Harddrive or Power Supply?

[Neo]

Hi All,
I've been experiencing odd computer problems of late.

You may already be familiar with my "Firefox keeps crashing" thread.
This however is something that may or may not be related.

I've had my computer lose power suddenly and without warning before.
I've also had PCLinuxOS suddenly log me out without warning.

Yesterday and the day before I had PCLinuxOS simply freeze up on me (once while using Opera the other time while using FF).

Once today it couldn't find my harddrive and got stuck during that part of the boot up procedure before even reaching the Grub stage.
Then today I could not even boot up my computer as it repeatedly had an error loading Grub.

Luckily I have an old USB stick with an ancient version of another distro on it and used that to run my computer.  The only problem I noticed, and only once, was that it seemed to not be able to find my hard drive when booting up (why it was even checking for one I don't know).

So I had assumed that it was my HDD that was faulty (my third Western Digital to go in the last two years) and bought a new one.

I spent a $100 on a Seagate drive with the same capacity as my old WD.

I came home and on a whim decided to try booting up my computer and it worked just fine.

So what the heck is going on here???

Could a bad HDD have caused all of these problems?
Should I return my new un-opened drive?

Could this possibly be a bad power supply?

If it is a bad HDD, in addition to backing up my files, what is an easy way to keep my bookmarks?

Sorry for the long post, but it has been a rather frustrating past few days...

As always any help that you may give will be greatly appreciated.

[Old-Polack]

Neo:

Far more likely than either the PS or the hard drive failing is a problem with cables, or cable connections. Try unplugging and replugging each cables connections, a few times, to reestablish solid contact of the various pins.

Obviously, but worth mentioning to be sure, one would do this with the computer off, and disconnected from the house current. 

Once done, boot up and run as usual. If the problem ceases, you are good to go, but if the problem still exists, but the time span between such events is greatly increased, consider replacing the cables. If you have spare cables around, you may want to just replace the cables from the start.

[T6]

the problem you describe can be 2 things

1. bad cables

2. mainboard failing

change cables to discard the problem

to discard the second you should verify if it is a old mainbard the state of any capacitor and any other component

if you have a extra psu try to connect it but psus usually fail in a different way, anyway it is worth to try

something that could be a third option but is very uncommon is that your ram modules are failing or are not properly connected so unplug, verify and reseat the modules but is the last thing i would do

[Neo]

Thanks Guys, I much appreciate your help.

I have pulled the SATA cable out and reinstalled it - so far so good.

The RAM I reseated not too long ago when I was chasing down FF gremlins...

If it is my mobo, what are the chances that I can reuse anything from my 5.5 year old computer other than the case?
Harddrive, power supply, DVD burner???

I know the RAM and CPU would have to be new and I wouldn't bother with a stand alone video card (just get a mobo with it built in).

[Old-Polack]

Thanks Guys, I much appreciate your help.

I have pulled the SATA cable out and reinstalled it - so far so good.

The RAM I reseated not too long ago when I was chasing down FF gremlins...

If it is my mobo, what are the chances that I can reuse anything from my 5.5 year old computer other than the case?
Harddrive, power supply, DVD burner???

I know the RAM and CPU would have to be new and I wouldn't bother with a stand alone video card (just get a mobo with it built in).

Hard drives, PS, (if it's large enough) and DVD burners, should all be reusable, if there are controllers for the proper interface on the new MB. If the hard drives and DVD burner are IDE, you may need an add in card, as IDE controllers are being phased out on a lot of new MBs. Those that do still have IDE controllers usually only have one. (two devices only)

PCI slots are also on the way out, being replaced with smaller PCI-e slots, so if one were to need an add-in card, and hopes to have it remain reusable for the longest duration of time, look for what you need in a PCI-e version.

[T6]

you can find new and used parts for such hardware, pricewatch will offer old hardware, i can still find a ati radeon 9200 on box, new at 20 dollars there 

the problem is the price and what you get

a new mainboard will be cheaper, will use less power and will be at least 2 times faster than the one you have including a cpu and ram compared to the price of just that old compatible mainboard

this is a situation where you have to decide how to spend your resources and money

[erripe]

A five year HDD is a very old one; some have a 5 years exp. date written on them. New HDD is so cheap that i discard old drive, after wiping what is on them. If you must use old drives, get 2 identical and put them in raid array.

[T6]

SHHHHH!!!!!

if my hard drive bought in 2005 hear this i will have problems and i don't have money to replace it!

[weirdwolf]

I had problems with "I've had my computer lose power suddenly and without warning before." awhile back, after futzing with cables and such I bought a new PSU (450w Antec) and haven't had problems like that since. Also recently replaced mobo ($69), found one with both a IDE and FDD, could have gotten a cheaper one but some didn't have IDE and none had a floppy connector. I'm using a external HD mostly now but my old IDE HDD works fine and is bootable If I want it to be, Floppy works as well.
Bought a new IDE cable (longer) to hook up HDD and a CDROM, Turn out after some serious head scratching and what not the new ribbon was bad. got a used sata combo drive (10 bucks) and it's all good now.

[Reb]

5 years is old for a hard drive ?

I agree with T6 here, I've still got an old Quantum "big foot" 5 1/4" 6.4 Gb circa late 1999 / early 2000.
still works fine, no errors or bad sectors, slow, but solid and reliable 

[T6]

a quantum?

oh those old days...

bad days

[erripe]

Hi to all!
Here a link to a seagate paper about HDD reliability; There is a lot of variable for calculating the lifespan of an HDD: http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/storagereliability/
Since my desktop computer is running 24/365, and, after finding a capacitor cover in the bottom of the computer while cleaning inside, i decide to change everything each 5 or 6 year.
I use to have a 8088(xt) machine with a 20 meg (not gig) MFM coffee grinder. After 15 years, i gave it to salvation army.

[Reb]

a quantum?

oh those old days...

bad days

bad days ?

I had no problem with any Quantum drive I purchased, fireballs were good (even brand new they sounded like a  shaken bucket of nuts and bolts, but kept on chugging along), bigfoot's were slow but reliable.
and at least Quantum's warranty was a warranty, unlike Seagate at that time.

3 year warranty on Quantum's, no quibble straight swap brand new drive.

Seagate on the other hand, if it went wrong after three months all you got was a refurbished drive !
yeah that's a warranty (not)  
they only had "that much" confidence in their products !
for that one reason I won't buy Seagate drives, put me off of the company for life  

still, Quantum have gone, and Seagate may have changed their warranty stance now, I don't know, but then I don't care either, still not buying one 

IBM "death star" anyone ? 

oops, off topic.................sorry 

[djohnston]

5 years is old for a hard drive ?

I agree with T6 here, I've still got an old Quantum "big foot" 5 1/4" 6.4 Gb circa late 1999 / early 2000.
still works fine, no errors or bad sectors, slow, but solid and reliable 

I'm using a Quantum Fireball 2GB drive in a Piii for the swap and boot partitions. It's pre-2000, to be sure. I still have a WD 212MB drive I may, eventually, use for a boot partition somewhere. I have no idea how old it is, but it still works.

[rekabe]

Had the same freezing and random shutdown problem a few months ago. This always happened when playing games or watching videos.

I cleaned my cpu fan and heat sink , they were very dirty and I also upgraded my power supply from 350W to 500W.

No problems  since.