Extremely bad luck with HD failures

T

tangokilla

Weaksauce
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Aug 18, 2008
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In the past two years I had a 500GB Maxtor fail and just over a month ago I had a 640GB Seagate fail on me.

I just purchased a 150GB WD about a week ago and I've already got two BSOD (this was a preliminary to my Seagate HD failing). I noticed that my PC either BSODs or restarts when I am extracting large files that are around 4-5gigs (rapidshare parts).

I just had my computer restart and at bootup it was telling me to insert a bootable drive. I shut down for about a minute, then started up...well, here I am! Working fine and dandy.

I'm about to go out and buy an another HD just in case this one fails as well. But I'm wondering why all the BSODs and the restarting during extraction of files?

Thanks greatly to anyone who can help! I'm fed up with HD failures.
 
Were all these drives in the same case? I'd be looking at bad power or excessive heat if I were you.

Dustin
 
I'm with dustNbone on this one, looks like problem with power supply or other hardware (is the pc overclocked?)
 
Thanks for the prompt reply fellaz!

Yes, they were both in the same case.

No, the PC is not overclocked. Heat had been a problem for my graphics card earlier, but recently I've been keeping my room very cool which brings down the temp of my graphics card to about 48-50C idle. I also did attempt to clean the case as well...

I just downloaded the program HD Tune 2.25 and the temperature for the WD HD is 33C. And the health states it's healthy.
 
HD Tune: ST3160827AS Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 58 51 6 57445333 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 97 96 0 0 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 20 289 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 36 4 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 86 60 30 456432043 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 74 74 0 23142 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 97 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 20 413 Ok
(C2) Temperature 33 46 0 33 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 58 51 0 57445333 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 1 1 0 4735 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 1 1 0 4735 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 100 253 0 0 Ok
(CA) TA Counter Increased 91 244 0 9 Ok

Power On Time : 23142
Health Status : Ok
 
you don't kick or punch you pc case when your angry do you? lol

i have a dozen servers here at the office and 60 pc's and ive had 2 drives in 2 years fail, recent years drive failures seem to be very far and few between
 
I'm guessing it's bad power - assuming you're using the same power supply with all the hard drives. Maybe bad cabling. It's highly unlikely that you're actually receiving defective hard drives.

What power supply does your computer have?
 
SockMan! said:
I'm guessing it's bad power - assuming you're using the same power supply with all the hard drives. Maybe bad cabling. It's highly unlikely that you're actually receiving defective hard drives.

What power supply does your computer have?
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure, as I was not the one that built the PC.

I just tried extracting another big file and I received a BSOD. It mentioned atapi.sys. I googled this and a lot of pages were pointing towards newly installed hardware. The only new hardware is the HD, so it must be the problem right?
 
The only new hardware is the HD, so it must be the problem right?
Click to expand...

No, it could be other things as well. Have you tried testing your memory? that could also be the culprit. You can use the tester from memtest.org and just let it run overnight.
 
tangokilla said:
. The only new hardware is the HD, so it must be the problem right?
Click to expand...

Not really. Find out what power supply you have. As others have said, it may be the culprit. Or it could be the RAM as Toytown said.
 
Putz said:
you don't kick or punch you pc case when your angry do you? lol

i have a dozen servers here at the office and 60 pc's and ive had 2 drives in 2 years fail, recent years drive failures seem to be very far and few between
Click to expand...

Are your PCs towers? I've got around 350 OptiPlex SFF PCs and have had a few drives die in the past 3 years. Not an abnormal amount I suppose, but I'm almost certain that most of the failures were due to heat. I'm not impressed with the airflow in those SFF cases. Most of our systems stay on 24/7 and the HD and PSUs sometimes get too hot to touch. I could have probably cooked a hamburger to medium-well on the last HDD that failed...that thing was scorching.
 
ToyTown: I've downloaded the tester, and I'll run it overnight tonight.

Sockman/Danny: My brother, the one that built it, hasn't been around, I'll post when I get a response.

imyourzero: I've been monitoring the temperature of the HD, and it's not going over 40C. It's usually around 33-34C when I keep my window open. Also, after my first HD failed, I started shutting down the PC every night and every time I wasn't home.
 
Another issue could be the power supply going out, power at the wall plug is not adequate (i know this as it has happened to me), or something is unstable.
 
tangokilla said:
I'm not exactly sure, as I was not the one that built the PC.

I just tried extracting another big file and I received a BSOD. It mentioned atapi.sys. I googled this and a lot of pages were pointing towards newly installed hardware. The only new hardware is the HD, so it must be the problem right?
Click to expand...

What motherboard? I'm pretty sure atapi.sys is the generic Microsoft driver for ATA. It might simply be that the driver doesn't work well with whatever disk controller your board uses. Obviously this would only apply if the problem happens all the time, rather than just starting after a year of working fine.

If the problem does show up after a while, I'd agree with others and say that something in your system is damaging the drive, most likely the PSU.
 
Thanks everyone for their input!

I actually did some research on atapi.sys and I uninstalled Daemon tools and I am NOT getting that BSOD anymore.

Instead (still while extracting large files), I'm getting a BSOD with the STOP:0x000000F4 error.

Unfortunately, I have not done the memory test yet (midterms require me to use PC :[ ).

I would also like to add that I get a BSOD about 20% of the time I'm making BMPs in CS with startmovie command, if anyone is familiar with that. It's basically making anywhere from 500 to 2500 bmp files to generate a 'movie clip' once put together. So, I've been getting BSODs with the making of the BMPs as well.

Also, one last time, I will a BSOD while extracting that certain large file, but when I reboot and try again, it will successfully extract without any errors. I'm making a note to see if it's happens if I leave the CPU on for a long time and try extracting. I will post the results...and the results of the memtest once I get to it.

Thanks again
 
Last edited:
tangokilla said:
Instead (still while extracting large files), I'm getting a BSOD with the STOP:0x000000F4 error.
Click to expand...
Driver error
go to windows update, do custom and see if there are driver updates, snag them all.
then update your vid card driver to the latest.
Make sure you have the chip-set drivers installed.

Run memtest overnight.
 
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