Hard Drive corruption

Question

Part1: I have a pretty annoying problem:( A few months ago, I bought a new computer. Its hard disk was SATA Hitachi 320 GB. I installed Windows 7 and everything ran fine. But after some weeks, Windows 7 started to hang. The only way to shut down the computer was to hold the power button. But when I tried to turn it on, BIOS didn't detect any HDD. I was really frustrated. After 15 minutes I tried again to turn on the computer again, and this time Windows 7 started perfectly! But the hangs of the computer continued in the same manner - I turn it off, wait 30 minutes maybe(otherwise BIOS doesn't recognize HDD, I don't know why) and I could start it again. After a week I couldn't start it for hours. Sometimes I could start it only on the next morning. I ran the Hitachi drive fitness test and it complained about corrupted sectors. But can corrupted sectors prevent the BIOS from recognizing the HDD? Also it was a pain in the a** to run the fitness test, because BIOS recognized the HDD very rarely. My computer is in warranty, so they changed my HDD. It seemed to solve the problem.

Part2: After my HDD was changed with another Hitachi of the same size, I happily worked with my computer for some months, again with Windows 7. But on a perfect sunny day, my computer again hanged and the same story I described above, started again:( Is my computer eating hard disks?! Again the BIOS rarely recognizes the Hard Drive. But when it is recognized, Windows 7 starts perfectly, till the next hang. Again the fitness test says about corrupted sectors like the previous HDD. I ran S.M.A.R.T and a warning sign was next to the CRC. I am afraid to take a third hard drive to be eaten again:(

Thanks for reading my whole post. What could cause all this pain? I would be grateful to any clues you have!

P.S. I would like also to know what are the possible reasons that can cause the BIOS not to recognize the HDD sometimes.

Wish you all the best, Petar

Answer 1

It sounds like the hard drive is overheating which is causing the corruption. The fact the latest problem started on a sunny day points to this as well. I haven't come across this myself, but a Google search for "hard drive overheating" returns nearly a million results.

The overheating might explain the problems the BIOS is having, and the fact that waiting a while "fixes" it. The drive has had time to cool down.

You don't say whether your machine is a laptop or desktop, but you need to investigate better cooling options. Make sure that all the current fans are working and that there's nothing blocking airflow.

You might want to consider a different make of hard drive or even a solid state disk (SSD) if you can't install new fans etc.