Hard Drive Being Destroyed

[rrodeghero]

I have a system that I put together myself. It originally ran just fine for about six months, then I started having problems booting. I determined that the hard drive was defective, so I replaced it, and it ran fine for about six months again. Then the same thing started happening...problems booting...taking a long time to boot. Again I replaced the hard drive, and it ran fine for a while until the same problem has now started happening again. I am really at a loss for this one. I know that the first two hard drives are now destroyed. One of them is not even recognized during POST and the other will not format. How can this keep happening? Is it possible that some kind of virus could do this? Could it possibly be someting in the motherboard that is destroying the drives? HELP!!!!!

Ron

 

[korrupt]

It cant really be a software problem, I dont think. My best guess is that somehow the HDD's are getting to much Wattage...

Or perhaps, you are just one of the lucky ones.

Regards,

Korrupt

 

[Nodsu]

A bad PSU or a bad IDE controller? Or maybe the drives just plain overheating? Do you move the system a lot so that the hard drive can get bumped or such?

 

[Rick]

How's your luck at cards?

Probably not good.

 

[WindsurferLA]

failing hard drives

Electrical component failures are proportional to an exponential of temperature. Are the harddrives being keep cool either by air flow or conduction of the heat away from their frame?

 

[altheman]

My guess is on overheating. I had the same problem with two HDs that failed then I added a HD cooler, and so far (fingers crossed) no problems.

 

[WindsurferLA]

reducing heat driven hard drive failures

Typically the failure rate of electronic components is exponentially related to operating temperature. One way to keep them cool is to use a CPU cooling fan salvaged from a scrapped computer. The fan can easily be powered by any 6 volt to 12 volt dc power pack salvaged from some obsolete electronic device or battery charger. A 12 volt fan connected to a 6 volt supply will run quietly and still likely deliver enought air to keep the temperature of the hard drive near ambient. How you connect the two wires from the power pack to the fan is usually unimportant although it may influence motor direction. Position the fan so it blows air over the hotest surface of the hard drive.