Old computer, HD recognized, but it turns off.

[Scorpionjwp]

Here is my situation, this computer just happens to be my fathers. I have gotten the problem down to 2 places, the HD or the powersupply, but I don't think it is a powersupply problem.The Hard drive in question is a western digital 60gb hd, and the powersupplies involved in this mess is a Ultra x-connect 400w, and the second powersupply to test if it is power related: Antec truepower 330w.

What happens is this:
The bios can recognize the hd, SMART doesn't give any errors, but once the hd enters past the bootup screen for windows xp, it acts like it is spinning down, then it turns off. I even had another hd, connected to the x-connect to duplicate the hd spinning down and shutting down, same effect with both hds. I even tried the 2nd powersupply, same issue with the hd's.

But however the 2nd powersupply which is the Antec, has been tried in another machine and it works perfectly, no problems there. I tried the 60gb hd in the file recovery server to see if it takes the hd w/o any trouble. In fact, no spin down on the hd and I can see files perfectly on the hd.

I have tried the Western Digital lifeguard tools on the hd in the server, the hd has passed.
To make matters worse, I have tried the primary and secondary channels of the motherboard to see weather or not it maybe motherboard related, both channels would see the hd, but also the spin down and shut off of the drive. It would reboot and same problem again.

To answer a few question if anyone asks, this computer has been running 24/7 for the past few days, and then I powered down the machine 1 day ago, turned it on the next day and then the hard drive starts doing this. All parts are seated properly, no loose ends, power gets to cd drive ok, and to the rest of the computer.
I tried the multimeter on the x-connect, but w/o knowing how to power it up with out a motherboard, I cannot tell if it's bad or good. I'm about to pull the trigger in the next day or so to buy a powersupply or a hard drive. I need to have an answer pretty quick, father is using this computer for turbotax to finish up their taxes.

So I don't know if it is:
A. the motherboard ide channels have gone bad
B. The hard drive or both hard drives are ready to go belly up
C. The x-connect has seen 2 years of use and died.

 

[[Spectre]]

If it is happening with two different PSU's and two different hard drives it is unlikely that it is either the hard drive or the PSU.

 

[Scorpionjwp]

Ok here is the ultimate kicker to my situation, if it isn't either the powersupply or hard drive.

Then why am I now able to get into installing windows 2000 on the second hard drive and have gotten to the screen for windows to format the drive. And it is even formating it.

I'm formatting the drive via the second spare powersupply. I'm here on my computer able to look at the first hard drive from my fathers system and able to see all files and transfer them to my computer.

Can corrupt system files is to blame that can cause the drive to kick off and spin back up?