Two identical HDD failures

[lewisp]

I have a friend for whom I have fixed a PC recently. His original HDD was failing in that it refused to boot into Windows XP. A few diagnostics later and I found the drive was developing bad sectors. Hundreds of them. We were able to recover his data files in time before the drive failed totally.

I purchased a Maxtor 80GB replacement and installed it into his PC. We reinstalled XP along with all his apps and data. Everything seemed to be hunky-dory. Until yesterday.

Now, 3 weeks later, the new drive is exhibiting the exact same symptoms of failure as his original drive. Maxtors diagnostics report a failing drive that should be returned for replacement due to damaged sectors.

The question I have is, is there any way possible that other hardware in the PC could be the cause or catalyst for these failures, so that I am likely to get the same problem yet again with a replacement? If so, what should I consider replacing along with the drive?

Or is it just a case of bad luck, try again?

 

[garebo]

May not be bad luck. Malware can ruin hard drives.

If its the only hard drive on the system, then, before you reformat the drive, go to the h drive mfgr website and download the diagnostics program and run the "write zero to hard drisk" program inside the diagnostics prog.
What this does is set the drive up good as new and also eliminates any virus\malware\trojan\worm that may exist in your master boot record as well. I do this all the time now before i format a hard drive, eliminates trouble down the road. I learned it here about a year or two ago, wouldnt you know. Anyway, i swear by it and use it all the time.





Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[felixc]

If you happen to have a voltmeter, you may want to check if the voltages at the Hard disk power connector are correct.

Garebo, you're right I've seen OS reinstallations that only worked after the hard disk has been zeroed.

 

[garebo]

To me, its an unsung hero. What is does, among other things, is install a new master boot record and eliminate any spyware\malware\virus\trojan\worm that one may have picked up somewhere that can survive a reformatting!
And it doesnt care if the drive is ntfs or fat32 either, slave, master, whatever, long as bios can see it.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[lewisp]

Thanks for the tips. I've run a low-level format (same as writing zeros, I assume...) and the diagnostics report an error free drive.

I'll reinstall and see how it goes.

I'll also check the voltages on the power connector.

 

[garebo]

yup, low level format. Most, or some of the utils these days have changed it to "write zeroes to the hard drive" instead of "low level format". Same thing.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips