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Repeated drive corruption

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4wd:
Start simple. Try doing a partition boot sector repair on the drive followed by a reformat. Here's instructions if you don't already know how to do it:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/newbootsector.htm-40hz (December 13, 2008, 11:27 AM)
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The only problem with that is it will only work if the drive has a boot partition, ie. an Active Primary partition.
Because of the exceedingly stupid way both MS OS's and BIOS's default to "oh look, an IDE drive that must be the boot drive" mode, the only drive I have in my system marked for Active is also the only one with a Primary partition - all others use logical partitions.  Saves me from Windows stupidly marking pure data drives as Active which then results in when you take the drive out the computer won't boot.

Other possibilities:
- Firmware issues. Check to see if your BIOS or chipset firmware needs updating? I've found a lot of problems (80%) get fixed by installing the most recent BIOS and chipset drivers.
- Bad/marginal data cable. Swap with known good.
- Power. Try switching wire from PS to drive.
- Bad SATA port/controller on mobo. Try switching drive to an alternate port and retry.
  (Also check SATA settings in BIOS.)

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My money's on a cable problem, (which means I'll be wrong :) ), backup the data on both the corrupting drive and another then just swap the connectors, (power and data), over on them and see how it goes.

If you can, spend the money on SATA data leads that have a locking clip, as supplied with all Gigabyte motherboards.  SATA connectors would have to be the most poorly designed connectors ever wrt computers.  I've had more problems with SATA connectors in 2 years than IDE in 10 years.

Does the eventlog give any extra info ?

Just to be clear, the troublesome drive is being replaced... no question. 
Data (and reliability) are worth far more to me than the cost of a replacement drive.-cranioscopical (December 13, 2008, 05:22 PM)
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The only problem with that thought is, it might not be the drive - so you will have solved nothing while spending more money.  The simple act of swapping the cables will prove it into the system, (motherboard, cables or OS), or the drive.

While replacing, I will check out all the other points, though (connections/cable etc).
I'll put the troublesome drive into a different computer when I run the tests as I need the machine that it's now in to be functioning.

My original query was aimed at avoiding a recurrence of this with a replacement drive (this one's only 6 months old).

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If it's only 6 months old it's still under warranty, just get it replaced.

f0dder:
Yeah, SATA connectors are really stupidly designed - they wiggle loose too easily, and it's also too easy to break the connector (both the cable-end as well as the connector on your disk drive). A pity really, since it's otherwise pretty nice, slim cables and all.

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