Second HD to die? Maybe the tower is bad?

[Archman]

Hi people,

I had this old HP Pavilion 4535 mini tower laying around, and decided to upgrade it a little bit and give it to my brother's son as a gift, his first computer to learn to do things on and play on (he was only 6).

I put in a powerleap Adapter so I could upgrade the Celeron 400MHz to a Celeron 950MHz, an ATI Radeon 32MB PCI video card, WindowsXP was purchased for the system, and the memory was maxed out at 256MB.

Now this is the second HD to die within two years (it seems as though the HD's go after a year). I am thinking it might have something to do with the fact that the Hard Drive enclosure within the tower does not rest the HD horizontally, instead it is flipped up on its side. Would it be safe to assume that this could be what is causing the damage to the hard drives, or is it just some back luck?

I'll post a link to a picture of what I mean in a little while, just so it is easier to see what I mean.

thanks

 

[Cheetah8799]

I'm betting just bad luck. Especially if you are using older hard drives. They should work fine when mounted on the side. That's how a lot of business workstation systems are built.

 

[arbytech]

Shouldn't matter which side the HDD is mounted on, I agree with Cheetah8799. I have many workstations at my office that have side mounted hard drives. It could just be bad luck or possibly the PSU is going?

Sometimes you never know what happens with kids and computers

 

[Archman]

Okay, as both Hard Drives were older models... the most recent being a Seagate Model ST38410A with 8.4GB of storage capacity. It was a cool Hard Drive as it had rubber surrounding the HD itself.

Well, I will try a brand new HD, either something along the lines of 120GB or 200GB, just because HD's are so cheap now.

Thanks for the info to the both of you

 

[komorus]

What brand of HD's. In my experience, Maxtor's have a tendancy to go head first.

Edit: just read previos posts. so it's not Maxtor's fault this time

 

[Zepper]

Staples has a Maxtor 60GB for $40. this week straight up (coupon code - no rebate) if there are any left. CompUSA had the same one for only $30. but they went really fast. I just ordered mine from staples yesterday and it came today. The air bag that they used for packing had gone flat and the drive was pretty loose in the box. Hope it's not damaged...
. Not a bad idea to get a sturdier PSU too. The ones they use in some of those HP systems are pretty marginal even with only standard equipment in the box. Fortron/Sparkle has a new 270 Watter that's the same physical size as those HP ones I think and it's usually under $30. shipped.
.bh.

:moon:

 

[Archman]

Yeah I actually am thinking a Samsung HD or Seagate for the new ones... I am in Canada(aka the Great White North, due to all the snow) and I usually go into the little local computer shops here.

I did get a newer PSU that was 350Watts, as the original was only rated at 90Watts. Mind you my brother mentioned that a new printer scanner he had bought and installed correctly kept making the system turn off (basically restart itself) anytime he tried to print a document... I thought it was the PSU, but after installing the newer PSU it did the same thing... maybe the SDRAM stick is flakey.

Thanks for all the help guys/gals