Harddrive woes

[talondrew]

Ok first, here are my computer specs,

2.4 core 2 duo,
asus pb5 delux mobo
seagate barracuda 320gig sata 3gb/sec hd
corsair xms2 ddr2 pc6400
antec 550watt psu
quadro fx 1500, 256mb videocard
windows xp64bit

Here's the problem, after around 3 weeks of running perfectly, i get that blue screen of death, memory leak/low virtual memory screen. "oh #*("

ok now i reboot, and it tells me to insert a boot disc, ??...

i go into the bios and it doesn't read the harddrive at all... ><

i wait until the morning, check again to see if it will work, and wow it does work!... Later that day it happens again.. Now i restart again and immediatly after the windows xp64 loading screen it flashes some blue window (doesn't stick around long enough for me to read it) and restarts itself... it will continue in this loop until the mobo just stops recognizing it again.

Ok, so i throw in another harddrive i have laying around, a cavalier 240gig sata, and windows installs just fine, but still doesn't see the other harddrive.

after three weeks i finally had my new harddrive filled with my regular programs, music, and files from my old old harddrive and i don't want to start over again ><

Any ideas?, thanks in advance

 

[rahlzel]

This sounds very much like a cooling problem. It works fine after being left alone for a while, but jacks up after a few hours of use. There's a chance you may have fried your old harddrive if it no longer works even after letting it cool. If so, be very careful with your new one.

Make sure there's adequate flow in your computer. Turn it on and put your hand behind the tower where the air from the power supply comes out and make sure you feel air against your hand. You can also open up your case and hover your hand over areas like the CPU to see if you can feel any hot spots. The last method isn't 100% accurate, since full closure of your computer case is what ensures optimum airflow, but you may just find something abnormal.

Do you overclock? If not, I know some retailers who sell full computer packages will overclock the computer themselves "for best performance", but they'll normally tell you if they do. Someone in the shop may have screwed up.

Edit: I reread your post. Since you weren't having problems for 3 weeks, I tend to wonder if your power supply went bad. That would be my #1 recommendation to check out.