hard drive crashing

[donnyfher]

I bought a new SATA Seagate 1TB hard drive for extra storage. My primary drive is a Western Digital IDE drive on a 'MSI P7N SLI-FI LGA775 ATX Motherboard MS-7380-030' Motherboard and I have a 430W power supply.

The drive installs fine. I can send data to it and run things off it. The next day the drive doesn't work. It cannot be read and makes a clicking noise. I took back the drive and installed a new one with the exact same result. The drive is still under warranty so I can get another new one for free but am very reluctant because I've already fried two drives. The store did diagnostics to confirm damage to both drives. Is there something going on with my computer that I can fix or am I extremely unlucky at getting two defective drives despite this brand supposedly being very reliable? Or is the issue with running an IDE drive with a SATA drive. The salesman assured me there would be no problem with this configuration, but he seemed more eager to make a sale than to have my machine working. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Karnac]

Have you had any kind of power issues? Intermittent freezing? Reboots?.....How old is the power supply?

[Geek-9pm]

Very odd. But it can happen. 
I am very clumsy with things, but the only time I have fried drives is when I tried to put the power connector into the drive while the system is in the power on state. Not a very bright thing to do. I would not accuse the OP of being as dim witted as I am!
The OP should send it back for another drive.
Can not positively never happen again. 

[donnyfher]

The power supply is as old as the computer which is about 1.5 to 2 years old. I haven't had any power issues and the system is pretty stable. The only issue is every once in a while i get booted off the internet and have to reboot to reconnect but I think that is more an issue of my crapy ISP than my computer as my roomates have similar issues. The drive never moved after the install and the power connectors were not messed with while the computer was running. The guy at the store thought power supply or some issue with my SATA connection. I doubt its my power supply since its not affecting anything else in my system. Is is possible its my SATA? Is there any kind of test I can run to see? What confuses me is how it works perfectly when first installed then fails the  next day.

This is probly a really stupid question but I'm a newbie, what is an OP?

Thanks again for your help !

[Geek-9pm]

OP is An operator.
An operator is a super user.   

Your power supply has both SATA and regular power connectors. Right? If it was wired wrong, the drive would not work at all and would be destroyed quickly.

The drive has a manufacture red  defect. In the industry this is called infant mortality. It refers to the tenancy of new products to fail after coming off the production line. They will fix the problem soon. Meanwhile, the customers have to make use of the warranty. This is inconvenience we, the consumers, pay for being on the cutting edge.

[donnyfher]

Thanks again for your help. My power supply does have SATA power connections. I used that connection the first time, thinking that might be the issue since it is the only thing on my system using a different connector aside from the MB, I used a converter from a regular power connector to SATA the second time with the same result. I'm sure that it was wired right as the drive was recognized instantly and performed perfectly for the few hours I was using the computer. It wasn't until the next day that I had the issue. I'm glad to hear that this is a defect rather than something in my system. Would you recommend me getting a different hard drive or trying this one again and hoping the third time will work out?

[computeruler]

op = original poster

[Geek-9pm]

You might ask for a model that is a little different.
But the warranty is for the original unit.
If it was me, a third try of the same would be fine.

[donnyfher]

I was able to exchange it for a Western Digital Caviar Green of the same size which was about $10 more. It was immediately recognized and is working great so far, I'll let you know if it crashes. If this one crashes I have to believe it is an issue with my system. Thanks a lot for your help it has been very useful. The only thing that I can think that may have been wrong with the Seagate drive, besides the possible factory defect, is in the way the drive is formatted. The Western Digital drive told me to use Windows to format the drive which took a few hours on a drive so large while the Seagate drive came with software which formatted the drive in a matter of minutes. I could be completly wrong as I have no idea what the difference in formatting is or if it even matters, but it seems strange that there is such a difference in time. Regardless, if anyone is considering the Seagate drive I would recommend for them to stay away and pay the extra money for a Western Digital which has always been a reliable brand for me. That is probly what I should have done in the first place. The problem with the WD drive is that it doesn't come with a SATA cable, but luckily I had one. Thanks again