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Might be a stab in the dark here, but I've suffered 3 hard drive failures, each time on MSI boards. First it was a 60Gb DiamondMax Plus 60 which failed on a K7T266 Pro, then a 180Gxp and it's warranty replacement which failed on a MSI 745 Ultra. I know it's nothing conclusive, but the fact that 3 out of the 5 hard drives I have bought have failed, and each time on an MSI board, just got me wondering.
Any articles on this anywhere?
have you tryed other mobo's? other hdd's? were they all from the same shop? same ide cables used each time? jumpers? dodgy psu? could be anything...
All the motherboard can do is send data and control signals via the IDE channels to the drive.
Now, if invalid signals, or extreme ones are frequently sent, one might think that such a problem would cause a drive failure. However, they will be designed to handle these sorts of errors.
The only possible situation would be where something is very wrong and causes the IDE controller to fail - but I can't see how signals over the IDE cable could do this really.
How have the drives died? Physical or controller failure?
Physical failures, the all started clicking and not getting picked up in the BIOS.
Different sets of IDE cables used each time.
The fact that they aren't picked up by the BIOS indicates some sort of controller failure.
I have a Seagate that does similar things. When it tries to read certain parts of the disk, it starts clicking like mad, then drops off the device list for a few minutes while it recovers. I think the controller is encountering some fatal errors resulting in erratic signals being sent to the servo (hence clicking) and ultimately it is resetting itself.
So, sounds like your drives are doing something similar. I still don't think the mobo had anything to do with it though. If you'd had other drive reliability problems and devices persistantly failing to show up on the IDE enumeration list then I'd be more inclined to point the finger.
Still, this is certainly an interesting suggestion that bears some investigation.
What PSU you being using?
One Maxtor failed on a Chieftec 340w, the IBM died on a generic Eagle PSU, which was then changed for a CWT, where the replacement Hitachi failed again.
I doubt if the make of motherboard is causing problems but I must admit there would be some slight element of doubt as to whether your suspicion is true.
I think it likely that manufacturers of hard Disks are turning out a lot of sub-standard product. In the last 6 weeks I've had a 120Gb 8Mb cache Western Digital and a Seagate 40Gb Barracuda fail on me. WD is at Scan now, has been since mid January, they agreed to replace it weeks ago, but still haven't got a replacement. The Seagate I sent directly to Seagate in Holland today.
Arggh, Seagate RMA, been there, done that, had a 120GB SATA go south on me last year. Ouch. Talk about DELAY... Didn't get a replacment for ages.
So now we gotta choose hard drives based on who RMAs the quickest, as we expect them to fail?
I'm gonna buy Maxtors then . . .
If nothing else, I've rarely seen a Maxtor go wrong.
maxtors rule :)
how about power cables? have you used the same or any power splitters with the drives? i had problems with a 120gb and 160gb maxtor which would just keep going on and off. the 160gb drive was new, and also died very quickly. the 120gb still works. the 160gb was rma'ed very quikly by tekheads where i got it, replacement arrived within a few day :)
When my 40gb IBM drive went, now handled by hitachi, I has to send it somewhere in Europe, cant remember, and I think I would have had a pretty wuick replacement but they didnt have the drive in stock, not suprising since it was over 2 years old. Took them a couple of weeks to get me a newer version of the 40gb drive.
But once they did dispatch it, it got to me the next day, even though they dispatched it on a Friday, it was marked for Saturday delivery. Very impressive I thought :)