HDD start getting errors.

[caughtair]

Hey guys.,
I'm kind of lost here. My HDD, a four-year old Western Digital Caviar Black 640 gigs, SATA 2, and in the last days, I started getting checksum errors, and various read errors. I haven`t had problems with it until about now. I bought new parts to my PC, a ASRock 970 Pro 3, an AMD Phenom II 965 BE and a GTX 660 . I have a 4 year old 500W Akasa PaxPower so I should be fine with the PSU. When I installed the OS, I started having read errors from the "expanding files" stage in Windows 7 install. I had to try it 4 times to get it right. Then , after the install , I started having several read errors, several blue-screens and errors when I would use .iso files. Also , I get various checksum errors when checking with the .sfv files. Also , these errors appear on old files, not in the new only in the new ones. I don`t think it would be viruses. I did HDD checks in Windows and searched for bad sectors, also surface tests with different programs and found nothing bad. I`m at a loss. Any ideas? Is it a sign of the HDD failing ? Thanks.

[Melvis]

Id run HD Tune and check the whole drive for errors, if it doesnt come up with anything id check your RAM, run mem test and see if your memory is ok

[qubit]

Drive has had it. Make sure you have any important data backed up. This should be done on a continuous basis anyway, not only when you start to notice problems.

[McSteel]

If that's your only HDD in the system, or if any other HDDs you may have show any such errors, it could very well be a RAM or a PSU problem... But yeah, check your HDD for physical errors with Victoria, MHDD, HD Tune or similar. In case of bad blocks/sectors, RMA the drive while it's still under warranty.

[caughtair]

Thanks for the answers, helped me a lot . I've ran about everything I could for the HDD and no problems were found. But then I went to memtest. Damn, over 200000 errors in 1 run . The things is , the sticks are brand new. Is it definetely something wrong with the memory, or can it be something with the motherboard also ? Probably tomorrow I'm returning the memory sticks. Corsair XMS DDR-3 1333 Mhz, 2x4gigs, I think I forgot to mention it.

[Kreij]

Are you overclocking? If so, drop back to stock. Your RAM may not like the OC.
Hold off on returning them just yet. It may be something else.

[DayKnight]

Damn that's a BIG number!.

Get a value ram and check.

[corehazard]

It could possibly even be a loose cable; other than that its most likely a problem with the drive, RAM, or PSU as everyone else said.

[caughtair]

I didn't OC nothing yet. Just bought these components this week. Haven't had time for OC, plus I would not start on it with the stock cooler on the Phenom 965BE ; it sounds like a freakin' jet boeing in full load.

[DayKnight]

Originally Posted by corehazard

It could possibly even be a loose cable; other than that its most likely a problem with the drive, RAM, or PSU as everyone else said.

Its clearly RAM or motherboard.

[Kreij]

Do you have all of the RAM slots full? Some mobos like a little more voltage when that is the case.

[caughtair]

Just two out of four. I've noticed that only one of the two sticks has problems. I'll try to see if errors pop out on daily use with only the healthy stick . If they don't, I guess it's from the memory only - non HDD related.

[Kreij]

It could be slot related or stick related. I've seem both.
Run the RAM tests on each stick separately. If they both pass, start playing slot musical chairs to see it you get errors only in a particular slot.

Fun stuff

[caughtair]

Hey you know what, I've entered Windows with the healthy dimm . I had a couple of torrents stuck in tons on hashfails. They all finished with no hashfails (they were stuck at 99,9%). Guess the problem is solved. Can I do anything to test also the motherboard itself?