Windows 7: Hard drive light goes solid red and computer locks up...

Hi everyone

for the last 2 weeks or so my computer has been locking up and freezing with the data light on the computer to go into a solid state of red.

i thought i had fixed it by trying a few other solutions i had found here on the net such as....



1. re-applying thermal paste to CPU
2. removing build up of dust
3. checking ALL connections
4. Re-installing windows
5. checking hard drive for bad sectors (which it found and fixed)

im running...
windows 7 32bit
3gb RAM
ATI HD6870
1 320GB western digital HDD
1 500GB western digital HDD ( which i think is causing the problems but its only a year old and shouldnt be failing now).

so yeaa..thats my problem..reall starting to anger me and im considering building a completley new system but this ones only a year and a half old :/ any help from you guys would be much apriciated

Thanks
Daniel.

It does sound as though the hard drive has failed or is not far off it.

I may be wrong, but I think Western Digital have a five-year no-quibble guarantee on their hard drives so it'll pay you to check with them.

A hard drive can fail at any time so I think you've just been unlucky.

You should try and get any important data off the drive as soon as possible.

Try disabling disc indexing and see if this doesn't do the trick ... depending on how recent your latest install is and how much data is on the drive being indexed, it can take a long time to index the drives ...

Given that you have two hard drives, I would try the following; try using them one by one and see which one really gives you trouble.

Another option is to use a LiveCD - booting from a disk with either Windwos or Linux LiveCD. This will tell you if your drives are really failing or there is some sort of software issue - and indexing can be one of them.

By the way, does this problem occur if you boot to the safe mode as well?

cwright,

1. Run Chkdsk /R on both disks.

Once a disk starts to go then you need to make sure it isn't going worse.
Also that /R is going to try and correct any bad sectors, anywhere on your disk, and will put entries into the disks internal tables marking sectors as bad so that the disk know to ignore those sectors.

2. After running chkdsk, the results can be viewed in the event viewer.
Event Viewer - Read Check Disk (chkdsk) Log
How to Read the Event Viewer Log for Check Disk (chkdsk) in Windows 7 and Vista

3. Help us by fluffing out your system specs. Here's how to gather, and enter the info:
Update your SevenForums System Specs
User CP (3rd item in the top menu bar) |
Your Profile | Edit System Spec (left-hand column)

To gather info, use SIW or Speccy or System Info

Add the word laptop or desktop or netbook to the
“system manufacturer” block, for example,
Toshiba Satellite L305D notebook.

Provide full windows version info, for example:
MS Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Use the “Other Info” block for Optical Reader,
Mouse, touchpad, wifi adapter, speakers, monitor, etc

Scroll down and click on the SAVE CHANGES button.


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Only after running chkdsk (please run it again as requested here), then run the System File Checker in the manner described in this tutorial:
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker
How to Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker

Explain please what you mean exactly by "locking up". If left to itself, does your PC remain in this state indefinitely? If it comes-out by itself, after what period of time? Can you do anything at all while it is locked-up? Do you have to reboot your PC to get it back, and how do you do that?

I've had similar issues to yours but the PC "comes-back" after a couple minutes.

Thanks guys ill try some of the suggested things and get back to you

Maxseven - as for the locking up thing i mean it completley locks..mouse doesent move.. CTRL ALT DEL does nothing..only thing i can do is hit the power button untill it shuts off. iv tried leaving it but the computer was still the same after half an hour :/


It was a lot worse before i searched and fixed bad sectors on the hard drive..and one point i couldnt even boot up past the windows logo..it halfway halfway in and then lock up!

I am inclined to agree with seavixen, in that it is an issue with your hard drive. I would download Western Digital's diagnostic program to check the hard drive.

cwright,
If you had fluffed out your system specs, then recommending test program(s) would be easier.

Update your SevenForums System Specs
User CP (3rd item in the top menu bar) |
Your Profile | Edit System Spec (left-hand column)

To gather info, use SIW or Speccy or System Info

Add the word laptop or desktop or netbook to the
“system manufacturer” block, for example,
Toshiba Satellite L305D notebook.

Provide full windows version info, for example:
MS Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Use the “Other Info” block for Optical Reader,
Mouse, touchpad, wifi adapter, speakers, monitor, etc

Scroll down and click on the SAVE CHANGES button.

Once, when I had a hard drive fail, I checked it with the defragger, and found an abnormally large area showing up as fragmented, and running a defrag didn't change it as expected. This would be just another quick check to throw in with the others.