Okay, was contemplating posting this in the Hardware section, but figured it wasn't quite relevant to the type of discussion being had in there.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been having some strange little 'freezes' whilst using my PC. They occur maybe once per day, generally last for a few seconds, and then stop .

Last week, one of the drives started clicking and the PC started locking up, and crashing in response (as you'd expect). Needless to say, new hard disk in order. The drive causing the issues seemed to be my data drive (i.e. not my system drive), as it was randomly appearing and disappearing from the boot menu after crashes.

For the past 3-4 days, it's been stable again, until tonight, when I had another of these freeze/lock-up incidents, after which I decided to reboot (as the drive was clicking, and I wanted to disconnect it to just check everything out). After disconnecting the data drive and attempting to reboot, everything went well until loading the OS: the normal XP loading screen appeared, and then the HDD activity light came on solidly, the drive was not particularly working hard... and that's as far as it got.

During these periods where one or the other HD has a fit, maybe only one in every, say, 10 boots seems to get me into Windows, and I'm a little stumped. I can't imagine both drives having failed together, and I would be quick to say it was just the boot drive... but then I can't explain the data drive being absent from the boot menu a few times last week (even when securely plugged in).

The only other thing I can think of is that the ATA connector (yes, these two drives are ATA drives) on the mobo is faulty (or the ATA cable)... but it's been performing fine for ages, and surely if it were problematic, it'd be giving me problems with both drives at once, not intermittently, and only with one or the other

So... any (informed) suggestions are welcome. I figure I'm down to either replacing HDs or the mobo as options (the latter not really being an option, as it's only a few months old) - as everything else seems entirely not viable.

Yeah it seems highly unlikely both drives have gone so I'd lean towards the mobo or cabling. Can you run one without the other, or do you have other equipment you can test with e.g. try the HDD drives in another PC?

And stupid as it may sound, the first thing I'd check is for dust and dirt. I've spent days trying to solve a weird hardware issue, only to succeed by taking everything out, giving it a good blast with compressed air and putting it back together again.

Quote from durbster :

Yeah it seems highly unlikely both drives have gone so I'd lean towards the mobo or cabling. Can you run one without the other, or do you have other equipment you can test with e.g. try the HDD drives in another PC?

Hmm, that's what I was worried about. Mobo is only ~3 months old. Will swap the cables and see what happens, though. Strangely, however, not had the problem this morning - 'tis stable. It's the intermittent nature of it all that would make me think it wasn't mobo-related

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And stupid as it may sound, the first thing I'd check is for dust and dirt. I've spent days trying to solve a weird hardware issue, only to succeed by taking everything out, giving it a good blast with compressed air and putting it back together again.

Already done

I guess the way I'd approach it is as below, move to the next point until no options are left or the problem goes away

- Disconnect the data drive and boot up the PC.
If it works normally, only the data drive is toast.

- Change ATA cable.
If it works normally, cable is faulty.

- Change ATA interface, i.e., switch the HD and your optical device connections on the mobo.
If it works normally, problem with ATA interface on mobo.

- Borrow a spare ATA HD from a mate and boot with only it.
If it works normally, both HDs might need replacing.

- Borrow a spare PSU from a mate and change it in.
If it works normally, PSU is about to give up.

If you manage to boot with the data drive plugged in, check SMART data for any obvious signs of failure (if your HDs have it). Also run chkdsk on both, if you can.

If the drive is making clicking sounds, it's a sure sign of mechanical failure. It may seem to work ok sometimes, and others not. But it will just get worse and at some point you won't be able to read anything from it, and the computer won't reckognize the drive. So better backup the data before that happens and replace the drive imo.

Thanks for the tips, guys I've had another day of absolutely no problems with the system. Under load, not under load, it makes no difference.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

- Disconnect the data drive and boot up the PC.
If it works normally, only the data drive is toast.

Intermittently works, same as with the data drive.

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- Change ATA cable.
If it works normally, cable is faulty.

Cable seems fine.

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- Change ATA interface, i.e., switch the HD and your optical device connections on the mobo.
If it works normally, problem with ATA interface on mobo.

Optical device is using SATA.

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- Borrow a spare ATA HD from a mate and boot with only it.
If it works normally, both HDs might need replacing.

Will swap out for my backup drive... good thinking.

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- Borrow a spare PSU from a mate and change it in.
If it works normally, PSU is about to give up.

I'll save this until last, as I doubt very much it's that (given the randomness of 'failure' - i.e. not under similar loading, or anything like that).

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If you manage to boot with the data drive plugged in, check SMART data for any obvious signs of failure (if your HDs have it). Also run chkdsk on both, if you can.

Chkdsk (on successful boot) just finds a bunch of orphaned files and links after a few failed boots, nothing serious.

Quote from arco :

If the drive is making clicking sounds, it's a sure sign of mechanical failure. It may seem to work ok sometimes, and others not. But it will just get worse and at some point you won't be able to read anything from it, and the computer won't reckognize the drive. So better backup the data before that happens and replace the drive imo.

That was my initial thinking - just wanted to exhaust all other possible options before purchasing. All my data is safely stored away already, heh

Okay, I've done some testing using SeaTools (for Seagate-brand drives) - and the boot drive passes everything (SMART, self-test, generic test, etc.), the second drive (my data drive) passes SMART and generic, but fails self-testing (for an unknown reason).

I'm pretty much ruling out the HDD cable and the PSU... but I'm going to do a RAM test on boot tomorrow to see if it's that.

Any further suggestions, or things I've missed? I'm leaning towards the second HDD right now, given the aforementioned clicking (though that only happened on one particular day), and the test failure mentioned above...

Edit: Okay, so after even more thought and reading up... it could be anything. Mobo, RAM, PSU, HDD, CPU, arrgh. I really need some diagnostic help, here. The occurrences are irregular (but relatively frequent), and don't seem to be mapped to any particular situation.

I'd say that the failure of your 2nd HD is imminent:
- Clicking
- Seagate DPS self-test fail
- Intermittent problems

The reason why SMART passed and the DPS self-test failed is simply because they use different metrics. If you have anything important on the drive, now's the time