My Computer is Eating Hard Drives!!!

Diablo2K

Diablo2K

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 10, 2000
Messages
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Over the last couple years I have gone through 4 hard drives. I will start getting BSODs (green sense updating to Windows Insider Program) then I start getting failure to boot errors, then the hard drive fails completly. I have no idea why this is happening. Using Crystal Disk Info 7 and Seatools the Drives will initially test normal, but eventually they will test as "Bad". My last drive a Seagate Barracuda 1tb will test normal on all tests, but when I use it I get the GSODs about 5 minutes into use, but I clone the drive using USB the replacement drive works fine (250g Laptop drive). I recently bought a Crucial MX500 1tb SSD and although it is much faster I have seen 1 freeze up, and a single GSOD in less than a week. I am afraid of killing the drive if I keep using it. I tested the voltage on the PSU and both 12volt and 5volt tests are normal, within .1 volt. I'm useing a Molex to SATA Power adapter, so no 3.3v. I'm considering the PSU might be an issue still as I can't monitor the voltage over time and it's possible it fluctuates without me knowing it. I am also considering getting a SATA adapter card to see if the problem is with the Motherboards SATA controller.

I also checked the Bios and I am in AHCI mode, is this the proper setting?

P.S. I have also lost an optical drive in the last year or so.
 
Farva said:
What is the model of your power supply? How old is it?
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It's an Ultra X3 1000watt and is at least 5-6 years old. I know Ultra is not a valued brand but it got a Gold award here on the [H] and I bought it used and got a great deal for it at the time.
 
Farva said:
Do you have stable power at your place? Do you have power fluctuations?
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Not that I can tell, I don't see any dimming of the lights or monitors/TVs. Don't have any problems with any other electronics.
 
Try switch power and sata cables?

I had a computer that would cause odd BSODs and it would kill windows installs. Turned out lowering ram speed helped drastically but the problem never fully went away until a board switch. It did it on both NVME and SATA SSD.
 
Priller said:
Try switch power and sata cables?

I had a computer that would cause odd BSODs and it would kill windows installs. Turned out lowering ram speed helped drastically but the problem never fully went away until a board switch. It did it on both NVME and SATA SSD.
Click to expand...
I searched my rats nest of power supply cables and I did find a SATA power cable with 3.3v leads. I for the sake of science cloned the Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive and tried it again, and for almost 2 hours now I have not had any crash or error. Before I couldn't go 15 minutes with this drive. I'll leave it on overnight and run a Seatools Long Generic Test and see if it crashes or not.
 
Yeah, as soon as I read your problem, I figured it was a power issue.
Switch to a new power supply as soon as possible.

If that doesn't fix it, then check SATA cables or your motherboard. But it's probably power.
 
mda said:
Any Seasonic is probably a good idea...
Click to expand...
Might be able to get the Seasonic Focus GM-650 for $99, but that is really pushing my budget. Would consider the 550watt version but it only has a single PCIe connector and almost every video card I have seen requires 2 including the one I have.
 
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You don't necessarily need a "good" power supply.

Even cheaper power supplies, like the best $50 ones from Apevia don't generally cause these sorts of issues. Don't go too cheap, of course, but the best from Apevia probably competes with the worst from Seasonic, eh?
 
Diablo2K said:
Might be able to get the Seasonic Focus GM-650 for $99, but that is really pushing my budget. Would consider the 550watt version but it only has a single PCIe connector and almost every video card I have seen requires 2 including the one I have.
Click to expand...

There might be a power supply in here that may review well and be a fit for your budget.

https://www.thefpsreview.com/category/reviews/power-supplies/

Plug for the guys here/there that have made me only exclusively use seasonics since the X/P series review, especially since the other brands aren't really available in my country.

Aegir said:
You don't necessarily need a "good" power supply.

Even cheaper power supplies, like the best $50 ones from Apevia don't generally cause these sorts of issues. Don't go too cheap, of course, but the best from Apevia probably competes with the worst from Seasonic, eh?
Click to expand...

Not recommended on an FX 8350 machine! ;D

But for most systems, you're right though. I've had generic noname 15$ PSUs run my office machines before they give out after 6-8 years, used 48 hours a week. The batch I'm replacing now with more noname PSUs were made between 2011-2013.
 
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It's a power issue. I had the same problem many years ago. Turned out it was the PSU that was killing drives. I don't remember if it was a Corsair HX or Ultra X3 but either way, it was replaced and no more issues.
 
I agree power is suspect.
But how hot were these drives getting?
 
