HD stops working after system on for a while

[Muse]

Drive shows up OK from cold boot but after a while Windows doesn't see it and it's not shown on the channel in BIOS.

I got 2 BSOD's a week ago and uninstalled and reinstalled my video driver. Yesterday, while ripping a movie to the HD, I got a strange message saying Windows couldn't write the information and I saw the drive had disappeared from Explorer, Device Manager and Disk Management.

Rebooting the machine I saw it wasn't in BIOS either. This morning, from a cold boot it was alive and kicking as usual. I came back to the running machine 6 hours later and there was a BSOD and the drive was gone again after a warm boot. I just cold booted it and it's back. Is this a sure sign that the drive is dieing? I got an RMA number from Seagate. I wonder if I should test it in another machine or is that just a waste of time. Temperature in the case are not exceeding 45 C, according to MBM 5. TIA.

 

[amdskip]

Sounds very possible that it is failing. What about the controller on the motherboard itself though? You should try a different IDE channel and see what happens.

 

[oynaz]

That definitely seems like a hardware error. Probably the HDD, but the controller and RAM are suspects as well.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: oynaz
That definitely seems like a hardware error. Probably the HDD, but the controller and RAM are suspects as well.

OK, you folks have given me the motivation to do some more testing. Evidently it isn't necessarily the HD. I've got a second desktop I can test it in and I'll move it over to it this morning and see how it's working. I'll run the machine a few hours and see if the drive stops working, then run Seatools on it if it seems to be working. If the drive checks out in the other machine, I'll check the first machine out. I have spare HD's (80 GB), but no spare RAM but I can run memtest against it.

Last night after letting the machine cool, I turned it back on and the drive was there in Windows Explorer. Ran an hour or two and it was still there, but the drive hadn't been accessed. I clicked on the drive and hourglass...., hourglass.... BSOD!

Thanks!

 

[Muse]

Well, looks like it isn't the HD. Here's what happened:

I'm running Seatools on the drive, having put it in another system. It's been running around 18 hours. Meantime I just installed a Western Digital 80 GB drive that I used until a couple of years ago in the same location as the other drive was (Primary Slave) in my main desktop.

I started some operations utilizing this drive and just got the following messages:

--------------------------------------------------------------
Windows - Delayed Write Failed

X Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\HarddiskVolume8\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

OK
- - - -
That was followed by this:


Windows - Delayed Write Failed

X Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\HarddiskVolume8\$Secure:$SDS. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

OK
- - - -
Followed by:

Windows - Delayed Write Failed

X Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\HarddiskVolume8\$Secure. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

OK
- - - -
Followed by

Windows - Delayed Write Failed

X Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\HarddiskVolume8\. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

OK

------------------------------
I just copied a 20 kb .doc file to my clipboard and tried to paste it into the root directory of the NTFS partition on the newly installed WD drive. Like the other disk, there are two partitions, one NTFS and the other FAT32. I got a similar message saying it couldn't write the data. However, after the dialog disappeared, I saw the file was there and it opened in Word. I got another such message immediately afterward (however, I still have another operation going on utilizing the disk, so it could have been that.

So, I'm confused. I figure the problem is either on the MB or conceivably a problem with the data cable that crops up when it gets warm. I suppose the simplest thing to try is swapping out the cable.

Edit: I just tried to copy a 1 MB file to the root directory of the Fat32 partition and got 4 of those messages in a row that the data was lost. But when I looked, it was there and the file was usable. Weird stuff.

 

[Muse]

So, I put a different HD on the same IDE channel and get another BSOD, so I figure the first HD is OK and it's either a bad cable or IDE channel. To test the cable theory, I swapped out the cable for another, but the system won't turn on now! Press the power button and NOTHING happens! I switched the power cord powering the PSU with the one on the box I'm using now and it still wouldn't start, so I know that 120 v is coming to the PSU. What can I try? Would an improperly seated IDE cable cause the system to do this?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: oynaz
That definitely seems like a hardware error. Probably the HDD, but the controller and RAM are suspects as well.

The RAM tests OK, and the controller has worked now for about a week. I swapped the IDE cable and after doing so the problems disappeared.