Hard Drive problem, maybe...

[dark_hag666]

Right, a couple of months ago, maybe a little less, my computer started making a click-clock noise and freezing up for around 20 seconds. Then it wouldn't boot into Windows. At the time I figured the hard drive (a 120Gb SATA Maxtor), so I bought a replacement (a 160Gb SATA Western Digital). Installed Windows and all was well.

Fast forward to yesterday, return of the click-clock noise so i tried running checkdisk but it frooze at 36% of the 4th section ... and this morning another couple of click-clocks, accompanied by 20 second freezes. Then again it won't boot into windows, it gets as far as the blue loading bar, but the bar keeps going and going. It also wont go into safe mode either.

I thought maybe Windows is corrupt of something, so I tried to reinstall Windows from my SP2 Slipstreamed Disk, but after loading the drivers it stops and says somethink about one of the disks.

Also, yesterday I had a look in the event viewer and at the time of each click-clock there were several entries...One about a buffer overrun on the PS/2 port, or something like that, but there was also a non-descript one that said something about viaraid, so I am left wondering if the VIA SATA controller is bust (this is supported by what my Windows install says when I try to install at the moment. There was also a thrid that said something about an error with the page file or an error while paging.

However, what is the click-clocking, if it is the SATA controller, why did replacing the hard drive fix it a month ago. But if it's the hard drive, why does the computer lock up when it click-clocks.

Any ideas?

Ta

 

[Cupra]

try taking the drive out the ppc but leaving it plugged in and listen to the drive

 

[dark_hag666]

What am I meant to be listening for? The click-clock must be the hard drive, as that's the only mechanical thing im the PC, except the DVD drive, which was empty. The click-clock noise isn't constant, it's litterally one click-clock, the drive doesn't constantly click like

I thinks its either the VIA SATA chip, if its possible for a chip like that to die; the hard drive (although the noise isn't how I'd imaging if the drive was dying, one click-clock every so often...If the drive was dying it would constantly click surely) or (following advice from a friend) possible the PSU.