Hard drive problem

[imported_krimson]

Hi guys,

I have been having hard drives issues. My set-up is the follow

1xASUS P4P800 Deluxe Socket 478 Intel 865PE ATX Intel Motherboard (Oced to 3.0ghz)
1xIntel Pentium 4 2.8C Northwood 800MHz FSB Socket 478 Processor Model BX80532PG2800D
4xCORSAIR XMS 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model CMX512-3200C2PT
1x80GB EIDE
1x100GB EIDE
2xWestern Digital Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
1xeVGA 256-A8-N347-AX Geforce 6800 256MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card (clocked to GT)
1xSound Blaster XtremeMusic
1xPSU Channel Well 450watt max


My problems have been with the 2x250GB hard drives. They sometimes boot up with the computer, sometimes dont. And when they do boot up I can't really copy files into the hd. It would get like cylindrical errors and if you format them, do scandisk, there is no bad sectors. What gives? Should I upgrade my power supply?

 

[orangat]

If you think its your psu then try pulling out your hdisk to the minimum and change your gfx cards to something that doesn't pull alot of juice and cut down your ram (if its possible) and see if hdisk errors still happen.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: orangat
If you think its your psu then try pulling out your hdisk to the minimum and change your gfx cards to something that doesn't pull alot of juice and cut down your ram (if its possible) and see if hdisk errors still happen.

Try the above recommendation first. If the problem persists, it may not be a PSU problem. Can you always boot in Safe Mode? If you can but cannot do a regular boot, then it might be a driver problem. Don't forget to check on the basics of hdd which is the jumper settings.

 

[furballi]

Check and replace IDE cable. Could be a problem with the IDE controller on the MB.

Do a low level format and clean install Windows. Recheck for problem.

 

[imported_krimson]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried diagnostic software before from Seagate and it did not detect any error and when I run the scandisk test under Windows, nothing shows up either.

Just to add to this, my setup is

1x80 and 1x100 are IDE drives
2x250 are both SATA drives..

The 1x80 and 1x100 never have problems even when 2x250 are acting up...

The boot up problem only happens once in a while. And as I type right now, the 2x250 are online and I was able to copy files in/out... and sometimes after copying gigs of files, it would have cylindrical error problems. It's just totally random.

 

[imported_rod]

Are the 2x250 in RAID?

RoD

 

[Jiggz]

With the additional sypmtoms you posted it's almost positive it's a PSU problem. Try disconnecting 2 of the hdd and then test again if the problem goes away. If it goes away then the PSU is not providing enough power during boot up (which by the way is the most demanding time for current since all hdd and other drives are trying to get up and go), and it's probably the same problem when you try to write and read at the same time.

 

[imported_krimson]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
With the additional sypmtoms you posted it's almost positive it's a PSU problem. Try disconnecting 2 of the hdd and then test again if the problem goes away. If it goes away then the PSU is not providing enough power during boot up (which by the way is the most demanding time for current since all hdd and other drives are trying to get up and go), and it's probably the same problem when you try to write and read at the same time.

Seems like its the PSU. I will do a couple more tests before buying one. Any recommendation on one? Also, I updated my original post and now it has a more descriptive list of hardware.

 

[furballi]

Cheap, but should do the job.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22243