my hard-disk intermittently makes a 'restarting' sound (as if it just has been started). And everything goes unresponsive for a minute.

I have changed the sata cable, power cable , removed my gpu, . What could be the problem please ? Is the hdd dying? I have of course backed up.
I don't think its overheating; the problem occurred even after a fresh start in the morning(low temps)
Could
SMART seems to check out OK (according to speendfan) .

Edit: I was just performing a extended Test and got a "interrupted by reset" error.

Help ?

Thanks

Oops! Posted in the wrong (highly technical) category. sorry!

 

[gargoil666uk]

I get this sometimes when I try and access a drive that I haven't used for half an hour.
Have you got power settings (spin-down) enabled for certain drives?
Try changing the spin-down inactivity period.

 

[chesss]

It restarts even when data is being written to, read from. But I'll check the settings anyway.

 

[Mushkins]

If it's being sent a stop/start like that, my first guess would be a bad cable or a controller issue. I'd swap the SATA cable first, if that doesnt fix it try a different SATA port on the motherboard (specifically a known good one if you have other drives connected).

It could be the drive is dieing, but i'd check those first. Also if you have another drive you can swap them just to see if it does the same thing.

 

[MorpheusPhreak]

I've had this issue crop up on drives that I've had for several years.

It's generally an indicator that there is an issue with the drive itself.

SMART isn't always as smart as it thinks. I have 2 drives that pass all the SMART diagnostics tests you can throw at them...but when using the HDD makers tool to test them out they fail almost instantly.

 

[sm625]

Take this opportunity to go on ebay and score yourself a used 80GB intel X25-M G2 for $60.

 

[MorpheusPhreak]

Take this opportunity to go on ebay and score yourself a used 80GB intel X25-M G2 for $60.

I can second that recommendation. I have one of those drives as my main OS drive right now, and they are nice.

 

[rsutoratosu]

What drive is it and maybe your psu has a connection issue