HDD or SATA Controller?

[Vikingod]

Question for you all...

I've been getting some pretty bad disk errors, numerous crashes, and corrupt system file on my desktop as of late. The errors happen on a dual boot Vista/XP x64, and during post, so I suspect it's not a driver issue. Last time I booted, it said there was a disk read error and to reboot. I switched the sata port and it got past that but told me winload.exe was missing.

So what do you all think. Is the HDD bad, or is the SATA controller causing problems with the missing or corrupt system files? I've experienced minor issues with the SATA on this board in the past, but always thought they were driver issues.

[Mousey]

I reckon it's the HDD, have you tried using a different drive or are you like me with no other Sata drives about?

[Vikingod]

Nah, this is the only one I have.

[temeteus82]

what drive you got there ??

[EDIT] and how old it is?

[Vikingod]

its a WD 250gb sata 3.0, and it's less than three years old.

[temeteus82]

Hmm... and you aren't able to test it on another system?? I say that the drive itself is behind the problems.

[Vikingod]

Well, I've reinstalled, and not had any problems, yet.

I'm gonna run some benchmarks and such to see if I can pin point the issues. In my gut, I think its the mobo, but only because with the SATA port change, I've had no issues. My on-board LAN is acting up too.

Arg, computers can be such a pain.

[Tipstaff]

4 things come to mind: bad hard drive, bad ram, bad cable, bad controller.

Let's get the first possibility out of the way. Have you ever heard of a program HDD Regenerator? It's a DOS based program that can detect and repair most disk errors, recover data from bad sectors, and can pretty much bring any unbootable hard drive back to life... even if it is just long enough to get the data off of it. At the very least it will tell you if there are any errors on the drive.

Of note: even though the program might come back with errors doesn't necessarily mean they are physical. They could be partition based (such as a bad master boot record/boot sector, or bad parition). As such sometimes deleting all the partitions, and redoing them can fix the problem. The thing to note is that this can be an indication of other issues in the system, such as bad memory, cables (power or data), power supply, or controller.

I'm not too sure how functional the free version is though. I first started using it as part of Hiren's BootCD, and later bought it. You might want to get Hiren's BootCD in any case (you can get ver. 9.3 from HERE). Along with that tool there are all sorts of testing tools, including 3 different memory ones.

[Vikingod]

Well, I think it was the sata port. I ran some tests last night and haven't had any problems. It could have been partition problems too I suppose, but they seem to have been fixed with the format. I ran memtest86, with no errors, so thats good.

I'll post back should my frustration return.

[H3X4D3C1M4L]

Run Hitachi DFT. It does interface tests and media tests (on any drive, not just Hitachi ones). Usually diagnostics like Hitachi DFT (or WD's own LifeGuard) can root out the issue well enough.

[Vikingod]

You guys were right, it appears to be the HD. I've borrower an old 30gig raptor, and I've not had any problems. Gonna save up a few bucks and pick up a new hard drive when I get a chance.

[Judas]

the moment something strange happens with an HD.... i usually emediately swap the cables, and then proceed to using the manufacturers diagnostics and thorough testing software..

last resort is usually a low lvl format to see if that perhaps resolves the issues.

[Vikingod]

Did all that, it's definetly the HD.

But no problem, I RMA'd the thing last night, still had a year on my warranty. I still could use a new, larger capacity one though, so I might just pick something up anyway, when I get the loot.