two hard drive failures in a month

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
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Mike

Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.
 
Mike said:
Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.
Click to expand...

At that age might have been bad luck, but I'd look for a problem with the
power supply or cooling. Note that the voltages may be right on and then
all of a sudden for no apparent reason one may drop for a little while and
then come back up. I've seen that happen with several power
supplies--turned out there was nothing wrong with the disks--I've got one
right here that's working three years after I replaced the power supply in
that particular machine.
 
Mike said:
Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.
Click to expand...

There's really no way to know. If something killed them, it was
probably:

heat (poor circulation, perhaps due to a failed fan or dust clogging?)
voltage (power supply off-spec or transients due to e.g. lightning?)

The summer months, especially in the south (assuming you're in the
U.S.), are hard on electrical equipment because of the heat and the
power problems due to A/C loads and thunderstorms.

Static electricity can be an issue, too, but not normally for an
installed drive.

Mechanical shock sufficient to damage a drive you would probably know
about.

The bottom line is check the fans, blow out the dust, and perhaps
check out or (since they're so cheap) replace the power supply.
 
Mike said:
Is this bad luck, or a possible sign that there's something else wrong
with my system? I've never even had a hard drive properly fail before
now, but my home PC has now killed two hard drives in a month.
Admittedly they were both a bit old - one three years, one five.
Click to expand...


Make sure the drives are well cooled.
 
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