Is Hard disk or Mother board faulty?

C

I have bought a new system 3 months back with Intel 945GCNL mother board and Seagate 250 GB SATA hard disk. After 10-15 days, hard disk developed bad sectors and one day it failed to boot. So I checked hard disk with Seatools software as suggested by seagate support personal.

Hard disk failed the test. So I replaced the hard disk. New hard disk again failed immediately. I replaced 2nd time. Third hard disk also failed after one day of working.

Now I have replaced that (3rd time replacement) and get fourth hard disk which worked for 5 days and then failed to boot.

I have changed data cable, and power cable to check whether they are faulty. But, hard disk is still failed. I have checked hard disk on another system also where it worked for 3-4 days and failed.

I have another Samsung 40GB IDE (PATA) hard disk which is working fine from starting.

I have ran Seatools tool many times on the SATA hard disk. It is failing some times and passing some times.

I dint understand where the problem lies.

Mother Board is faulty: But, I rule out this because hard disk failed on another system also.
Hard disk is faulty: May be this is true. But, I am feeling reputed company like Seagate won't give me defected hard drive as replacement, especially for 3 times. So, problem may lie somewhere else.
Any problem with the capacity of 250GB?

Am I missing anything? Please help me locate the problem.

May be a problem with ur PSU / SMPS.

C

But, my PATA hard drive is working fine and SATA hard drive failed on another machine also.

Again can it be SMPS problem?

C

Please advise me ... what might be the problem

N

ckanth99 said:
But, my PATA hard drive is working fine and SATA hard drive failed on another machine also.

Again can it be SMPS problem?

Definatly Problem is in your SATA hard disk...they have given u spoil HDD in replacement...

C

May be it is the reason (hopefully). But, this is 4th time hard disk is failing (I have replaced 3 times). Can't think of reputed company like Seagate giving me 3 spoilt hard disks in succession

( .

Are there any more possibilties?

X

It might be a faulty SATA port/cable. check in any other port. Also with another cable(comes for Rs25)

C

I have tried with new SATA data cable on different port. Didn't check with new power cable since I have checked on another computer and it failed there also.
Anyway I will try with another power cable and check.

I don't think one can expect all 4 or 5 HDDs to fail one by one like this..there could be something 'special' happening in your PC.

Are you living in an area having power fluctuations?

It might also be happening due to some static eletricity!

C

Yes.. this might be one reason. First hard disk worked for 20 days when I am in Hyderabad. After that I have moved to Koper Khairane (Navi Mumbai). Then it failed after 10 days.

But as other PATA hard disk is working properly in the same condition, I feel this reason may be not right.

C

Can there be any problem with SMPS? It was Mercury AP-2400 of 400W. As I said all other components are working properly including 80 GB IDE Samsung drive.

Or can this be an issue with jumper setting. My hard disk can work at 3.0 Gb/s speed but as jumper set now to work at the speed of 1.5 Gbps. My mother board is Intel 945 GCNL.
I am thinking that SATA controller is trying to access the HD at 3 Gbps and hard disk is working at 1.5 Gbps.

A

not SMPS exactly, but in the remaining power PINs from which you are trying to use HDD.
so it would eventually mean you change your SMPS

C

I dont think it is problem with PINS ...since I have tried with all pins in the SMPS

N

there CANNOT be bad sectors if there's a problem with PSU..

its Seagate man..sometimes have a lot of problems with replacements..
but i'd suggest checking the hdd + running seatools on a frnd's computer

C

Can that be problem with jumper setting?

N

nope...coz it runs for 5 days..and whatever those settings be , seatools would run if hdd is fine..
try running it on another computer

C

yea.. sea tools should run fine... I tried in another computer, it failed there too after 4 days.
Anyway, I will try with one more computer