Diablo2K said:
It's an Ultra X3 1000watt and is at least 5-6 years old. I know Ultra is not a valued brand but it got a Gold award here on the [H] and I bought it used and got a great deal for it at the time.
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Yep, I clearly remember that being an excellent build, mainly because it was a Ultra, and most of their other PSUs were not.

Sinewave UPS is always suggested. Dirty power will eat drives over time assuredly.
 
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FrgMstr said:
Yep, I clearly remember that being an excellent build, mainly because it was a Ultra, and most of their other PSUs were not.

Sinewave UPS is always suggested. Dirty power will eat drives over time assuredly.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the latest GPU's seem to need pretty clean power to operate well according to one of the AIBs. That video you posted was interesting.
 
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It really is time for some internal PC connection standards (especially power) to be updated and improved.
 
daglesj said:
It really is time for some internal PC connection standards (especially power) to be updated and improved.
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Yeah, with the new Nvidia cards, and the upcoming new AMD socket and likely new Intel socket, there's a good reason to cut some bloated legacy out of the picture and start fresh and new, with an attempt to re-optimize and enhance the entire PC experience.
 
DooKey said:
Not to mention the latest GPU's seem to need pretty clean power to operate well according to one of the AIBs. That video you posted was interesting.
Click to expand...
I got now where I do not even replace batteries, I just buy new UPS to make sure it is at peak performance. I then take the old UPS units and rotate those down through less expensive builds and components here in the casa. My 2nd oldest UPS has been on my display, probably 4 years old? It is on the same circuit that gets plugged into for the vacuum cleaner on this end of the house. It got torched the other day and any fluctuation would turn it off. Bought a new one, that went on my personal rig. Old went to the display. Was about 2 years since I bought the last one.
 
I run my PC thorough two levels of surge and power filtering before it even goes into the PC's own PSU. I also use ferrite cores on the power cables and even the internal power cables in the PC. Always been a stickler for clean power and it appears to have paid off for me.

The power cables for my PC and monitor are even audiophile power cables that I used to use for my hi-fi years ago that supposedly reduce RFI etc.
 
daglesj said:
I run my PC thorough two levels of surge and power filtering before it even goes into the PC's own PSU. I also use ferrite cores on the power cables and even the internal power cables in the PC. Always been a stickler for clean power and it appears to have paid off for me.

The power cables for my PC and monitor are even audiophile power cables that I used to use for my hi-fi years ago that supposedly reduce RFI etc.
Click to expand...


What the HECK??
You've gotta be kiddin' me.

I mean, to be honest, I find that sort of setup incredibly SEXY.
But only hypothetically. To actually go that far seems a bit absurd, at least on my budget.

I'm stuck simply WISHING I had a UPS, but I just can't afford that sort of luxury.
Sucks worse because there's been more and more blackouts recently ever since the infrastructure started crumbling due to the plague.
 
Diablo2K said:
Over the last couple years I have gone through 4 hard drives. I will start getting BSODs (green sense updating to Windows Insider Program) then I start getting failure to boot errors, then the hard drive fails completly. I have no idea why this is happening. Using Crystal Disk Info 7 and Seatools the Drives will initially test normal, but eventually they will test as "Bad". My last drive a Seagate Barracuda 1tb will test normal on all tests, but when I use it I get the GSODs about 5 minutes into use, but I clone the drive using USB the replacement drive works fine (250g Laptop drive). I recently bought a Crucial MX500 1tb SSD and although it is much faster I have seen 1 freeze up, and a single GSOD in less than a week. I am afraid of killing the drive if I keep using it. I tested the voltage on the PSU and both 12volt and 5volt tests are normal, within .1 volt. I'm useing a Molex to SATA Power adapter, so no 3.3v. I'm considering the PSU might be an issue still as I can't monitor the voltage over time and it's possible it fluctuates without me knowing it. I am also considering getting a SATA adapter card to see if the problem is with the Motherboards SATA controller.

I also checked the Bios and I am in AHCI mode, is this the proper setting?

P.S. I have also lost an optical drive in the last year or so.
Click to expand...
are you oc'ing pcie? oc'ing heavy? if so can you run prime95 for at least an hour? heavy torrenting? in power settings how long before drives can sleep? maybe try some WD drives, they have been workhorse's for me, i don't even risk running other brands....

why are you cloning drives? if it's an OS just reinstall. if it's data just copy it. if it is a laptop if it get's banged around alot that'll def kill a HDD, heat doesn't help either, like if it's sitting on your bed.
 
Aegir said:
What the HECK??
You've gotta be kiddin' me.

I mean, to be honest, I find that sort of setup incredibly SEXY.
But only hypothetically. To actually go that far seems a bit absurd, at least on my budget.

