Is it possible for a motherboard to be destroying HDDs?

[KlokWyze]

This is the 3rd time I've gotten this PC (Dell Dimension 2400) from a friend to fix. HDD went out the 1st time. Was a common problem with it and it was old. Replaced the HDD with a Western Digital and reloaded everything.

Got it back about a year later. New HDD went out. I'm like ok something us causing these things to fuck up. Err..... PSU? I replaced the Western Digital HDD with a Seagate Barracuda and PSU with a higher quality/more powerful option.

Got it back again and the Seagate went out. Took the drive out, put it in my PC and it simply won't load up. I hook up a working HDD in her Dell and it detects it fine.

At this point, it has to be the motherboard right or did I get 2 bad new drives in a row?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I think it more likely the HDD was bad than the MB. I've had bad PSU's make HDDs go bad but never a MB and since you replaced it...

 

[KlokWyze]

I would think so too, but 3 bad HDD's in a row? I would think that the chances of that are astronomical. The first one was an old Hitachi, so that one's time was up, but the other 2 were brand new from Newegg.

 

[nenforcer]

Typically an under or over performing power supply can cause electrical issues with everything in the computer but since you have replaced that I would try the hard drive cables. Possibly a short in one of those is causing a corruption. Hard drives are the only mechanical device and you could be just really unlucky! There is nothing metallic or magnetic near the hard drives / computer case is there?

 

[Nocturnal]

Well a year from replacement is not great but it is alright. If the drives died within days of it being installed I would be highly suspect. In this case it sounds like the drives may be overheating and or you have really bad power coming into the house. Do you have a UPS with line conditioning and all that jazz that higher end UPS normally have?

 

[KlokWyze]

Good questions guys. It's a friend's computer so I am not sure if there is bad power coming in the house or some sort of magnetic interference occurring.

No UPS. I really doubt there is any sort of subwoofer or anything near the PC, but I'll double check. I am going to replace the SATA cable though, since it's so cheap. Great suggestion nenforcer.

I've already decided to get a new motherboard and case (Dell case isn't ATX standard) and now, a SATA cable.

Hopefully I won't be rebumping this thread in a few months..... lol

thanks for all the suggestions

 

[MindProbe]

Well....you could have some weird read/write issues depending on the app you are using, but i dont think a MB would cause a bad hdd.

 

[Haroldfern]

Well the BIOS is a very basic piece of software which is stored on the motherboard. The BIOS controls the fans and all major goings on in a computer. An also allows a computer to boot on its own.

 

[prvnsgr]

I think its not possible....though the motherboard destroys the hdd but not completely we can recover that one.

____________________________________
intel xenon processor

 

[jackofalltrades]

I am an electrician and it sounds to me like it is the power supplied to the computer, You see if the computer is tied to a loaded circuit like say a dishwasher or a fridge it can fluctuate the power enough to kill the hard drive. I had a friend who's computer would die the same way and I fixed it 2 times then decided to go check out the circuit and it was an older house and the dishwasher was on the same circuit if you watched it you could even see screen flicker when the dish washer was running! The fix for such stuff is to make sure the only thing onthe circuit is lights and then add a UPS to cover any minor issues.

 

[Zedtom]

I had someone give me an emachine with an Athlon 64 cpu. The hard drive was bricked and I tried everything to restore it. I finally set up another used hard drive and installed Windows XP. Within a few days that hard drive started acting strange, programs would malfunction and the mouse cursor had a mind of its own.

The hard drive eventually locked up. Literally! Locked up and unable to boot without a password. I tried everything to fix it, but it too was bricked.

I finally determined that there must be a virus embedded on the motherboard's CMOS chip. I suppose I could have ordered a new one, but because it was an emachine I sold the processor and discarded the board.
I still have the useless hard drive.

 

[Modelworks]

Really depends on how the drive failed, was it mechanical, did it still spin up , just not recognized by bios ?

One way that a motherboard can cause a HD to fail is through the interface connector , either ide or sata. They use +5V signals to communicate data and the tolerance on these levels is pretty tight. If a motherboard were to start sending spikes onto these cables because of a faulty I/O chip then yes it could kill a hard drive. It might not even do it right away as I/O chips are pretty hearty at taking a spike every now and then, but enough of them could take out a chip making the drive DOA.

 

[piasabird]

Overclocking can cause data corruption which could destroy files on the hard drive . . .

Very similar to unstable power supply.