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HARD DRIVE CRASHES WITH XP AND W7

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moveit

moveit

Technical User
Sep 30, 2002
266
GB
I have 3 hard drives on one computer. One has XP Pro, one Windows 7 Pro and the third is my data drive. I access the operating system I want to use by pressing the F8 key.

Over the past few months I have had three disks corrupt and one crash. This happened when I accessed XP disk. All the W7 were different sizes and makes. A few days ago I had selected XP and during the day I heard the Windows 7 disk making a sound similar to that when defragging takes place but also there was a metallic noise. When I re-booted the computer it froze when checking the disks. I un-plugged W7 and the computer booted up okay. Next I plugged in W7 and un-plugged XP and the data disks but the computer said I had no disk installed. I should point out that when plugging and unplugging I did turn the power off.

I checked via the bios and that too did not see any W7 drive.

Are there any reasons why having all 3 drives powered but only accessing XP that W7 still seems to cause its own corruption and crash? I have had other operating systems mixed on separate disks in the past without any trouble. It appears that Windows 7 does not like being powered but not accessed. Any advice welcomed.
 
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it should not matter if the drive is powered and not accessed, except that it wears over time... and I also do have a dual boot situation, but nary a problem with corruption of either OS drives...

the drive probably experienced major sector faults (SMART errors) and tried to move data that it could read to other sectors before it went totally down the tubes... I am afraid the drive has gone south...

the only thing you could do now, is to replace that drive, seeing that it is not being recognized in the BIOS and that it is for all means dead... check with the manufacturer if it is still under warranty, you may get a replacement...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
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Whilst it may be an unlikely fault, probably worth looking at your PSU.

Check for over voltage on the output rails, running near the limit of its rated output, etc. You should also see that all power connections to the drives are tight, and cabling in good order.

Are the hard drives running very hot? If yes, consider getting a better airflow over and around each drive. Or even mount drives in coolers.


ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
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The first disk I had Windows 7 on was an old one and that corrupted. The second was a new one with the same results. The one that crashed was only bought a few weeks ago and was a 1TB WD caviar black and manufactured last year. I am already asking the supplier to replace it.

The PUS is 430 volts which has in the past powered 4 hard drives, 2 DVD drives and a video card without any problems.

The only thing I did wonder was I have Diskkeeper on the XP drive and have tried it on and off regarding the W7 disk as I did not know if that would cause any trouble but as the problem accrued in both cases I feel that cannot be the problem.
 
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Whilst a 430 volt (I hope you mean Watts!) PSU may have apparently powered a number of devices in the past, to use your words, maybe it's a bit stretched in it's current position. Also, PSUs often get stressed by mains power variations, glitches, and spikes, etc. Definitely worth changing it even just temporarily with a 550 Watt or 600 Watt known good PSU.


ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
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I shall get a new PSU fitted tomorrow (Tuesday). See how that goes. I did mean Watts.
 
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I have a new PSU 650 watts. Hope this clears up the problems I have been having. If they come back so will I. Thanks all for your help
 
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moveit,

Please post back with results - good or bad - whenever you've had the time to test for sure. But if you think it's good, I'd say give it a day or two of use before you assume it is fixed. [wink]
 
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Loaded Windows 7 and was able to go from that hard drive to the XP one without any trouble until this morning. I was unable to access the XP drive and got the following messages.
Correcting indexes
Deleting indexes
Recovering orphaned file
Replacing invalid security id with default id for file

I was unable to read the file numbers as they were going through too quickly. I wonder if this hard drive is going to fail like the one for Windows 7. I do have Horizon Datasys rollback on it as it has got me out of trouble over the past 18 months.

The hard drive is recognized by the bios. Before I continue to load programs onto the Windows 7 disk do you think the XP disk is faulty?
 
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It sure is sounding like it. If you've not run any diagnostic scans on it (manufacture's diagnostics or other hard drive scanners), then I'd suggest you do that, and if it's under warranty, send it in for replacement, once verified bad.

You can find SEVERAL such utilities on the Ultimate Boot CD:
 
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I downloaded WD disk diagnostic but could not get it to run. I went into Windows 7 and was unable to access the XP disk. I have started the XP installation on the suspect drive and it has installed the OS. I am still concerned and feel that both your suggestions to use a new hard drive is the way to go.

Do you think that Diskkeeper or Horizonsys Rollback has caused the problems I have had?
 
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With XP loaded I was able to go into Windows 7 and do a sector check on the XP drive. No fault was found. I did have 3 new WD 1TB one which was sent back to the supplier for replacement and one now has W7 on it. I was going to use the third to put XP on.

The reason I use WD is I have heard they are the best drives around.
 
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WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows, should run under Windows 7, it is install and run...


(click on the last one)...

WD HDDs are pretty reliable, that is what I use mainly at home, and what I love the best though is their warranty services, I had to send in two drives and replacements where returned within 2 weeks...




Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
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Hi BadBigBen

Downloaded the diagnostic tool. Ran Extended Test which said the XP hard drive was okay. Then ran the test you said, Write Zeros and got the message Sectors #0-256 write zero errors. Pressed the continue button and the sectors just kept going up in amounts with the error message.

I tried to find exactly what it meant but could not. I did try to re-boot into the XP o/s but could not. Ran the Extended Test again and it seemed to work okay again. Can you please explain the messages?
 
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it is kinda strange that the extended tests would pass the drive, with that amount of bad sectors... What does SMART have to say about the drive?

in my opinion it is a toss-in-bin kinda driver... ergo replace and move on...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
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Smart status shows ?Not available.

Think you are right. This is now taking too much time so will put a new hard drive in. I will contact WD UK to see what they think about the trouble I have had with the drive.

Thanks BadBigBen and others for help.
 
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Just to update. Sent the 1TB HD to supplier. They agreed it was faulty and have changed it. Sent other 640GB HD to Western Digital and they said their drive was faulty and have changed that too. It is good when suppliers do admit faulty goods.
 
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