I'm stuck simply WISHING I had a UPS, but I just can't afford that sort of luxury.
Sucks worse because there's been more and more blackouts recently ever since the infrastructure started crumbling due to the plague.
Click to expand...


Well a lot of the bits I picked up as you do. The surge protector is a higher end Belkin. I live in a city and surges/power cuts are really really rare so I never bother with a UPS. It then feeds into a Farnell mains filter -

https://uk.farnell.com/roxburgh/pmf6/filter-in-line-6a/dp/1101097 (I got half a dozen of these from decommissioning some big video conferencing systems many years ago)

Which then feeds into the PC using a Russ Andrews Yellow power cord. It's a woven design supposedly to reduce noise and RFI. The power cord has ferrites on it at the PSU end. I also put ferrites on the 24pin power/CPU power and GPU power lines.

Ferrites are pretty cheap. https://www.amazon.com/Pienoy-Noise-Filter-Suppressor-Diameter/dp/B07GKBPYB9/ref=sr_1_8?crid=250Q9JEU6BVM1&dchild=1&keywords=ferrite+chokes&qid=1600335047&sprefix=ferrite+,aps,200&sr=8-8

Excluding the power cables its about $50 worth of bits.
 
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d3athf1sh said:
are you oc'ing pcie? oc'ing heavy? if so can you run prime95 for at least an hour? heavy torrenting? in power settings how long before drives can sleep? maybe try some WD drives, they have been workhorse's for me, i don't even risk running other brands....

why are you cloning drives? if it's an OS just reinstall. if it's data just copy it. if it is a laptop if it get's banged around alot that'll def kill a HDD, heat doesn't help either, like if it's sitting on your bed.
Click to expand...
Not overclocking or torrent use, I have BIOS set to balanced. Cloning drives takes about 20 minutes with the little amount I have installed, reinstalling windows takes almost an hour and then you have to go through and get it set up back to where you were liking everything. Also I figured if the drive was cloned it would tell me if the errors/crashes were due to installed software or settings I was using. I have a desktop, specs are in signature. I haven't been using Sleep mode in the past but I am starting to use it in the last week or so.

I have had no crashes/errors sense I switched power leads that now includes 3.3v lines. Before I was using an adapter on a standard molex line.
 
Diablo2K said:
Not overclocking or torrent use, I have BIOS set to balanced. Cloning drives takes about 20 minutes with the little amount I have installed, reinstalling windows takes almost an hour and then you have to go through and get it set up back to where you were liking everything. Also I figured if the drive was cloned it would tell me if the errors/crashes were due to installed software or settings I was using. I have a desktop, specs are in signature. I haven't been using Sleep mode in the past but I am starting to use it in the last week or so.

I have had no crashes/errors sense I switched power leads that now includes 3.3v lines. Before I was using an adapter on a standard molex line.
Click to expand...

well using molex to sata is actually a fix for sata 3.3 drives on older power supplies. which i was looking at doing and my RM750i that doesn't even feel that old to me. Well i wasn't suggesting sleep per se, but if you go to / control panel / all control panel items / power options / change plan settings / change advanced settings / hard disk / turn off disk after / from there you can set the minutes till a drive your not using spins down when not in use. so depending on how often you access your data it may just be a slight delay when accessing the disk while it spins up. (mine are on 40min) and not sure about you but i run my OS and games off of ssd's now so really the only time i need the hdd's spinning is when saving or playing media. and you don't need a page file on every drive. just keep a small one on c: or they'll never sleep.

i know sometimes it sucks to have to reinstall an OS but the [H] way of doing things may just be a solution. I dont' think the cloning software is going to tell you of system level errors, it's just doing what you told it to do and that's clone the drive.

Maybe it could be time to try a new power supply and just keep the one you got as a backup. i know that thing's prob pretty old. I had an Ultra X2 550w in a build i did in like 2005. but your's is 1000w and prob doesn't get stressed much but who knows maybe it's been hit by too many surges or something. good luck.

p.s. don't forget to defrag your HDD's every once in a while and the windows built in one is shit and doesn't defrag small files unless you run from command line and use a switch. deffragler is free. just check settings and make sure it's not automatically starting up or any of that crap.
 
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d3athf1sh said:
well using molex to sata is actually a fix for sata 3.3 drives on older power supplies. which i was looking at doing and my RM750i that doesn't even feel that old to me. Well i wasn't suggesting sleep per se, but if you go to / control panel / all control panel items / power options / change plan settings / change advanced settings / hard disk / turn off disk after / from there you can set the minutes till a drive your not using spins down when not in use. so depending on how often you access your data it may just be a slight delay when accessing the disk while it spins up. (mine are on 40min) and not sure about you but i run my OS and games off of ssd's now so really the only time i need the hdd's spinning is when saving or playing media. and you don't need a page file on every drive. just keep a small one on c: or they'll never sleep.

i know sometimes it sucks to have to reinstall an OS but the [H] way of doing things may just be a solution. I dont' think the cloning software is going to tell you of system level errors, it's just doing what you told it to do and that's clone the drive.

