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Very frustrating hard drive problem

T

trk996

Junior Member
I'm usually able to solve my computer problems myself or with a little research but with this one I'm lost.

A couple weeks ago my computer started crashing (straight to reboots). I tried to figure it out, drivers, memtest, hd diagnosis, etc with no problems. But it wasn't long till I figured out that it was when I accessed one of my hard drives that it kept crashing. Though it was only sustained access that caused a crash, I could listen to music from it or download files to it no problem. But within 30 seconds of starting a rar extraction or copying a large file it would crash.

So I wanted to get my data off, so I froze my hard drive and was able to transfer all my files off of it. I was happy, I had saved my data and my computer was stable again.

Fast forward to today and my comp just crashes (reboot)... I think it has to just be a random crash, can't be the same problem.... Sure enough whenever I access my hard drive (not the same one!) for more than a few seconds sustained it crashes.

What can cause this? It seems to me that its unlikely for 2 hard drives from 2 different manufacturers made a couple years apart would fail a few weeks apart in the same way. And I haven't made any changes to my comp in a long time.

Hardware:
intel i5 750
gigabyte p55-ud4p
8gb ddr3 gskill
boot drive: ocz vertex ssd 60gb
current hd with problem: hitachi HDS721010CLA332 (7200rpm 1tb)
old hd with problem(not in comp anymore): seagate ST3320620AS (7200rpm 320gb)
Window 7 x64

And I noticed the problems both times when resuming from sleep mode. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Thanks. I guess that's what I'll probably have to try. Hopefully it will work I don't like to buy parts for a test, though I probably don't have many other options.
 
i would look in three areas.

1) Memory -- You said you checked this with memtest, but you might try to remove all the DIMM but one and do an extract.

2) CPU overclock or overvolt can cause wierdness, so if you have any clocking, just return to defaults and try the rar test.

3) Hard drive -- test the target hard drive, which I suspect is a D: drive or something, with a thorough block test...run it over night...or a few days...will take a while.

Also remember to check your C: drive as well. I would bet that rar is creating a temp file on your windows page disk or C: drive, so you might look there for errors as well.

If all that fails then power supply...
 
@Magnus: That is why I bought a Corsair TX850W when I built my current rig. I thought corsair was a good brand and 850 watts should cover future upgrades.

@cronjob: 1) do you mean test one dimm at a time?
2) I have it at default
3) I can't do a thorough test cause it will crash. And I disabled the page file on C: since its a ssd and I have enough ram.
 
Check/replace your SATA cables and try a different SATA port. Swap power plugs as well, making sure it's on a dedicated cable.

Also, for memtest, be sure to loop overnight for best results.
 
It appears that it was the power supply. I picked one up after work and installed it a couple hours ago and I've been copying the files from the hard drive that would crash to another one with no problems(~700gb). So hopefully that's it with no relapses in the future.
 
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