==Hard Disk Meltdown==3x In as Many Months==

[Grzyb]

I've just suffered my [b:0cea511104]3rd Hard Disk[/b:0cea511104] meltdown in as many months......

This time I lost all [b:0cea511104]MY[/b:0cea511104] data, all 120 gb's.........My mate's got my drive now and is checking it out............

I'm getting a ATA 133 Hard Disk Controller for the Maxtor 160gb Hard Disk................

This time on a reboot.....An error came up, that one of my drives needed to be checked for consistency, on checking it found all the files had invalid links..........I assume the Fat table had been corrupted some how.............On repairing, all files were reported to be 32k in size and corrupt.........when I rebooted into Partition Magic to format...........PM7.0 told me that the disk was already formatted and all the space was free????????

I have since done a low level format on the disk to get rid of any remmants of corruption.....

I'm going to go on to NTFS with the ATA133 Controller Card...........

Have NE1 got any other ideas as to what may be causing this corruption.........

I'm slowly going Mental.............

Any Advice & Help most gracefully received............

[adams]

don't have a clue. sorry for all the troubles though.

[Homie]

Yes, sorry to hear that Grzyb, if it was IBM HDD I would say it was the disk itself, as they(IBM) advice people only to have their disk running max. 8 hrs. in a row. Otherwise it could cause a meltdown just like you suffered.
Anyways if you need anything to rebuild your collection let me know

Homie

[Stringent]

Have you tried getting a heatsink for your hard drive? Yeah they do exist. The drive fits in this heatsink, which goes into a 5 1/4 bay with a fan at the front which sucks air in to keep the drive cool.

Are you using NTFS as your main filing system? Or it could be you have had a bad run with hard drives. They should replace it though for free.

[HotRod]

Had the same problem when my HD's were FAT32. Eveytime I booted up scanned my HD's and lost a lot of files. Since I put my drives at NTFS have not had a single problem with loosing files. Have lost a couple HD's all together, but no files lost.

[unicorn]

This is to bad Grzyb! I lost a harddrive (with no back-up) once and know the feeling...

You either have a bad temperature problem or, also possible, live in an area with very instable electrisity environment. Flanderz allready mentioned harddrive coolers as one thing to test. Then you also might have to filter the main power from the outlet, or run using an filtered type of UPS. Expensive but nice. There might be other causes for this too, but this is what cross my mind.

[Grzyb]

Why should it only affect my 160gb Hard Drive..........

If anything the 75gb IBM Drive runs much hotter............

I've had an 8gb Maxtor in my old rig which has run for 4 years without so much of a lost cluster!!!!!!

I'm also thinking of "beefing" up my power supply............

What do you think is a minimum........

Currently it's a 300w Supply...............

[HotRod]

Just thought of another thing, We had a machine that kept killing hard drives. Warranty replaced 3 in about 3 months. What it wound up being was the power splitter we we using. Put the HD's on a connector by themselves and split the CDRoms and other things and never had a problem with HD's in that machine

[Stringent]

[quote:4df13b5991][i:4df13b5991]Originally posted by Grzyb [/i:4df13b5991]


What do you think is a minimum........

Currently it's a 300w Supply............... [/quote:4df13b5991]

That IS the minimum! BUT, if you run other serious kit like Geforce 3/4 sound, overclock your system etc. then go for a 430W, that should sort out any lack of power you have!

Also may be where your H/D is positioned. Is it above the IBM which runs hotter? Have you sufficient fans blowing air in and an exhaust to blow air out? Is your case airy (good for circulation of air)?

But try using NTFS instead of FAT32 next time. If you already have done as FAT, then you can use the convert option in Win2K/XP.

[Grzyb]

I think I will fork out for another Power Supply............

The Maxtor was next to the IBM..........because of the ATA100 cable being of standard lenth it was the only place I could fit it.......Maybe with the controller I might have more options to play with..............