Maybe it could be time to try a new power supply and just keep the one you got as a backup. i know that thing's prob pretty old. I had an Ultra X2 550w in a build i did in like 2005. but your's is 1000w and prob doesn't get stressed much but who knows maybe it's been hit by too many surges or something. good luck.

p.s. don't forget to defrag your HDD's every once in a while and the windows built in one is shit and doesn't defrag small files unless you run from command line and use a switch. deffragler is free. just check settings and make sure it's not automatically starting up or any of that crap.
Click to expand...
I am currently running on a fresh install of windows, no clone of the old drive this time. I also plan on getting a new PSU soon as well, been looking at getting a new case and this monster wont fit so I need the smaller PSU anyway.

Edit: I ran Prime95 today for 2 hours while watching HWMonitor and the 12volt line dropped to 11.85volts and the 5volt line dropped to 4.85. I know that is within acceptable tolerances but it's lower than I would like to see.
 
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Iratus said:
I went through 4 drives before I worked out it was a dodgy SATA cable that was killing my ssd’s.
Click to expand...

I had 2 hard drives die about 15 years ago from a dodgy sata cable.
I only realised after I had changed everything else related to it during which time the 2nd drive died.
Forgot about this, you reminded me.

I cut the cable to bits with scissors to be sure it would never be used again and to give it my angst lol.
After that, no more drive problems.
 
Vibration and extreme heat are also reasons for early failure (before 5 years). And there is always the bad luck.
 
unless you monitor the 12/5v lines directly, the motherboard voltage sensors are not always perfect

i just get a new PSU and be done with as that's what normally kills them
 
Took my SSD Back to Microcenter and got a Seasonic Focus GM-650 PSU. I am going to miss the speed of the SSD but my computer has been stable all day/night on the old hard drive. I can always get another SSD Later, better to be stable than fast.

Thanks for the Advice everyone!!!
 
Aegir said:
What the HECK??
You've gotta be kiddin' me.

I mean, to be honest, I find that sort of setup incredibly SEXY.
But only hypothetically. To actually go that far seems a bit absurd, at least on my budget.

I'm stuck simply WISHING I had a UPS, but I just can't afford that sort of luxury.
Sucks worse because there's been more and more blackouts recently ever since the infrastructure started crumbling due to the plague.
Click to expand...
PM me and I'll send you a link for what should be an open box new sinewave UPS that's usually $400+ for a fraction of that price. (y)
 
daglesj said:
The power cord has ferrites on it at the PSU end. I also put ferrites on the 24pin power/CPU power and GPU power lines.

Ferrites are pretty cheap. https://www.amazon.com/Pienoy-Noise-Filter-Suppressor-Diameter/dp/B07GKBPYB9/ref=sr_1_8?crid=250Q9JEU6BVM1&dchild=1&keywords=ferrite+chokes&qid=1600335047&sprefix=ferrite+,aps,200&sr=8-8

Excluding the power cables its about $50 worth of bits.
Click to expand...
Is there a rule for which end the cores go on? Why not both? Why not fill the whole cord up with ferrite cores?
 
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daglesj said:
I run my PC thorough two levels of surge and power filtering before it even goes into the PC's own PSU. I also use ferrite cores on the power cables and even the internal power cables in the PC. Always been a stickler for clean power and it appears to have paid off for me.

The power cables for my PC and monitor are even audiophile power cables that I used to use for my hi-fi years ago that supposedly reduce RFI etc.
Click to expand...
On the internal cables, I would think that they would cause problems with some components they could be squeezed into close proximity with. Mechanical hard drives, for example.

But it certainly is an easy thing to add.
 
Ceph92 said:
Is there a rule for which end the cores go on? Why not both? Why not fill the whole cord up with ferrite cores?
Click to expand...


The accepted rule is to put ferrites as close to the actual device as possible. More ferrites/or windings depending on the type of ferrite used, just provides more attenuation. Plenty of info on the web about them.
 
Ceph92 said:
On the internal cables, I would think that they would cause problems with some components they could be squeezed into close proximity with. Mechanical hard drives, for example.

But it certainly is an easy thing to add.
Click to expand...

Never had any issues, they come in all shapes and sizes.
 
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