HDD's "falling asleep"

[biomanz]

Just now my computer just froze with the HDD LED lit permanently. Upon restarting, there was an "error loading OS." I reconnected the HDD, then both my HDD's weren't detected during POST. So I resetted the CMOS, the computer booted, but froze again. After reconnecting both HDD's all's well so far and I restored my computer just for the heck of it. Now, this occured twice before in a month's time but those were quickly fixed with a quick restart. Now I'm concerned something could be corrupted and whatnot. Has anyone experienced this problem or know how to fix it? My primary HDD is a Hitachi 180gb, and the second a Seagate 200gb, both 7200rpm ATA. Mobo is a Gigabyte GA 8I848P-G with the latest F5 BIOS (I think that's the latest). I've read some people manually switch their HDD access mode to LGA or something, but I'm not familiar with those modes - I left both of mine at auto.

 

[Atheus]

How are your power rails? It could be shutting down due to lack of power, or it could be a dying HDD... any strange noises ?

 

[biomanz]

The fans and everything else are running, so I doubt it'ss the PSU, though Speedfan 4.27 does show the 5V rail outputting only 4.15V average - I don't have any instruments to measure voltages. When the HDD froze, I did hear a small click - you know how when it loads something it has those "clicking" repetitions, only it's one louder "click" when it freezes. I'm hoping it's not HDD corruption

 

[wpshooter]

Get "Everest" motherboard utility program to check your power readings & temperatures.

Then I would get the manufacturers hard drive diagnostic software for your boot drive and check the drive for mechanical problems.

 

[Atheus]

4.15 on the 5-volt rail is WAY too low, you need a new PSU. It doesn't look good for the hard drive either - time for a backup.

 

[biomanz]

I just used Seagate's diagnostics and found that both my drives have one or more errors in the "Metadata File Records." I wrote zero's on the Seagate drive (took a hell long of a time) and still shows the error. I'm going to replace my PSU soon, but are my HDD's toasted from this error? Seems like I can't get rid of it - I also ran Chkdsk on them.