Software causing hard disk failure?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian McGee
  • Start date Start date
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Brian McGee

Is it possible for software to cause a hard disk failure? My new PC
recently had a hard disk failure after only about 6-8 weeks of usage.
I've replaced the disk, but am wondering if I caused the hard disk
failure through any software I installed or uninstalled. I am using
XP Professional.

Is it possible to cause a hard disk to fail through incompatible or
malfunctioning software? I'd have better peace of mind if I thought
the drive was faulty from the start.

Brian
 
The only way a software can cause a hard disk failure is the BIOS can not
access/control the disk correctly. If the failure was hardware, then you
can not suspect software to be the cause. However, if the failure was
software related (i.e.: XP does not boot or partition lost) then YES
software could have caused it. The usual suspect of a software hard drive
failure is: software utility not designed to access the FAT32/NTFS disk
drives correctly. This was the case of most Windows disk utilities prior to
early 2001.

Also, there is a problem with the larger hard drives now (> 137GB). The
motherboard BIOS and XP SP1 must be configured/enabled to use this drive (48
Bit LBA??)

Y.
 
Software such as a virus can be designed to destroy format
tables and such, but software won't cause bearings to fail
or motors to burn out. Did you return the disk to the
manufacturer for replacement? Do you remember the serial
number or your return tag number? If so, ask them to tell
you what the failure involved.


| Is it possible for software to cause a hard disk failure?
My new PC
| recently had a hard disk failure after only about 6-8
weeks of usage.
| I've replaced the disk, but am wondering if I caused the
hard disk
| failure through any software I installed or uninstalled.
I am using
| XP Professional.
|
| Is it possible to cause a hard disk to fail through
incompatible or
| malfunctioning software? I'd have better peace of mind if
I thought
| the drive was faulty from the start.
|
| Brian
 
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