BleepingComputer.com: Multiple Hard Drive Failures

I am using a refurbished HP6720y that I bought in late August 2009. Twice in the last 10 days I have had hard drive failures (SMART failure). The drives are WD640 Caviar Blue drives that were provided by HP (one initially with the unit and then a replacement drive). The first drive lasted about 40 days. The 2nd drive didn't even make it a week. HP is telling me that it is the drive and that they will send me another replacement. My concern is that the same thing will happen again.

I find it to be a strange coincidence that two drives have failed so quickly. Is it possible that there is a motherboard issue?

I doubt it is the power supply as I took out the HP 300W PSU and replaced it with a Corsair 400W PSU.

I don't do any gaming or anything else intense on the computer. I primarily do word processing, some video editing and web browsing. For the last week, I didn't even do much of that stuff.

Is there any chance that installing Vista SP2 caused the hard drive failure? I had just run a diagnostic on the drive and it passed. I then installed SP2 and it seemed ok. But shortly thereafter, the drive had begun to fail (I heard clicking and decided to run the diagnostic).

This post has been edited by yossarian23: 20 October 2009 - 09:47 AM

I'd say HP got a bad shipment of hard drives

garmanma, on Oct 20 2009, 11:07 AM, said:

No chance it is a motherboard issue? I just want to understand if this is likely to be a recurring problem if I decide to put in my own drive.

I have never heard of a motherboard causing a hard drive failure, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible I suppose. Hard drives are a heck of a lot more prone to failure than motherboards. I can remember way way back in '97 or '98 I bought a box of 10 new OEM WD HDs. Within a month, 7 of that 10 failed and it soured me on WD for a long time. I am over it now.

Cross your fingers, back up your data.

dpunisher, on Oct 20 2009, 11:34 AM, said:

Data was already backed up, especially since my other drive was beginning to fail less than 2 weeks ago. I am resigned to a new installation, etc. I just don't want that to become routine.

My understanding is that this would not be caused by software, correct? When I spoke to someone on the phone from HP last night, she said it could be a software or driver problem. Neither made any sense to me. That being said, I do find it a little strange that the drive errors began shortly after I installed Vista SP2. Can I chalk that up to a strange coincidence?

So I guess the bottom line is that WD has quality control issues.