A strange HD crashing....

[Dervacumen]

If you bought a new one, it probably has the newer style 8 pin plug for 12V.  They usually are separable so you can plug into the older 4 pin motherboards.

I'll bet this is it...

[RandyT]

Yes, this is perfectly possible. But it isn't what's happening. If the OP merely said that sometimes the drive spins up and other times the OS can't find the drive, I'd be all about fingering the power supply as the likely culprit. But jostling the cable would not cause the hard drive to suddenly spin up if that were the case. Grey-Area said that he can spin up the drive by jostling the wires, as like a reliable fix. Physically shaking wires does not affect the amount of electricity flowing through them. The problem described in the OP is clearly a short. And the short is not in the power supply because he tried multiple wires. It's the adapter or the hard drive.

The OP stated that the PC would "freeze", and did not stipulate that this occurred only at "power on". 

Once all other systems cold booted to lower draw, the power cable can be re-jostled and give the questionable HDD a jump start.

What kahlid74 said here is not true. I know he said he's witnessed it, but I don't think he actually saw what he thinks he saw.

This is very plausible.  If the connector is jostled to the point that the drive loses contact, and is again given the "spin up" directive, it is doing so after the power to the rest of the system has stabilized and is at lower draw.

It could very well be the drive, but I've seen many a strange behavior in PC's over the last 26 years which have been the fault of power, either from components on the motherboard, or the supply itself.

[ark_ader]

You can get an adapter that can get the extra 12V line for your graphics card.

Or get this instead:

http://www.ebuyer.com/169215-casecom-350w-12cm-fan-psu-20-4pin-1x-sata-4x-molex-psu-350watx

I think they sell them over in the US but I'm sure you will find its equivalent.

Nice and quiet and cheap.

[Gray_Area]

It's a 24-pin header, so I thought maybe it would deliver the power through the extra four??  But I guess not.

As for the 8-pin ATX, it appears you're correct. Not much information with the unit, strangely, although I guess I could've looked online for more. Anyways, thanks. I'm back on the old power supply, so I'll let you know tomorrow how the new one shapes up.



By the way, the freeze never occured at power on. It would occur out of the blue in the middle of a session, often when I might have an assload of tabs in my browser. Then it would blue screen. (I couldn't find anything telling about the BS codes....) Another symptom of the 'condition' would be that the drives, none of them, SATA or PATA,  would be recognized.

I wasn't putting a huge draw, but the PSU is only 300 watts, so why not just upgrade it and see. (By the way, I missed some killer ending price auctions on some new 500w VisionTek PSUs yesterday.)

[Yenome]

yea most new power supplies are 24pin with an 8pin cpu plug. tho if you have a 20 pin mobo you can just plug the 24 pin in it will only go in one way and the extra 4 pins will juts be out of the connector of the mobo, tho most 24 pins tend to have the extra 4 pins able to come free from the 20 for this reason. same goes for the 8pin cpu. if you have an 8pin cpu mobo you can still use a 4pin as i have in my gf desktop i built her cause she doesnt use a high tdp cpu. now when we go to a quad core for her we might need the extra 4.

*edit*
with this new info bout none of the drives working at times. i would say that is a problem with the mobo it self.

[shmokes]

The OP stated that the PC would "freeze", and did not stipulate that this occurred only at "power on". 

It's irrelevant when it's happening. Either way it's a short.

Once all other systems cold booted to lower draw, the power cable can be re-jostled and give the questionable HDD a jump start.

What kahlid74 said here is not true. I know he said he's witnessed it, but I don't think he actually saw what he thinks he saw.

This is very plausible.  If the connector is jostled to the point that the drive loses contact, and is again given the "spin up" directive, it is doing so after the power to the rest of the system has stabilized and is at lower draw.

No. You're still talking about a short. You're just describing a power supply that happens to be underpowered in addition to there being a short in the adapter or hard drive. And while that's perfectly possible, there's no indication whatsoever that this is happening here. If the connector is jostled to the point that the drive loses contact, it's a short. And the fact that it's losing its connection repeatedly, without being jostled, only to temporarily regain power again when he wiggles the cable, makes it clear that it's a short (I suppose it's technically an open, not a short).

[Dervacumen]

Have you backed up your data yet?  At least get the important files off there.  Sounds more and more like the drive is warning you it's about to die.
As a precaution, don't do a disk scan until you back up the important stuff.  I once had similar issues and the disk scan did it in.

[ark_ader]

Have you backed up your data yet?  At least get the important files off there.  Sounds more and more like the drive is warning you it's about to die.
As a precaution, don't do a disk scan until you back up the important stuff.  I once had similar issues and the disk scan did it in.

Lol I did that.  Remember Spinrite?

Definitely off load the data on to another drive. 

I'm so glad that this issue has been brought up.  I do hope the people viewing take heed.

How many times do you think about your hard drives and do a brief risk assessment?

The OP stated that the PC would "freeze", and did not stipulate that this occurred only at "power on". 

It's irrelevant when it's happening. Either way it's a short.

Once all other systems cold booted to lower draw, the power cable can be re-jostled and give the questionable HDD a jump start.

What kahlid74 said here is not true. I know he said he's witnessed it, but I don't think he actually saw what he thinks he saw.

This is very plausible.  If the connector is jostled to the point that the drive loses contact, and is again given the "spin up" directive, it is doing so after the power to the rest of the system has stabilized and is at lower draw.

No. You're still talking about a short. You're just describing a power supply that happens to be underpowered in addition to there being a short in the adapter or hard drive. And while that's perfectly possible, there's no indication whatsoever that this is happening here. If the connector is jostled to the point that the drive loses contact, it's a short. And the fact that it's losing its connection repeatedly, without being jostled, only to temporarily regain power again when he wiggles the cable, makes it clear that it's a short (I suppose it's technically an open, not a short).

Oh dear.  What a to do. 

[Gray_Area]

The disc is cloned. Using the new PSU. So far so good.

[lilshawn]

harddrives do some stuff at startup...at startup if the drive fails to spin up to proper speed (either due to bad berings or stiction or possibly low current situation) the harddrive will pause for a few seconds and attempt it's startup again. I have the feeling the "flicking of the cable" is just a coincidence.


This drive's SMART info will probably be marked as a bad drive now since the spinup retries and attempts is now artifically high. It might still be good, just make sure it's backed up and keep an eye on it maybe run some diagnostics on it once you figure your system has stabilized.

[Gray_Area]

harddrives do some stuff at startup...at startup if the drive fails to spin up to proper speed (either due to bad berings or stiction or possibly low current situation) the harddrive will pause for a few seconds and attempt it's startup again. I have the feeling the "flicking of the cable" is just a coincidence.


This drive's SMART info will probably be marked as a bad drive now since the spinup retries and attempts is now artifically high. It might still be good, just make sure it's backed up and keep an eye on it maybe run some diagnostics on it once you figure your system has stabilized.

I don't know. Every time it happened, if I flicked the cable, the drive would audibly start up. I thought of troubleshooting the adapter as shmokes suggested, but I thought it easier just to replace the unit and know for sure it wasn't anything in that chain. Will do some disc diag some time, I guess. I'm so lazy!