Cause of hard drive failure?

>
> If you are getting a SMART error then the drive is usually bad. The
> controller on the motherboard could be bad as well, espcially since you
> have had so many bad drives, which is either bad luck or your drive is
> bad now because your motherboard controller is bad or there may be a bad
> connector on your power supply. I've had a bad power supply or two in
> only a few of my customer's computers, the bad power supplies would just
> chew up hard drives and motherboards but would pass any voltagemeter
> test I used to diagnose the power supplies with the power supply tester
> which is for sale at most online e-retailers. So don't rule that out.
> Try a different but known good power supply first, if possible, and see
> if the smart errors go away.
>
> Then confront HP, tell them that the power supply killed your
> motherboard and is eating hard drives every 4 months if that's the case.
> Beause it is really odd and unlucky to get so many bad drives. I'm
> guessing that the second drive may be from an older system and hasn't
> ever been replaced before and isn't having problems, so I think there's
> either a problem with the power supply connector being used or the power
> supply is no good and maybe the motherboard is bad. This is all
> hypothetical because I can't actually see your computer and diagnose it
> any further than what you have shared here.
>
> I've had bad experiences with Maxtor brand hard drives. You should use
> the disk utility that is provided on the hard drive manufacturer's web
> site to determine if the hard drive is faulty.
>
> Here are links to the big 4. Maxtor has been a subsidiary of seagate
> for a while now, but I'm including it since some PC makers (*HP COUGH
> CRAP COUGH*) like to put Maxtor branded drives into their systems still
> (sometimes).
>
> Maxtor - 'Maxtor - External Storage, External Drive, Hard Drive'
> (http://www.seagate.com/maxtor)
> Seagate/Quantum/Maxtor - 'Seagate Technology' (http://www.seagate.com)
> Western Digital - 'www.westerndigital.com'
> (http://www.westerndigital.com)
> Hitachi GST & IBM (Deskstar) Hard Drives - 'Hitachi Global Storage
> Technologies' (http://www.hitachigst.com)
>
> You should use a power supply tester that can test all of the
> connectors on your power supply and verify that the correct voltage is
> being supplied. Also, HP does offer a hardware diagnostic software ISO
> that can be burned to bootable CD-R (depends on model) that will
> diagnose the hardware and give a usually effective result.
>
> Orientation of the drives doesn't matter if the drives aren't jostled
> around while they are spinning. I know that drives don't like to be
> mounted at 45 degrees and flat mounting gives the best performance
> results. The straight up and down mounted drives usually causes them to
> make noises during disk activity that is more than the flat mounted
> drives.
>
> The little bit of vibration a hard drive makes during normal operation
> shouldn't cause it to loose it connection with either the power
> connector or data cable. If this is the case replace the data cable, if
> the connector on the power supply does not snugly fit into the power
> socket of the hard drive, replace the power supply, don't fart around
> and try to "fix" a power supply or you may end up in the hospital. Just
> my generic friendly warning, never alter or repair power supplies or
> their connectors, just replace them as directed on their affixed
> stickers.
>
>
> --
> fuzor_silverbolt
>
> -----------My Rig-----------
> Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
> Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs),
> ~2.7GHz
> Memory: 3326MB RAM
> Hard Drive: 984 GB 2x500GB RAID 0
> Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
> Monitor: SyncMaster 2220WM/G22PW/220WM(Digital)
> Sound Card: SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
> Operating System: Windows XPâ„¢ Pro 32bit
>

> On each occasion I have run chkdsk and scandsk diagnostics and there are no
> problems detected so that's a bit confusing to me. Is there anything else I
> should be checking that could be creating the problem - perhaps a faulty
> cable or something else. My computer has 2 hard drives - the primary C drive
> is the one that is 'failing' and it is mounted 'vertically' on a chasis. The
> second drive is mounted 'flat' on the bottom panel.

> On May 13, 10:04 pm, Bonnie. <Bon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> > On each occasion I have run chkdsk and scandsk diagnostics and there are no
> > problems detected so that's a bit confusing to me. Is there anything else I
> > should be checking that could be creating the problem - perhaps a faulty
> > cable or something else. My computer has 2 hard drives - the primary C drive
> > is the one that is 'failing' and it is mounted 'vertically' on a chasis. The
> > second drive is mounted 'flat' on the bottom panel.

>
> First, those are not hardware diagnostics. Those are Windows
> diagnostics. It is an HP. Computer manufacturer is more responsible
> - provided comprehensive hardware diagnostics that give numbers and
> detailed messages. Without those numbers and messages, then the few
> who can actually answer your question will not post.
>
> Only one 'disk drive computer' controlled both drives. If either
> drive is defective, then the one computer will report a failure. Is
> the defect in drive two but you keep replacing drive one (because
> drive one controls drive two)?
>
> Second reason for failure are completely and always defective power
> supply voltages. Completely defective power supply can boot a
> computer. The naive then assume the power supply is good. Power
> supply causes strange things to happen once every month. Does that
> sound like your computer? 'Sound' means nothing. Again, the numbers.
> Voltage measurements are the only way to identify or eliminate that as
> a reason for a failure.
>
> Heat is not a problem. Your computer must be in love when a room is
> 100 degrees F. A computer that is failing in a 70 degree room does
> not have a heat problem. It has a hardware problem. How to find a
> completely defective machine? Operate it even in a 100 degree room.
> If it fails, a hardware problem probably exists - another reason why
> more responsible computer manufacturers provide comprehensive hardware
> diagnostics - to find that failure even when heat makes the failure
> easier to find..
>
> Step back. Is your problem with hardware or software? Windows does
> little to find hardware failures. Windows works around hardware
> failures - does everything possible to ignore those problems. However
> Windows also has system (event) logs so that months after a problem
> occurs, then a hardware guy can identify the problem. What (exactly
> letter by letter) does each failure message in those logs say? Just a
> few suggestions that would go after a problem rather than its
> symptoms.
>