Multiple Hard Drive Failures

pianomandur · 11-06-2009, 07:35 AM

Working with a compaq SR2180NX. Had two Seagate hard drives replaced under warranty, SMART said they were failing. Now, out of warranty I have purchased two Western Digital drives. The first one has been determined FAIL by SMART, and now the second one is showing the same issue. I don't think I could so unlucky as to get two different brands of hard drives that are both crap. I'm thinking power supply next? Or, could it be an issue with the SMART software, even after reinstalling the intire system 4 times? Any help would be awesome!

**raptor_pa** · 11-06-2009, 09:56 AM

Check SMART results with a third party software just to be sure. the SMART values are generated internally by the HD and stored, SMART is not an active test, it only reports the error values reprted by the physical drive. Try HDDScan and MHDD both downloadable from www.hddguru.com they will show you the actual SMART parameters that failed, and that gives a better indication of where any issues may be. I tend to agree that the PSU is a likely culprit, but the actual breakdown of values will help try to isolate it.

11-06-2009, 07:35 AM	#1 (permalink)
pianomandur Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1 OS: OS X, XP SP 3, Vista SP 2, Ubuntu	Multiple Hard Drive Failures Working with a compaq SR2180NX. Had two Seagate hard drives replaced under warranty, SMART said they were failing. Now, out of warranty I have purchased two Western Digital drives. The first one has been determined FAIL by SMART, and now the second one is showing the same issue. I don't think I could so unlucky as to get two different brands of hard drives that are both crap. I'm thinking power supply next? Or, could it be an issue with the SMART software, even after reinstalling the intire system 4 times? Any help would be awesome!

11-06-2009, 09:56 AM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,872 OS: XP	Re: Multiple Hard Drive Failures Check SMART results with a third party software just to be sure. the SMART values are generated internally by the HD and stored, SMART is not an active test, it only reports the error values reprted by the physical drive. Try HDDScan and MHDD both downloadable from www.hddguru.com they will show you the actual SMART parameters that failed, and that gives a better indication of where any issues may be. I tend to agree that the PSU is a likely culprit, but the actual breakdown of values will help try to isolate it. __________________