HARD DRIVE CRASHES WITH XP AND W7

[moveit]

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.

 

[FredWagner]

MoveIt - it seems unusual that you'd have TWO faulty drives from different manufacturers. By any chance are the drives, or furniture they're on, getting moved while they're powered on ?Are you running on a UPS, or if not, have you got relatively new surge protection ? (Joules rating should be in the thousands, not hundreds). Are there large electic-motor driven devices in your building ? (escalators, elevators, air conditioning blowers...) could the cleaning staff be plugging in a vacuum cleaner on the same circuit your computer stuff is running on?

Fred Wagner

 

[moveit]

The computer is at home and I have always used a surge plug for over 15 years without any problems. The 2 hard drives are both Western Digital. I bought 3 x 1TBs from a firm. 2 are okay and being used. The 640mb drive was bought from another supplier last summer and I only used it in December last year.

I went on the Western Digital site and checked to see if it was still under warranty and it was. They authorized it to be sent back to them.

 

[kjv1611]

Yeah, it's definitely possible for multiples to be bad from diff sources at diff times, I think more-so now than in the past. At least it seems like defect rates have gone up... in my small handling of drives.

As to your surge protection for 15 years... you're not still using the SAME surge protection are you? Most of them contain MOVs, and surely after 15 years, one would be cooked to being nothing more than an extension cord.

 

[moveit]

I have changed the surge plug over the years.

I think you are right about the hard drives. As Western Digital seem to be the most popular at the moment then I would expect more faulty ones. As hard drives are getting more sophisticated then logic says there are more chances of faults with them no matter who the manufacturer is. Just my view, I know.

 

[FredWagner]

Glad you've refreshed the surge protection. A UPS or a Line regulating box can be a good investment in equipment protection also, depending on the power where you live. Sometimes drives can be damaged in shipping before you ever get them. Some years back I ordered four full height drives a closeout site, and three of them arrived inop - and they were packed rather loosely in one box, with gray foam. They replaced the three bad drives, and the replacements were OK.... They might have been damaged on their way to me, or in a previous shipment - but it does happen.

Fred Wagner