Faulty PSU scrambling Hard Drive data?

[SadisticToaster]

Hey

A few months ago I bought some new bits for my computer , including a Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 Hard Disk.

Since then my computer has regularly ( a few times a week ) 'scrambled' data. The file names are replaced with wierd chatcters I've never seen before , and 'Windows - Propties' will report the files as being much bigger then they should be. Windows will not let me delete these files. A final 'bonus' is that my Hard Drive has also started randomly losing partitions.

After a few months of this , I bought a new Hard Drive of the same type , but the same errors kept occuring exactly as before.

The reason I suspect it might be my PSU is that a week ago I tried to plug in my MP3 player , and the computer powered down. A friend changed the existing PSU with a spare ( both are 300w's , the original is a model B , the replacement is a model 'A') before we worked out that it was the number of extras I've installed recently ( Hard Drive fan , card reader , new video card ) which was proving too much for the PSU. He left the new 'Model A' one in. It was only after that that the drive started to lose partitions.

I heard it could be my memory , so I ran memtest86 overnight , but it found no errors.

Any ideas?

Many Thanks

 

[dbData]

If you're processor is P4, equiv, or higher you probably should be running a 400w PS or better.

You've indicate the problem started with the purchase of a new HDD. Try back-tracking. Disconnect the "additional" hardware and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then the power draw is indeed the culprit and you need a bigger PS.


Rick

http://www.data-recovery-hub.com

 

[nipester]

There is one other possibility. That your IDE cable is bad. If you swapped your cable at the same time as swapping out the drives then its not the cable obviously. If you have a UDMA cable you might even try an older, slower IDE cable to see if it gets rid of the errors.

You might want to run something like scandisk or spinrite overnight to see what it finds. Thats a bit risky though in your situation so I would make sure critical data is backed up.