In four months I've had three SATA drives fail and I'm left wondering whether it's either an underlying problem or simply coincidence.
Drive 1 [4 months ago] (Maxtor - 18 months of use as general file storage, No O/S)
a. Windows error messages randomly received when attempting to copy files to the disk - You don't have sufficient privileges, seek administrator. Usually no problems encountered on the second attempt. System hangs from time to time.
b. Ran chkdsk, bad sectors located, some minor file loss.
c. Roughly two weeks later Windows again tells me I have insufficient privileges to copy to the disk, so I executed chkdsk and again it found bad sectors. System again starts to hang on occasion.
d. On restarting after chkdsk, rhythmic squeaking could be heard from the disk and it was unusable within 30 minutes. Both the BIOS and Windows could not detect the drive. I tried different cables & SATA ports without any luck.
e. Once the disk was disconnected, Windows returned to proper functionality without any hanging.
Drive 2 [4 Weeks ago] (Seagate - Used for 8 months as primary disk with O/S, and 3 as file storage)
a. Switched on PC, could hear the same rhythmic squeaking as the first failed drive, sure enough Windows told me I didn't have enough privileges to copy to the disk.
b. In a bid to save anything important I started to copy files across to a portable drive I have. Windows crashed and restarted about 7 times while trying to do so before giving up the ghost completely within an hour of first noticeable symptom.
Drive 3 [Today] (Hitachi - Used for 4 months as primary disk with O/S, bought to replace the first disk)
a. I was using Firefox three days ago when my PC completely froze, I left it a while to gather its thoughts but was forced to give it a hard restart. The same happened later on.
b. The PC restarted itself two days ago while I was playing on the Xbox.
c. Yesterday, Firefox again caused another hang only this time it restarted the PC.
d. This morning both Firefox & Trackmania Nations caused the system to hang, both requiring hard restarts.
e. Decided to run chkdsk, it crashed some way through and restarted the PC, it tried to run chkdsk again, and again the PC crashed, only this time the disk could not be detected by the BIOS. Different cables & ports tried with little luck, if I can get Windows running it's only for around 5 mins before it crashes again.
I'm at a loss as to what the problem is, other than a run of bad luck with hard drives. Mind, I have considered a dying motherboard or PSU, or maybe the BIOS? Though I did replace the battery 2 weeks ago after losing settings whenever it was switched off. What do you guys think, can anyone shed some light?
Apologies for the lengthy post.
Drive 1 [4 months ago] (Maxtor - 18 months of use as general file storage, No O/S)
a. Windows error messages randomly received when attempting to copy files to the disk - You don't have sufficient privileges, seek administrator. Usually no problems encountered on the second attempt. System hangs from time to time.
b. Ran chkdsk, bad sectors located, some minor file loss.
c. Roughly two weeks later Windows again tells me I have insufficient privileges to copy to the disk, so I executed chkdsk and again it found bad sectors. System again starts to hang on occasion.
d. On restarting after chkdsk, rhythmic squeaking could be heard from the disk and it was unusable within 30 minutes. Both the BIOS and Windows could not detect the drive. I tried different cables & SATA ports without any luck.
e. Once the disk was disconnected, Windows returned to proper functionality without any hanging.
Drive 2 [4 Weeks ago] (Seagate - Used for 8 months as primary disk with O/S, and 3 as file storage)
a. Switched on PC, could hear the same rhythmic squeaking as the first failed drive, sure enough Windows told me I didn't have enough privileges to copy to the disk.
b. In a bid to save anything important I started to copy files across to a portable drive I have. Windows crashed and restarted about 7 times while trying to do so before giving up the ghost completely within an hour of first noticeable symptom.
Drive 3 [Today] (Hitachi - Used for 4 months as primary disk with O/S, bought to replace the first disk)
a. I was using Firefox three days ago when my PC completely froze, I left it a while to gather its thoughts but was forced to give it a hard restart. The same happened later on.
b. The PC restarted itself two days ago while I was playing on the Xbox.
c. Yesterday, Firefox again caused another hang only this time it restarted the PC.
d. This morning both Firefox & Trackmania Nations caused the system to hang, both requiring hard restarts.
e. Decided to run chkdsk, it crashed some way through and restarted the PC, it tried to run chkdsk again, and again the PC crashed, only this time the disk could not be detected by the BIOS. Different cables & ports tried with little luck, if I can get Windows running it's only for around 5 mins before it crashes again.
I'm at a loss as to what the problem is, other than a run of bad luck with hard drives. Mind, I have considered a dying motherboard or PSU, or maybe the BIOS? Though I did replace the battery 2 weeks ago after losing settings whenever it was switched off. What do you guys think, can anyone shed some light?
Apologies for the lengthy post.