hard drive problem???

[jdf_warrior]

ok, i have 3 hard drives, an old 40gig ide, another old 13gig ide, and a 200gig sata

recently, was running windows normally and it all of a sudden started running extremely slow, and then just froze, i rebooted the machine, and got a disk boot failure error i believe is what it was, still had the 13 and 200 so i kept going and i ordered a new 160gig ide maxtor drive, within a week, before the new drive came in, the 13gig died too, or it appeared to, i havent fully checked them, wanted a new drive anyway, seemed like a godo excuse, but anyway, i have the 160gig and the 200gig drives now and i have only had the 160 for about a week or so, and i was in windows yesterday and hit the same problem, it seemed as if windows almost quit responding, finally rebooted, and disk boot failure.. but if i booted with an XP boot disk, it still reads the drive, so its not dead. i eventually, after alot of piddling with it, finally got it formatted and running, ghosted windows back to the drive, it ran all afternoon and night, woke up this mornin, looking at a disk boot failure message again. i've tried different ide cables, and tried swapping the drive from the primary ide channel to the secondary channel and still have the same result.

any ideas of whats going on? any ideas of something i can try to figure it out? i was thinking it could be the channel on the MB going bad, but its only a few months old, i just got it in like january.. someone else suggested a power supply issue, it not being strong enough to run everything, but it was running before with 3 drives and 2 cdroms and everything else, since all this started happening, ive been running 1 hdd and 1 cdrom and still have the same problem.. and i dont particularly want to buy a new motherboard if thats not the problem, because if i do i might as well upgrade and get one with pci-e, which in turns means i'd be buying a new video card as well

 

[Kage]

I know what this is straight away, and its not good.

Get that power supply changed now! Your power supply is definietly causing it, as its probably sending out lethal surges, killing the drives. Its happened to 2 of my drives too, and a new PSU fixed it.

Its nothing to do with it not being able to handle your PC. Its that its overpowering it... its a faulty PSU...

I advise you aim for a 450-500watt depending on the specs of your machine, and start again. I wouldn't run your computer until you do so if I were you.

I hope this helps

 

[jdf_warrior]

i have a 450w psu now...
and its not actually killing the drives, like the new one, the 160, still works.. it just has problems booting, and it wouldnt show my serial drive earlier either... i think the motherboard is actin kinda screwy

 

[Kage]

Hmm, though its weird those drives went one after the other.

So you've updated the PSU since the others failed, or are you just saying you have a 450watt anyway? If you have replaced it, you might have now stopped the new ones failing, though, you'll probably have to try to reformat them and start over since they might be a tad bit corrupt.

it could be the motherboard though, and if again, you have replaced the PSU, the old one could have damaged the motherboard.

If you haven't though, it doesn't matter about the wattage, when it comes to a fault with it. It might be faulty. I'd take it back if you haven't already. its too much of a coincidence, everything messing up, and those 2 old drives completly going one after the other.

Trust me. Its done this with me.

 

[jdf_warrior]

no i havent changed the psu, i am just saying thats what i have now.. i actually have it booted up right now, it took like 10 minutes to boot but its up and runnin.. i believe you, i just dont know what to do... another wierd thing ive noticed, dont knw what this would mean, but, also, ever since last night, before it died again, my screen has been lookin kinda funny, looks like the picture starts gettin kinda wavy from time to time, or not as much wavy but looks like you can see it refreshing.. and everything is running so slow

 

[Kage]

Okay... you better turn that PC off now. That PSU could be causing damage. If it is, it could go and take the whole PC with it.

I'd change the PSU, and get another 450watt from a local computer shop quickly. I'd then connect this up and see if theres improvement.

If not, then that doesn't matter, you have a spare PSU for later use, and at least your components aren't going to fail because of a lethal electrical current.

Though, if you do replace it, and there problems are still there, then you can safetly say its the motherboard causing all the problems, and you can just replace this.

PSU's aren't that expensive, and it might just save your whole computer from sudden doom.

NOTE:

I do have the faintest glimmer that its more the motherboard now than your PSU though, but I'd still replace it as its safer to be safe than sorry, because for instance, if you get a new motherboard, and it starts doing the same thing. Thats another one wrecked because of the faulty power supply.

It may be that the power supply has wrecked the components beyond repair though, and because of it, you'll have to replace the motherboard and PSU at the same time. But at least your other components will be safe.

Okay?