weird hard drive problem

[nopriznaz]

I have a western digital 80 gb caviar that is about a month old.

Twice this week, my computer has just rebooted while I'm in the middle of using it and then when it tries to boot up it says something like HARD DRIVE DISK FAILURE. Of course the first time that happened I sh!t a brick, but then I turned the system off for about 5 minutes and then restarted it and everything worked absolutely fine. The second time it happened, I just turned it off for about 30 seconds then back on and everything again was fine.

My question really is, is my hard drive going bad/defective or is it overheating?

 

[LiLithTecH]

One way to find out for sure is to run WD's Diagnostic program.

DLG Diagnostic

Also, what OS are you using?

 

[nopriznaz]

I'm running Windows 2000, SP2.

How does WD's diagnostic program work? Do I need to install their Lifeguard software that they bundle with all of their drives? I've never installed that, is it worthwhile?

I bought a new hard drive, partly because I was going to anyway, but the increasingly frequent crashes and program slowdown encouraged me quite a bit . So now I have all my data backed up and I'm running all of my programs off of the new hard drive, but what should I do with the defective one? Should I try to do some low-level formatting or something to fix it, or just clear it and return it (I believe my warranty is NOT up yet)?

Thanks!

 

[LiLithTecH]

No, you do not need to install the Lifeguard software.

The above link is to the Diagnostic software, which is run from a bootable floppy.
Format a floppy with the System files, unzip the file to floppy.

 

[IanWorthington]

Is the message out of the BIOS?

If so, try changing the CMOS battery... I've had a couple of machines which gave similar strange problems... eventually the CMOS RAM went corrupt and the culprit became obvious.

nb just cause its a new system doesn't mean the battery's good. both these where < 6 mo old.

ian
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