Hard Drive failure?

[ktimekiller]

Ok, first, heres some back ground.

70Gig main drive, 200Gig slave drive.

Im playing WoW, im not doing anything, when my computer starts to make clicking noises and fail in windows.

Tabbing was slow, pressing flag key was slow, and windows task manager was failing as well.

BUT while all that was going on, my WoW was running flawlessly, I was able to run around, duel people, do things.

When i restarted, it constantly rebooted my computer over and over again. Before restarting, it gets as far as the windows loading logo screen

I tried restarting with only my main drive in, and it restarts over and over again.

When I try restarting with my slave drive (no operating system), it says "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"

Now, im thinking of two possibilities, either my main hard drive just died on me, or my windows is broken, and i could fix the problem simply by repairing it by booting up with the windows cd.

Any ideas? suggestions? theories?

Meanwhile, i will be attempting to boot with windows cd, and repairing windows to see if that works.



EDIT: the inevitability of my cd rom failure just struck me at the worst time, my cd rom isnt working and wont recognize the cd inside. I will have to hook up another cd rom.

EDIT 2: Repair failed, it didnt work, I am considering a format to make sure if its faulty hard drive, or some other problem.

EDIT 3: After the format, and reinstall, it is working, but I m doubtful it will remain this way for long if its truly faulty.

 

[ktimekiller]

honestly, how did so many people look, but didnt offer a single word of help? come on!

 

[VirusType2]

is wow on your slave drive?

sounds like your OS drive failed

Probably need a new hard drive, or to install windows on your slave drive (of course reversing the slave/master settings)

I wouldn't order a new CD Rom until you check the results after doing the above

 

[ktimekiller]

wow is on my main drive, and after formating, the main drive is functional again, but i doubt for long if its faulty.

 

[Barney Fife]

wow is on my main drive, and after formating, the main drive is functional again, but i doubt for long if its faulty.

Wow could be loaded into RAM as its already been executed and wasn't effected by the faulty drive.
If you're hearing HDD clicks and things like Task Manager, or Windows explorer failing, or any app, simultaneously crashing in cascade; means hardware issue, like RAM, MB, HDD, Etc.
Once you reinstalled OS, if HDD is functioning and you don't hear clicks, that's fine, but if you're still hearing clicks coming from the HDD, that means the HDD is physically hurting, dying and needs replacement.
If some of the HDD clusters are damaged, then that will be taken care of at the formatting stage of Windows installation.

Good Luck.

 

[ktimekiller]

Is it possible the graphics driver could be suffering from the result of this?

i ask because my card is heating up unusually when playing wow, which is on the main drive, but when playing other games that are installed on my secondary hard drive, that are far more intensive than WOW, i dont have the heat issue. Also, there are frequent artifacts while playing WoW, not to mention the return of the glitchy lag when i press flag key while playing wow, or mouse over anything and make a tooltip to pop up.

Another unusual thing happened, ALL of my fraps video folder, and my fraps program was corrupted on my second hard drive, when everything else remained intact.

 

[blahblahblah]

Is it possible the graphics driver could be suffering from the result of this?

i ask because my card is heating up unusually when playing wow, which is on the main drive, but when playing other games that are installed on my secondary hard drive, that are far more intensive than WOW, i dont have the heat issue. Also, there are frequent artifacts while playing WoW, not to mention the return of the glitchy lag when i press flag key while playing wow, or mouse over anything and make a tooltip to pop up.

Another unusual thing happened, ALL of my fraps video folder, and my fraps program was corrupted on my second hard drive, when everything else remained intact.

I'm leaning towards a power issue, based off of what you are describing. Are you sure you have a sufficient power supply for your system? Does your primary drive draw more power than your slave drive? Typically if a hard drive fails, it doesn't beat around the bush for to long. I would also check with your graphics card manufacturer to see if the driver you are currently using has known issues with WoW. Your symptons with WoW could indicate something, but it may not.

If you are close to failing, your harddrive manufacturer may have a utility to scan your harddrives for errors. Depending on the utility, it can be run inside or outside of windows so if you are having boot problems you can try to see if it is worthwhile to try to restore windows on that harddrive.

Another possibility is a failing motherboard. I've had a SATA Raid setup where the raid controller on the motherboard died and took out one of the harddrives. This happened quite a few years ago, so I can't remember if there were indications that the drives/controller were failing or if it happened suddenly. Luckily for me the rest of the motherboard still worked allowing me to salvage the motherboard with a PATA drive.

As a last side note, I personally have every Maxtor Harddrive I've ever own fail. Yet, I've never had a WD harddrive fail on me yet. So if you buy a new harddrive because of your situation, put some thought into the brand you get.

 

[ktimekiller]

I'm leaning towards a power issue, based off of what you are describing. Are you sure you have a sufficient power supply for your system? Does your primary drive draw more power than your slave drive? Typically if a hard drive fails, it doesn't beat around the bush for to long. I would also check with your graphics card manufacturer to see if the driver you are currently using has known issues with WoW. Your symptons with WoW could indicate something, but it may not.

If you are close to failing, your harddrive manufacturer may have a utility to scan your harddrives for errors. Depending on the utility, it can be run inside or outside of windows so if you are having boot problems you can try to see if it is worthwhile to try to restore windows on that harddrive.

Another possibility is a failing motherboard. I've had a SATA Raid setup where the raid controller on the motherboard died and took out one of the harddrives. This happened quite a few years ago, so I can't remember if there were indications that the drives/controller were failing or if it happened suddenly. Luckily for me the rest of the motherboard still worked allowing me to salvage the motherboard with a PATA drive.

As a last side note, I personally have every Maxtor Harddrive I've ever own fail. Yet, I've never had a WD harddrive fail on me yet. So if you buy a new harddrive because of your situation, put some thought into the brand you get.

I wouldnt think its a power issue, i think my power supply is a 550ish wattage, and my PC composes of 4 gig of ram (4 diff sticks), a 8600 gt, and a 2.7ghz dual core processor. No additional hardware, except a 360 controller, and a very small fan

As for the power draw, im not certain how to check that.

As for the hard drive, it seems to me that its stuttering very often, and struggling to run any process that is installed on that hard drive, which currently is only windows, and WoW.

My hard drive is also far too old, and doubtful the manufacturer would have anything on it at their website, I had a similar problem with a old motherboard that simply wouldnt show up on manufacturer's website because its too damn old. like for example, if my motherboard was model a-200, they had a-700, a-600, a-500 and so on, but didnt get as far back as 200.

The motherboard failure might be a possibility, but im not too certain my computer is showing any signs of motherboard failure yet, at least that i know of.

What I will do is check the power tho, to see if I can do anything about it, maybe it is the power.