Hard Drive Problems

Well I've been running into a problem. At random times, my hard drive stops reading, my mouse stops moving, the computer stays on, but the hard drive just stops. It's not a windows problem, and not an IDE cable problem, formatted the drive and all, still, theres this problem... What could it be? Motherboard? Or perhaps the HDD itself?

Hopefully both are on waranty...

I got a WD 120GB, and WinXP. On a foxconn mobo If you need more info tell me

 

The technical term this is a lockup and they are in my experience the hardest problem to resolve as it can be any program windows or otherwise or any peice of hardware,to first narrow down the problem is this a store bought comp or home built?If store bought return the whole thing,I'm guessing its not as you have wiped the harddrive therefore you will need to post more info as to when the the problem first arose ,have you just installed a new component,has the computer worked fine for ?? months,have you just built this comp from scratch,have you downloaded all the available updates driver and software wise including all windows updates,as much info as possible no matter how mundane you may think it to be,also have a look at this

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/announcement.php?f=22

 

this is a home build PC, i have slipstreamed XP SP2 with al available updates, The problem arose after i moved the computer to newer case, and the hard-drive has worked fine since i put it together, about 2 months ago. Would wiping the BIOS and reupdating it do any good? The strange part is that it doenst lock-up when i'm playing BF2, but only when im running regular daily apps, like outlook, firefox, etc.

 

You say you've moved it to a new case...does the case have appropriate cooling for your CPU?

Have you checked that the CPU fan is functional?




Just think it might be a heat problem?

 

Hmm, now its happening to the point where i can't login... the case has proper cooling, i dont think the processor is damage and it runs at 40 degrees celcius at idle (its a p4 prescott 3.0ghz HT). SMART says the hard drive is running at about 87 degrees fahrenheit, and another problem that i've been having is that i only get ~80fps on the CSS stress test and ican only run BF2 at medium performance to keep it smooth. Also i only got 2700 marks on 3dmark 05... And for my pc this doesnt seem right... I ran some HDD diagnostics from Hiren's bootcd. So it all isnt adding up.. Maybe I just built a junker?

 

maybe it is heat? would putting a fan over the hard drive help if it was?