> A friend got a Western Digital 250 GB IDE hard drive a few months
> ago.  I installed the new drive, installed XP Pro and a few other
> pieces of software for him.  About a week later the PC wouldn't boot.
> It would just hang right after the POST.  No way to safe mode or
> anything.
> The BIOS still saw the drive.
> I could boot from the XP disc and XP sees the drive.
> I ran the WD diag tools and all came up clean.
>
> I booted from the XP disc, formatted the drive as NFTS (full format)
> and installed XP again.  Reinstalled the apps and all was well for
> about 3 months, maybe longer.  No problems.
>
> All of a sudden, it happens again.  Same thing.  Gets stuck right
> after the POST.  I can put the drive in my system and save the data
> from the drive.  I ran AV and Spyware checks - no problems.  I did
> see the drive was heavily fragmented though.
>
> This time I booted from the XP disc and ran Recovery Console.  I can
> get in, so I ran FIXMBR.  No help.  I did recovery again and tried
> FIXBOOT.  No help.
>
> What in the world is causing this?  Any suggestions besides RMA'ing
> the drive?

> A friend got a Western Digital 250 GB IDE hard drive a few months ago.  I
> installed the new drive, installed XP Pro and a few other pieces of software
> for him.  About a week later the PC wouldn't boot.  It would just hang right
> after the POST.  No way to safe mode or anything.
>
> The BIOS still saw the drive.
> I could boot from the XP disc and XP sees the drive.
> I ran the WD diag tools and all came up clean.
>
> I booted from the XP disc, formatted the drive as NFTS (full format) and
> installed XP again.  Reinstalled the apps and all was well for about 3
> months, maybe longer.  No problems.
>
> All of a sudden, it happens again.  Same thing.  Gets stuck right after the
> POST.  I can put the drive in my system and save the data from the drive.  I
> ran AV and Spyware checks - no problems.  I did see the drive was heavily
> fragmented though.
>
> This time I booted from the XP disc and ran Recovery Console.  I can get in,
> so I ran FIXMBR.  No help.  I did recovery again and tried FIXBOOT.  No
> help.
>
> What in the world is causing this?  Any suggestions besides RMA'ing the
> drive?

> NuQ wrote:
>> A friend got a Western Digital 250 GB IDE hard drive a few months
>> ago.  I installed the new drive, installed XP Pro and a few other
>> pieces of software for him.  About a week later the PC wouldn't
>> boot.  It would just hang right after the POST.  No way to safe mode
>> or anything. The BIOS still saw the drive.
>> I could boot from the XP disc and XP sees the drive.
>> I ran the WD diag tools and all came up clean.
>>
>> I booted from the XP disc, formatted the drive as NFTS (full format)
>> and installed XP again.  Reinstalled the apps and all was well for
>> about 3 months, maybe longer.  No problems.
>>
>> All of a sudden, it happens again.  Same thing.  Gets stuck right
>> after the POST.  I can put the drive in my system and save the data
>> from the drive.  I ran AV and Spyware checks - no problems.  I did
>> see the drive was heavily fragmented though.
>>
>> This time I booted from the XP disc and ran Recovery Console.  I can
>> get in, so I ran FIXMBR.  No help.  I did recovery again and tried
>> FIXBOOT.  No help.
>>
>> What in the world is causing this?  Any suggestions besides RMA'ing
>> the drive?
>
> It could be a power supply.  Has a new video card been put into the
> box recently?  If the supply cannot deliver what is expected of it,
> you can get chronic  hard drive corruption.

> Grinder <grinder@no.spam.maam.net> wrote:
>
>>NuQ wrote:
>>
>>>A friend got a Western Digital 250 GB IDE hard drive a few months
>>>ago.  I installed the new drive, installed XP Pro and a few other
>>>pieces of software for him.  About a week later the PC wouldn't
>>>boot.  It would just hang right after the POST.  No way to safe mode
>>>or anything. The BIOS still saw the drive.
>>>I could boot from the XP disc and XP sees the drive.
>>>I ran the WD diag tools and all came up clean.
>>>
>>>I booted from the XP disc, formatted the drive as NFTS (full format)
>>>and installed XP again.  Reinstalled the apps and all was well for
>>>about 3 months, maybe longer.  No problems.
>>>
>>>All of a sudden, it happens again.  Same thing.  Gets stuck right
>>>after the POST.  I can put the drive in my system and save the data
>>>from the drive.  I ran AV and Spyware checks - no problems.  I did
>>>see the drive was heavily fragmented though.
>>>
>>>This time I booted from the XP disc and ran Recovery Console.  I can
>>>get in, so I ran FIXMBR.  No help.  I did recovery again and tried
>>>FIXBOOT.  No help.
>>>
>>>What in the world is causing this?  Any suggestions besides RMA'ing
>>>the drive?
>>
>>It could be a power supply.  Has a new video card been put into the
>>box recently?  If the supply cannot deliver what is expected of it,
>>you can get chronic  hard drive corruption.
>
>
> Thanks for the reply.  I didn't think about the power supply.  No video card
> was added.  However, there were 3 items that were replaced.  The CD-RW drive
> was replaced with a DVD-RW and the 20GB hard drive was replaced with the
> 250GB drive.  Also, I added more RAM.
>
> I just looked at the PS and it's a tiny 100W!  I guess that's all it needed
> when it was made, but 100W sure does seem too little.  It's one of those
> micro ATX PCs from HP.  It's an HP Pavilion XE783.