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I'm building a new HTPC, but it's giving me lots of problems. Of all the computers I've built, this is the smallest, and has been the biggest pain in the ass. First I had trouble with the TV tuner and Media Center. As soon as I sorted that out, the PSU crapped out on me. I had an ATX PSU sitting outside the case while I waited for a replacement mini-ITX PSU to arrive. I get the new PSU in and now I'm having problems, which I believe could be the HD.
The drive is a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green (WD20EADS). When I got the HD, the first thing I did was run the WD Diagnostics full scan on it, as I do with all new drives before I use them, and it passed. When I bought the parts for the new HTPC, I also bought parts to built a new desktop system, so before I put the drive in the HTPC I used the it to backup the stuff on my old desktop before moving to the new one since I was keeping the same HD in the desktop.
Once I had the HTPC up and running the first time, it was fine, except trying to sort out the Media Center problem. It was also running fine on the ATX power supply while waiting for the replacement mini-ITX PSU. It was also running fine for a few days on the new PSU. Then for no apparent reason, just as I thought I had it set up and was ready to put it to use, it began to hang for a couple of minutes during boot up. After it boots up, it runs fine though.
I wasn't suspicious of the HD until I found a post on the MSFN forums with instructions to download the Windows 7 SDK and run a boot trace program for diagnosing slow boots. After running the boot trace, it showed that during that long pause on boot up that the CPU was maxed out, but I couldn't tell what was causing the hang up. I posted on the forum and someone looked at the boot trace log and said it's hanging on the smss.exe and autochk.exe, which could be a possible bad HD and suggest I run chkdsk /r.
The Windows partition is only 20GB, so the chkdsk /r didn't take long to run. It didn't find any problems with the file system or any bad sectors. I ran the WD Diagnostics again, which takes 9 hours on a 2TB drive, but it says the drive is fine too.
I was back to thinking it was a Windows problem, so I re-installed. The first re-install was going fine until after I installed the TV tuner drivers. When it rebooted after the driver install, it began to hang again. I decided to re-install again and make a system image of the clean install before doing anything, but the 2nd re-install began to hang right away. I thought maybe something had corrupted the partition, so I deleted all partitions and tried again.
The third re-install went fine and I was able to make a system image. I rebooted several times and it was doing fine. I began to install the drivers in the same order as the previous installs, and this time it started to hang after the first driver install, which was the ION chipset drivers. I uninstalled the drivers, but the uninstaller doesn't remove the SATA driver, so I reverted to a restore point I created before starting the driver install. It was still hanging on boot. I restored the system image of the clean install, and it was still hanging on boot.
Now I'm thinking something is up with the HD again. I get an old WD 250GB SATA drive I use for occasional backups and put it in the machine. I install Windows 7 to it, all my drivers, setup Media Center, reboot a few times. Everything works, so I format and repeat 3 times and I couldn't re-produce the problem.
Then I stick the 2TB HD in my eSATA dock on my desktop, and as soon as it spins up, I hear my CPU fan kick up to full speed for about 20 seconds before it detects the dive and shows it available. The task manager shows "System" taking up 25% of the CPU (100% of one core of my quad core CPU). I don't recall it doing that when I used the drive before, and it doesn't do that with my other SATA drives that I used in the dock. It can't be a coincidence that it causes high CPU usage when I stick it in my eSATA dock and the boot trace showing the CPU maxed out during the hang on boot in the HTPC.
I've had my fair share of HD problems, but I've never seen anything like this. To me, everything seems to point to the HD as the problem, but before RMA the HD, I'd like to be 100% sure. I'm past the 30-day return period to return it where I bought it, so I'll have to go through warranty replacement with Western Digital. I'd hate to go through getting a replacement HD only to have the same problem with a new drive.
I even copied the 20GB system partition from the 2TB drive that was hanging on boot over to the 250GB drive, and it boots up fine. I'm out of ideas. Have I done everything I can to be sure that the HD is the problem, or is there something else I can try?
The drive is a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green (WD20EADS). When I got the HD, the first thing I did was run the WD Diagnostics full scan on it, as I do with all new drives before I use them, and it passed. When I bought the parts for the new HTPC, I also bought parts to built a new desktop system, so before I put the drive in the HTPC I used the it to backup the stuff on my old desktop before moving to the new one since I was keeping the same HD in the desktop.
Once I had the HTPC up and running the first time, it was fine, except trying to sort out the Media Center problem. It was also running fine on the ATX power supply while waiting for the replacement mini-ITX PSU. It was also running fine for a few days on the new PSU. Then for no apparent reason, just as I thought I had it set up and was ready to put it to use, it began to hang for a couple of minutes during boot up. After it boots up, it runs fine though.
I wasn't suspicious of the HD until I found a post on the MSFN forums with instructions to download the Windows 7 SDK and run a boot trace program for diagnosing slow boots. After running the boot trace, it showed that during that long pause on boot up that the CPU was maxed out, but I couldn't tell what was causing the hang up. I posted on the forum and someone looked at the boot trace log and said it's hanging on the smss.exe and autochk.exe, which could be a possible bad HD and suggest I run chkdsk /r.
The Windows partition is only 20GB, so the chkdsk /r didn't take long to run. It didn't find any problems with the file system or any bad sectors. I ran the WD Diagnostics again, which takes 9 hours on a 2TB drive, but it says the drive is fine too.
I was back to thinking it was a Windows problem, so I re-installed. The first re-install was going fine until after I installed the TV tuner drivers. When it rebooted after the driver install, it began to hang again. I decided to re-install again and make a system image of the clean install before doing anything, but the 2nd re-install began to hang right away. I thought maybe something had corrupted the partition, so I deleted all partitions and tried again.
The third re-install went fine and I was able to make a system image. I rebooted several times and it was doing fine. I began to install the drivers in the same order as the previous installs, and this time it started to hang after the first driver install, which was the ION chipset drivers. I uninstalled the drivers, but the uninstaller doesn't remove the SATA driver, so I reverted to a restore point I created before starting the driver install. It was still hanging on boot. I restored the system image of the clean install, and it was still hanging on boot.
Now I'm thinking something is up with the HD again. I get an old WD 250GB SATA drive I use for occasional backups and put it in the machine. I install Windows 7 to it, all my drivers, setup Media Center, reboot a few times. Everything works, so I format and repeat 3 times and I couldn't re-produce the problem.
Then I stick the 2TB HD in my eSATA dock on my desktop, and as soon as it spins up, I hear my CPU fan kick up to full speed for about 20 seconds before it detects the dive and shows it available. The task manager shows "System" taking up 25% of the CPU (100% of one core of my quad core CPU). I don't recall it doing that when I used the drive before, and it doesn't do that with my other SATA drives that I used in the dock. It can't be a coincidence that it causes high CPU usage when I stick it in my eSATA dock and the boot trace showing the CPU maxed out during the hang on boot in the HTPC.
I've had my fair share of HD problems, but I've never seen anything like this. To me, everything seems to point to the HD as the problem, but before RMA the HD, I'd like to be 100% sure. I'm past the 30-day return period to return it where I bought it, so I'll have to go through warranty replacement with Western Digital. I'd hate to go through getting a replacement HD only to have the same problem with a new drive.
I even copied the 20GB system partition from the 2TB drive that was hanging on boot over to the 250GB drive, and it boots up fine. I'm out of ideas. Have I done everything I can to be sure that the HD is the problem, or is there something else I can try?