Cant leave it alone for 15 minutes

[mesoiam]

Hello there.
I have this bizzare problem with my pc.
If i dont touch a key or move the mouse for 15 minutes the computer freezes and says "c: disk failed!!!" and i have to restart.
As you can imagine this is incredibly irritating as I cant just leave it to play music without going back to move the mouse every now and again.
Anyone have any idea what the problem is?

Windows XP sp1
samsung SATA hard drive

 

[DarkBlade1]

HEHEH! The Samsung Drive sucks and is failing to idle correctly or is overheating.... Or when it thinks it is time to powersave, the power going to the drive is surging creating a Failure like you have told us of.

 

[Charchris]

RIGHT Click on DESKTOP -> Properties -> Screensaver -> Power -> make sure Tunr Off Hard Disks is set to never

 

[mesoiam]

yeah its not the powersaving anyway, that has never been on.
The drive itself doesnt feel warm and has been on all day.
What do you reckon i should do?
(+do samsung disks have a bad reputation?)

Is there anything else in windows that does something with the hard drive every 15 minutes?
Maybe it has nothing to do with the hard drive at all and its a virus or something?

 

[DarkBlade1]

Yes, Samsung has really really bad reputation! Get a Maxtor, Seagate (Barracuda only though) Western Digital (if you going with their Raptor Series or SATA drives), but Maxtor is the Best...

 

[Charchris]

My other PC has a Samsung and its does fine the only time it screwed up was when i dropped it....

 

[Lurion]

My other PC has a Samsung and its does fine the only time it screwed up was when i dropped it....

Heh, makes sense!!

LOL

 

[mesoiam]

how does one go about replacing the hard drive (the one with windows on it) with minimal disturbance?

 

[dreamweaverdude]

Get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost. Install it onto your computer onto the drive that is dodgey at the moment. Install the new hard disk. I recommend that you get a maxtor, these drives are bullet proof as long as you look after them. Boot up the system. Open ghost, go to the advanced option click on clone drive. Select the drive you want to clone. you may need to let norton identify the drives as ghost drives. tell it the destination drive ie your new hard disk that you installed. click ok and let ghost do it's magic. norton ghost will make an identical copy your old drive onto your new drive. after you've done this make sure that the plug on the old drive is pulled so the master boot records don't clash

 

[TRDCorolla1]

It appears that Maxtor is a good brand from what people are saying, but when you look at the spec details on newegg regarding Maxtor drives, they have a higher seek time than WD and Hitachi. Speaking of Hitachi, what are your opinions on Hitachi Hard drives? They seem reliable.

Yeah, get a new hard drive. It sounds odd how you don't have power management on and it still acts that way.