gowingnut007

Over the past few months, I think my hard drives are possessed by a demon. I have the following on Windows XP Pro with Intel 2.4GHZ 800MHZ FSB, 512MB DDR RAM:

2 WD 180GB Caviar Special Edition 8meg buffer 7200RPM
1 WD 200GB Caviar Special Edition 8meg buffer 7200RPM
1 WD 80GB Caviar Special Edition 8meg buffer 7200RPM
1 WD 120GB Caviar 2meg buffer 7200 RPM
1 Maxtor 160 External Hard drive

Lately, I have been having problems with my 200GB and both 180GB drives. They have crashed on numerous occasions, and I would lose all my data. I would get "delayed write errors" or "error accesing system volume information......." and once in awhile, when I reboot, Windows does not recognize that I have a drive in there, or that it claim it is unformatted. I have been able to recover the data once in awhile, but it is really frustrating. However,the other drives seem to run pretty solid.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

JStrider

one of my
wd 100gig Caviar special edition 8 meg buffer
completely crapped out on me acouple weeks ago... no warning or anything... just woke up in the morning to my raid array bootscreen telling me there was a problem...

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ToolBag

same here, mine died last thursday, I did have a back up and all but still, its the only hard drive that has ever gone to shit on me!

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Destrox

Having a harddrive die isnt that odd of a thing, but 3 in such a short while...
Hm

Are you 100% sure that your computer case is on a secure position? No close by doorway that shakes your desk, kids running around, recent moving of the computer, subway trains..

Its just very odd that 3 drives would fail like that.

Also if any of them are in a RAID setup, your motherboards controller MAY possibly be messed up. I've seen that happen before where it just seems to forget what it was doing and think you have 2 new drives..

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saltfish

If all of these drives are in the same case, you might want to look at your temps.. ..Many of the WD's are heat hogs, now put that may of them together and you've got a hell of a heater.

-SF

shakran

What saltfish said. My 200g WD drive could double as a cigarette lighter Get some air flowing over those drives!

You can get a 5 1/4" hard drive cooler module pretty cheap.

Otherwise, and this is why I build exclusively with these cases, Raidmax cases drop the hard drives directly behind two of the 80mm case fan mounting areas. Two more case fans are below them. So far, one fan in front of the hard drive and one fan below that (plus the side fan) has kept my case nice and cool and my drive running with no complaints.

meembo

Sounds like heat to me

ditto the fan advice

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sailor

Damn. Either Im lucky, or my hard drives are pretty stout. I have a 20Gb and an 80Gb that have been in a case with no ventilation running over them for two years.

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gowingnut007

I appreciate the replies thus far. My case has been constanty at the 60 to 70F range. I made sure that the air can flow without dust clogging up the fans. The drives did not die simultaneously just within a few months of each other. Not all of the drives are in the same case, each one has 2, or 3 max. There are only 2 (3 max) in the case at one time and the power supply is a turbolink 400W. I have a another case with the same specs that I put the other drives in and teh extras I put in external drive bays. I have had problems even after rearraning the configuration. I have RMAed the drives before, and I am still experiencing problems. I already ran the WD Tools and they gave them a clean bill of health. I have defragged and error checked the disks before. Write caching has all been enabled. I have also tried switching the IDE connections. Some of the hard drives are being run off of the IDE expansion card that it comes with the WD drives and I have also tried switching those out. I think my machines are cursed

*hmm...a bit too many I's*

heyal256

I think that you should still take saltfish's advice and get some hard drive coolers. Even though your case temps aren't bad, I remember reading anecdotal evidence that the reason that the old ibm "deathstars" (which I own, but haven't had any problems with) were failing was that they ran hotter then most of the other drives available, but the people who had hd coolers never had one die on them.
Also, have you ever touched the hard drive after they've been running for a while? I have and you really can burn yourself on them (something like 120 F when the drive is doing work).
It is also possible that maybe the ide cable is going bad? just a thought.

Redjake

It's not the hard drive's temperature. Come on guys! Heat doesn't make three hard drives CRASH. They may make them hot, but not three of them crash. How do I know? Alas, I have proof!

I have 5 hard drives (160, 160, 120, 80, 20) with practically little to no airflow near them, and they all work fine. I've been running them for a while now (1+ years). None of them have ever messed up. My case temperature is approximately 85-100 degrees F, give or take during the time of day and season

I think the problem is a something deeper....

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meembo

Heat can and does trash drives. Heat and static electricity are the enemies of all electronics. HDDs with more cyliders spinning faster do produce more heat. Manufacturers have switched from aluminum to glass cylinders to combat these effects.

Case temp isn't CPU temp or HDD temp -- don't fall into that trap. Air and thermal flow varies tremendously from case to case (with different HDD and CD drives and cables, fans, etc.). Redjake, consider yourself lucky. If your hard drives haven't crashed, I doubt it's "proof". It's luck.

growingnut007 has both many and newer drives, which all point to heat issues. This is a far as I can go with the "diagnosis" given the lack of details, but one would naturally look for common threats due to the fact that several similar drives suffered the same fate.

All parts in modern PCs have maximun temp ratings, usually around 50-60 degrees C. The MTBF hour (failure) time goes down remarkably when temps, ambient or on the part itself, rise above these recommended temps. If your drives or other componenets are either near or at the point where they are too hot to touch, they need help cooling right away.

Manufacturers have noise and heat on their minds when it comes to faster, bigger drives. Some ambient noise "solutions" included insulation that does indeed cut down on noise. but traps heat as well. Western Digital warns people about stacking firewire and usb drives because of heat considerations.

I think that we will see more kinds of solid-state storage solutions in the future -- less heat and moving parts make a more stable storage device.

Edit: heya1256 talks about the old IBM "deathstars". My 2 always ran hot, even with fans, and neither lasted more than 8 months. I have old 6 gig drives running virtually every day since 1998 that are old and slow but cool to the touch.

Here's a link from Hitachi that promotes a new heat-related feature

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