Hey all,
I built a computer in Jan 2004 that included the following components
motherboard: ASUS A7N9X-E Deluxe
hard drive: 160GB SATA Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
Everything worked great for many months. Eventually I added a second SATA hard drive for data (Maxtor 320GB) and everything still worked great for many more months.
But then I started having problems... maybe around summer 2006. My OS would freeze at random times, and I would hear a hard drive kind of like spinning up / seeking hard for a few seconds, then the OS would unfreeze and everything would return to normal. I immediately unplugged my 320GB Maxtor to protect my data cause I didn't know if I had a virus or something......but it didn't matter. It was the 160GB Seagate that was doing it. The freezes/spin ups eventually started happening more and more often until eventually you'd just turn the computer on and the hard drive would just keep spinning and spinning and you couldn't even boot to Windows.
I decided the Seagate HD was dying. So I grabbed an old PATA hd I had lying around and put that in there, installed WinXP on it, and was able to boot from it. Trying to access data from the Seagate (still plugged in, just no longer booting to it) didn't really work because of all the freezes so I eventually unplugged it and resigned myself to the fact I'd need to buy another SATA HD to boot from. While decided what I wanted to buy, a few weeks later I plugged the Seagate HD back in just to see what would happen and - holy cow - it worked fine. I didn't boot from it, I have been booting from the PATA ever since I put it in - but I was able to access ALL the data with no problems. I crammed the PATA, the 320GB SATA, my ipod, and a bunch of DVDRs with all the data I needed off it and it worked fine the entire time! I couldn't believe it. Once that was done I turned everything off and tried booting from the Seagate SATA again and - nope, constant freezes/spin ups like before. sigh. Took it out and it hasn't been back in my computer since.
So I decided it was dead afterall despite its short resurrection. I bought its replacement last month - a brand new Seagate 320GB SATA 7200.10 from Newegg. I plugged it in and - while still booting from the PATA - had Windows format and partition it. Well guess what? THAT hard drive - the brand NEW Seagate - did the whole freezing/spin up thing. I'd boot up, everything would be fine, OS would never freeze - until I tried to access data that I had copied to that HD when it would freeze and I'd hear that hard drive spinning loudly again, just like the old Seagate.
So I decided I got really unlucky and Newegg just happened to send me a bad HD so I RMAed it and they sent me a replacement.
So you know where this is going right?
Tonight I unplugged all HDs and then plugged in the new Seagate only and booted from my WinXP install CD. Right away before I even got a chance to format the new Seagate - the WinXP install app was freezing and I was hearing the spin ups.
ARG! So now I feel that not only was there nothing wrong the first new Seagate HD that Newegg sent me, there is probably nothing wrong with my original 160GB Seagate drive either.
But I can't figure out what the problem is!! Some kind of incompatibility with Seagate HDs and my motherboard? But why would it happen suddenly, years into owning my rig? I don't think it would be a software thing since it just happened tonight with nothing plugged in but the completely unformatted HD.
Any help would be SOOOO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!
I built a computer in Jan 2004 that included the following components
motherboard: ASUS A7N9X-E Deluxe
hard drive: 160GB SATA Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
Everything worked great for many months. Eventually I added a second SATA hard drive for data (Maxtor 320GB) and everything still worked great for many more months.
But then I started having problems... maybe around summer 2006. My OS would freeze at random times, and I would hear a hard drive kind of like spinning up / seeking hard for a few seconds, then the OS would unfreeze and everything would return to normal. I immediately unplugged my 320GB Maxtor to protect my data cause I didn't know if I had a virus or something......but it didn't matter. It was the 160GB Seagate that was doing it. The freezes/spin ups eventually started happening more and more often until eventually you'd just turn the computer on and the hard drive would just keep spinning and spinning and you couldn't even boot to Windows.
I decided the Seagate HD was dying. So I grabbed an old PATA hd I had lying around and put that in there, installed WinXP on it, and was able to boot from it. Trying to access data from the Seagate (still plugged in, just no longer booting to it) didn't really work because of all the freezes so I eventually unplugged it and resigned myself to the fact I'd need to buy another SATA HD to boot from. While decided what I wanted to buy, a few weeks later I plugged the Seagate HD back in just to see what would happen and - holy cow - it worked fine. I didn't boot from it, I have been booting from the PATA ever since I put it in - but I was able to access ALL the data with no problems. I crammed the PATA, the 320GB SATA, my ipod, and a bunch of DVDRs with all the data I needed off it and it worked fine the entire time! I couldn't believe it. Once that was done I turned everything off and tried booting from the Seagate SATA again and - nope, constant freezes/spin ups like before. sigh. Took it out and it hasn't been back in my computer since.
So I decided it was dead afterall despite its short resurrection. I bought its replacement last month - a brand new Seagate 320GB SATA 7200.10 from Newegg. I plugged it in and - while still booting from the PATA - had Windows format and partition it. Well guess what? THAT hard drive - the brand NEW Seagate - did the whole freezing/spin up thing. I'd boot up, everything would be fine, OS would never freeze - until I tried to access data that I had copied to that HD when it would freeze and I'd hear that hard drive spinning loudly again, just like the old Seagate.
So I decided I got really unlucky and Newegg just happened to send me a bad HD so I RMAed it and they sent me a replacement.
So you know where this is going right?
Tonight I unplugged all HDs and then plugged in the new Seagate only and booted from my WinXP install CD. Right away before I even got a chance to format the new Seagate - the WinXP install app was freezing and I was hearing the spin ups.
ARG! So now I feel that not only was there nothing wrong the first new Seagate HD that Newegg sent me, there is probably nothing wrong with my original 160GB Seagate drive either.
But I can't figure out what the problem is!! Some kind of incompatibility with Seagate HDs and my motherboard? But why would it happen suddenly, years into owning my rig? I don't think it would be a software thing since it just happened tonight with nothing plugged in but the completely unformatted HD.
Any help would be SOOOO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!
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