New
#21
Ok quick update;
Turns out the loud noises was from the case fan in front of the hard drive.
However, as I said before, the hard drive seemed to be running slow, but not entirely sure it was going bad anymore.
I ordered a new one, slightly different model number, but otherwise all the specs are the same.
I hooked it up last night, and had to partition it for the computer to detect it as a separate drive. I set it as drive E:. Next I made a backup of Windows on it, not realizing that it didn't copy everything from the old drive.
Then I ran Acronis True Image WD Edition and cloned my old drive onto the new one. However, I noticed when it went to start the process, my computer restarted and locked up on the ASUS motherboard logo screen. I hit restart button and it immediately started the cloning process. I let it run over night, and it shut down after completing.
Upon starting up this morning everything seemed fine, looked like everything was copied onto new drive. I did some things on the internet for awhile, then put the computer to sleep.
When I went to wake it up, it froze up again, monitor had no signal. I hit restart and it locked up on the ASUS motherboard screen again; the mouse and keyboard light up, but when I hit a button on the keyboard, the Num lock light goes out and stays out. Computer will not respond. I hit restart several more times, but nothing worked, it kept locking up on ASUS screen.
Thinking maybe I was confusing the computer, since the drive are now basically the same, I unplugged the SATA cable from the old drive. The computer immediately started normally, and I was able to run some programs. I turned it off again (this is when I unplugged the noisy case fan), and restarted, and got the lock up on ASUS screen again several more times....
Not sure what is going on, the only thing I can think of is maybe the SATA cable I had the new hard drive plugged in with? Its a bit older, and says SATA II on it. Not sure what my other two SATA cables are (old hard drive and disc drive), assuming SATA IIIs since they says 6gbs on them, but not sure
I seem to be running ok at the moment, I unplugged the old drive completely and plugged in the new drive with the newer SATA cable, and its connected with the same power cable as before.