I have been experiencing a series of issues that while appear to have been due to bad hard drives, I'm beginning to suspect something more. The problems have ranged from high mortality rates on Seagate 7200.11 drives (which are known to have problems), to two out of three WDC1002FAEX drives having bad blocks soon after installation, and now a series of problems with Linux distros on multiple types of HDDs.
Some time back, after finding that Kubuntu 10.4 was unbootable on my oldest drive (Maxtor 6YO89M0), I just shelved it until recently installing Suse 11.4 on it. A few days later, I had a similar issue with not being able to boot Suse, even after reinstalling it once.
I then bought a new WD5001AALS, and after running tests on it with HD Tune, I tried Suse 11.4 on it once more. Then when attempting to boot it a bit earlier today, it displayed a similar GRUB error as to the ones experienced previously, except that instead of it saying that there was a disk read error, it said that there was a hard drive error.
The only thread that I can think of that may weave through all of these problems is something like the drive controller on the motherboard. However, rather than simply doing another R&R, without something more than a hunch to go on, I'm wondering if there is a way to diagnose whether this is actually a problem or not? I do have some diagnostics, but none that I can remember that would actually pinpoint whether a defective condition really existed.
Some time back, after finding that Kubuntu 10.4 was unbootable on my oldest drive (Maxtor 6YO89M0), I just shelved it until recently installing Suse 11.4 on it. A few days later, I had a similar issue with not being able to boot Suse, even after reinstalling it once.
I then bought a new WD5001AALS, and after running tests on it with HD Tune, I tried Suse 11.4 on it once more. Then when attempting to boot it a bit earlier today, it displayed a similar GRUB error as to the ones experienced previously, except that instead of it saying that there was a disk read error, it said that there was a hard drive error.
The only thread that I can think of that may weave through all of these problems is something like the drive controller on the motherboard. However, rather than simply doing another R&R, without something more than a hunch to go on, I'm wondering if there is a way to diagnose whether this is actually a problem or not? I do have some diagnostics, but none that I can remember that would actually pinpoint whether a defective condition really existed.
My Computer
At a glance
W7x64 Pro, SuSe 12.1/** W7 x64 Pro, XP MCEPhenom II 1090T w/Noctua NH-D14 /**4400+ X2 w...2 x 2GB Patriot PGS34g1600LLKA/**4x1GB Corsai...EVGA GTX460 SC/**EVGA 8800GTS
- Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
- DIY
- OS
- W7x64 Pro, SuSe 12.1/** W7 x64 Pro, XP MCE
- CPU
- Phenom II 1090T w/Noctua NH-D14 /**4400+ X2 w/CM Hyper TX 3
- Motherboard
- ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4/**A8N-SLI
- Memory
- 2 x 2GB Patriot PGS34g1600LLKA/**4x1GB Corsair VS
- Graphics Card(s)
- EVGA GTX460 SC/**EVGA 8800GTS
- Sound Card
- Asus Xonar D2X/**Xonar D1
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Acer X233H, Dell E152FPc /**LG M237-WD
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1080 & 1024x768/**1980x1080
- Hard Drives
- WDC 2TB, 1.5TB, 1TB, 500GB,Seagate 500GB , Maxtor 80GB /**500GB Seagate & WDC 1TB Black
- PSU
- CM RS600 w/ APC BX1000G/**Antec 500 TP w/ APC BX1000
- Case
- HAF922/**Antec 1040IIB
- Cooling
- 3x200mm, 1x140 and 1x120mm/**5x80mm fans
- Keyboard
- Logitech Media USB/**Saitek Eclipse
- Mouse
- Cordless Trackman Wheel/**Ditto
- Internet Speed
- 3.3Mbps
- Other Info
- SB 560 5.1 w/ Sennheiser RS140/**Creative T20 speakers, Dvico FusionHDTV7 Gold RT, Cisco E3000, HP 5510V AIO, Linksys E3000, Belkin F5U237 hub and **F5D8055 adapter
(** = 2nd rig)
