A friend of mine built a PC from scratch 2 yrs ago and it has been giving him troubles, freezing, slow operation, etc. He brought it to me to fiddle with, figured I could use the practice implementing the things I'm learning from the A+ studying I'm doing.

I ran scandisk and defrag...the defrag took FOREVER...I suspect that was 50% of his problems. Also ran Ad-Aware and found 107 spyware files and removed them.

I wanted to run some additional diagnostics but didn't know what model his HDD was, so I powered down, unplugged and then removed the HDD. Got the model number, etc. off the drive an reinstalled. Since that moment it has been totally dead.

I checked the connections and even tried a different molex connector and a different IDE connector and still nothing...

I felt bad so I have ordered another Maxtor 40GB as a replacement and he used the occasion to purchase XP which I will install for him (was running 98 SE still).

I'm going to try to get a warranty replacement out of Maxtor and then sell to recoup my costs. And the silver lining is he had absolutely no important files or personal data on the machine at all.

I even ran the Maxtor utility but it can't detect the drive. CMOS is set to auto detect but the HDD is literally dead as a doornail. Is there anything else I could try I haven't thought of?

a drive that old probably reached the end of it's lifespan. I have owned those drives and they run quite hot. Heat kills HDs.

That would make sense....he has the worst case I've ever seen...the PSU sits almost on top of the CPU fan, and he had slot covers missing, several big punch outs gone from the back of the case...and I'm sure cooling has been an issue with his machine locking up on him.

I've taped up the case some to help proper airflow..I hope the new drive lasts longer for him.

Cool It!

Sorry to tell you this but I don't see why this computer is stay put together, insert some cooling or something, no way this computer's gonna last for 6 months from this date without causing you many problems.

Well he already has a front case fan and a PCI slot fan kit, so I think its adequate NOW, but a lot of wear may have been caused by the earlier overheating issues.

PSUs generate a lot of heat. Add that to an old hard drive that generates its own heat PLUS being known for running hot and you have a bad combination.

I owned TWO of those drives before and they ran hot. I had them spaced out and they were still working when I sold them, but they ran very hot to the touch (almost burning)