Multiple HD failures

PikeyPriest · 13 Aug 2009 at 11:28

Since i built my current PC (3 years ago i think, when conroes launched) I have had 3 hard drive failures (with at least 2/3 additional crashes where everything was lost). All of the drives have been <1 year old and sATA. They have been a 250gb, 500gb and 1tb WD drives. Despite these failures i have an old 250gb maxtor IDE drive that runs without a problem 24/7 for 5 years.

With the 1tb drive failing when it was new in march, I have started to think that the motherboard sATA controller might be in some way be killing these drives. The last 2 failures (500gb and the 1 tb) have both resulted in multiple computers refusing to even post if they are connected as non-boot drives.

The motherboard in question is a Asus P5W DH Deluxe (no overclock)

I`m going to get the drive swapped under-warranty, but does is it possible that there is a rare and intermittent motherboard fault causing the problem? Should i change the motherboard at the same time? I`m also thinking about picking up an SSD and using a partition of either the 500 or 1tb drive as a backup.

Thanks for any suggestions

nomadd · 13 Aug 2009 at 11:37

PikeyPriest said:
Since i built my current PC (3 years ago i think, when conroes launched) I have had 3 hard drive failures (with at least 2/3 additional crashes where everything was lost). All of the drives have been <1 year old and sATA. They have been a 250gb, 500gb and 1tb WD drives. Despite these failures i have an old 250gb maxtor IDE drive that runs without a problem 24/7 for 5 years.

With the 1tb drive failing when it was new in march, I have started to think that the motherboard sATA controller might be in some way be killing these drives. The last 2 failures (500gb and the 1 tb) have both resulted in multiple computers refusing to even post if they are connected as non-boot drives.

The motherboard in question is a Asus P5W DH Deluxe (no overclock)

I`m going to get the drive swapped under-warranty, but does is it possible that there is a rare and intermittent motherboard fault causing the problem? Should i change the motherboard at the same time? I`m also thinking about picking up an SSD and using a partition of either the 500 or 1tb drive as a backup.

Thanks for any suggestions

I've got a couple of 500GB WD drives in my machine and I've never had a problem with them. Like you, I built the machine about 3 years ago.

In my experience (25 years in IT, so lots of disk failures) I'd say dust and overheating are the two most common causes of disk failure. Are you sure your pc is adequately ventilated? Have you cleaned the dust filters behind the inbound air fans?

Just my initial thoughts.

Nomadd

PikeyPriest · 13 Aug 2009 at 11:49

nomadd said:
I've got a couple of 500GB WD drives in my machine and I've never had a problem with them. Like you, I built the machine about 3 years ago.

In my experience (25 years in IT, so lots of disk failures) I'd say dust and overheating are the two most common causes of disk failure. Are you sure your pc is adequately ventilated? Have you cleaned the dust filters behind the inbound air fans?

Just my initial thoughts.

Nomadd

#

Yep the sata drives have all sat infront of the front fan (120mm) which i clean fairly regularly. All failure have also happened at startup after working perfectly when they were shut-down.

Ch3m1c4L · 13 Aug 2009 at 11:58

do you ever update your bios? Early revisions can sometimes have problems with data corruption etc so at a push it could be the cause?

PikeyPriest · 13 Aug 2009 at 12:08

Ch3m1c4L said:
do you ever update your bios? Early revisions can sometimes have problems with data corruption etc so at a push it could be the cause?

No, ive never updated it. I`ll see what revisions have done to see if there were any changes.

PikeyPriest · 13 Aug 2009 at 14:48

I`m going to try updating the bios, then im going to get an SSD.

Once i get the 1tb replacement back, i`ll try using a partition on that as an image backup of the SSD so i can easily restore in the future. Are there any good/cheap programs to do this?

miniyazz · 13 Aug 2009 at 17:11

PikeyPriest said:
i have an old 250gb maxtor IDE drive that runs without a problem 24/7 for 5 years.

Lies!

More likely to be a PSU problem than a mobo problem IMO.

Ch3m1c4L · 13 Aug 2009 at 20:47

PikeyPriest said:
I`m going to try updating the bios, then im going to get an SSD.

Once i get the 1tb replacement back, i`ll try using a partition on that as an image backup of the SSD so i can easily restore in the future. Are there any good/cheap programs to do this?

acronis is what most people on here recommend