Help! My comp crashes- suspect harddrive failure

[xerocool]

Ok, so my computer freezes up every now and then. And then when I reboot the screen that shows what hard drives are connected to my Maxtor ATA pci card, only 2 out of the 3 that are connected show up. Normally it says:

IDE 1: Maxtor 160GB Ultra DMA 6
IDE 2: Western Digital 200GB Ultra DMA 5
IDE 3: Maxtor 160GB Ultra DMA 6
IDE 4: No Drive Detected

But then after each computer freeze it says:

IDE 1: Maxtor 160GB Ultra DMA 6
IDE 2: No Drive Detected
IDE 3: Maxtor 160GB Ultra DMA 6
IDE 4: No Drive Detected

At which point I have to reset again and then it finally shows the normal screen. If I don't reset, I'll get to my WinXP startup screen but it'll never get past that point. Anyone have any ideas as to why this is happening?

The crashing may not be because of the hard drive problem, but I have a strong feeling it is.

Thanks!

 

[Ronstang]

This is a no-brainer......your power supply is inadequate to handle all of your hardware. I had exactly the same problem and a new PSU cured it.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
This is a no-brainer......your power supply is inadequate to handle all of your hardware. I had exactly the same problem and a new PSU cured it.

could also be the cables... I had an issue with my mobo-supplied IDE cables where, after rebooting the system, the second HD wouldn't be detected. I replaced the cables, and the problem was fixed.

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: Ronstang
This is a no-brainer......your power supply is inadequate to handle all of your hardware. I had exactly the same problem and a new PSU cured it.

could also be the cables... I had an issue with my mobo-supplied IDE cables where, after rebooting the system, the second HD wouldn't be detected. I replaced the cables, and the problem was fixed.

The fact that the secondary drives on each IDE channel do not show up means it is more than likely a PSU since there is not enough juice to initiate them. Having both cables bad at the same time is highly unlikely.

 

[nageov3t]

I, err... ok, I got nothing

take Ronstang's advice. you might be able to test out the idea by doing a minimal boot -- nothing powered up except for what's absolutely necessary.

 

[xerocool]

well, it boots up fine (most of the time) and runs fine (most of the time), it's just every now and then (like once every 3 days or so), it'll crash (freeze) for no reason.

the PSU i got is an Antec 350W, but i do have 4 HDD's (20,160,160,200GB), 2 optical drives (dvd, cdrw), 1 floppy (i know, i know!), a radeon 9700 pro, a p4 3.06b and some powered LED's (case fans, front lcd temp display, etc.)

so i know that's alot, but if it only crashes once every 3 days and then fixes itself after 2 reboots, does that still indicate inadequate power supply?

btw, i would run only the minimal but then i'd have to wait around for 3 days or so to find out if it's the PSU, and sometimes my comp doesn't crash for like a week, and all my games are on the other drives so

 

[NokiaDude]

It could be a bad molex connector. The exact same thing happened to my main HD I use for XP and I switched power connectors on the ddrive with a spare. Now it works perfectly, the old connector is labeled "bad". Your rig seems to have an okay PSU, but more power would be nice!