Something is corrupting my harddrives

Hi there.

I've been having these weird problems with my pc randomly restarting for sometime. Over time I've tried to narrow these down, and thought i had solved it by diagnosing the problem down to my coolermaster custom psu inside my case.

Whenever the system would restart, it wouldn't detect any harddrives, or just one of the two, until i disconnected the power supply for a few minutes, and when i reconnected it would be ok - until the problem occurred again - and when this random restarting would occur, i would hear a distinctive 'tic' inside the machine just before the restart. Anyway...

I replaced all sorts of stuff, and ended up buying a new case, and had no issues for at least two months. Everything was fine once again...

then yesterday, bang, my system restarts once again, and when i restart, no detection of hardrive, and in the process a win xp file has been corrupted and i've got nothing.

Now, my question is, could this be a motherboard issue? I can understand there may be a problem with one of the ide controllers on the board, but would this corrupt harddrive files?

Or...could there be an issue with my home electricity ?? I have moved into an older house, about a year ago, and i'm suspicious of the power in this place, we have had a couple of power outages, and i'm wondering if an unstable power system in the house could be causing these problems?

I would welcome any input or assistance, and would also mention that I've pretty much diagnosed it down to the motherboard (or the home power), everything else has been ruled out or replaced. There should not be an overheating issue, i'm in a cool climate and system is well fanned etc.

Thanks

 

Yes. Totally possible. It's more common than you might think.

Again, yes. Older homes have older wiring, and depending on the age of the home, older wiring was not insulated with plastic like it is now; it was insulated with fabric, usually a fairly loose cotton weave and it's prone to deteriorate over time, causing shorts and all sort of issues, and it can be dangerous. Dried out deteriorated cotton fabric is highly flamable. I've personally also seen telephone wiring in older homes that was the same, not as dangerous due to the lower voltage, but still prone to problems. I'd recommend that you have the local power company come out and do a wiring survey and have 'em test it and date it if possible. This survey should be free. If the wiring needs to be upgraded and you're renting the home, I think the landlord will have to pay, or maybe the power company covers it. I'm not sure about that part, but I know the power co will check it for free (or a nominal fee).

 

You might also want to look into a UPS. Get one power conditioning, and you will have clean power and a battery for the power outages.

E

 

IMO, it would be a good idea to turn off "restart on error". That way, at least with the BSOD, you'd be getting an error code and have a bit of an idea what might be the problem instead of trying to replace parts and see if it solves the problem.
1. Right click My Computer and select Properties
2. Click the Advanced tab then Startup and Recovery button
3. Uncheck/untick under system failure "Automatically reboot"

 

excellent help, thanks guys.

hope it's not the power in the house because i own it and will have to pay!

This problem has already destroyed one hard drive, now possibly another, my system won't even see them when i plug them into to a usb slot. Will try both of these options, thanks again.