Hard Drive Dieing?

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zachary80

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Oct 15, 2002
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My Windows has gone completely unbootable twice in the last two weeks. I had to get into the recovery console and do chkdsk. Both times it found 3+ errors and fixed them. Both times after chkdsk it would boot into windows fine. Also, at least one of my hard drives spins up followed by a quick spin down at bootup, locking windows up at the loading screen until I reboot, after which it has worked after 1 reboot multiple times.

Dieing hard disk?
(One in question is the 80gb WD)

A7N8X Deluxe() XP2400+ @ 2.379 [have tried it at stock, temps are fine] () ATi 9800 () 512mb XMS PC3500 Platinum () 2 WD 120gb SE in RAID0 () WD 80gb [boot drive] () 50x CD drive () 52 Lite-on CDRW () Cooler Master ATC-111C-SX1 () Thermalright SLK-800 () Thermaltake Smart Fan II () WINXP Pro
 
Does anyone know?

It happened again today, and I figured it out a little more: First the hard drives spin up and down at the mobo splash, then when it gets to loading Windows, the progerss bar locks up on the third pass indefinitely. Then when I restart, it must be causing some errors to the windows files because as soon as it gets to the windows splash it will reboot. Each time chkdsk finds 3 errors near the begninning of the disk.

If anyone thinks it might be the drive dieing, that would be helpful to know (although there are no strange clicking or scraping noises".
 
You say that the hdd spins up and then clicks and then spins down and then up again. I had 2 hdds doing that to me and it was do to the hdd being too far down a daisy chain from the power suply. Might want to give that a try, other than that the only thing I can say is start backing up what you can now before you loose it (made that mistake with first oen that died).

JEEVES
 
Now when I run " chkdsk c: /r" from the recovery console, it always finds and repairs 3 errors within the first 1% of the drive. Does this sound like there are bad sectors in the boot area? If there were I would think chkdsk would fix them or at least move the files...
 
Try running the HDD manufacturer's drive fitness utility.

I'm willing to bet that there's a good chance that this HDD is about to depart from this world, though. You should have backed up your data weeks ago, and have a replacement HDD ready.
 
Elledan said:
Try running the HDD manufacturer's drive fitness utility.
Click to expand...

I still have not gotten a new drive as I have just been using my laptop. I do have everything backed up thought.

I ran Western Digital's Lifeguard Diagnostics and the drive came back with 0 errors (quick test, extended test, and regular SMART tests). Is this unusual for a drive that randomly spins up and down?
 
I switched just that hard drive to a different PSU while still booting in the same computer. It has had trouble getting in to windows a couple of times, but when it did, it did not make the same click (spinup spindown) sound.

edit:

I ordered a Seagate with 5 year warranty; hopefully if it dies within that time (many of my others have) they will make good on it.
 
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