Multiple Hard Drive Failure

[CuriousTechie]

I have a Dell Vostro 15 3578, bought it brand new 2 years ago. After a month it had a fan issue on bios, rebooted it a few times and it started working normally. 5 months later after a windows update started experiencing disk being maxed out according to task manager and multimedia files skipping or pausing. Didn't know it was a sign of hard drive failure until my hard drive failed. Bought a new hard drive, which worked for a week, then started having issues a month later, before finally turning out worse than my inbuilt system hard drive. Should I still get a new drive and chuck the last one up to factory error. Apologies if there is insufficient information... this is my first time posting.

[Nathanpete]

So, did you return the brand new one/claim a warranty? Because hard drives like these should last months if not years before issues. 

 

Multimedia files skipping and pausing are a incredibly common side effect of 100% disk usage. 

 

In order to never experience the the disk being maxed out in task manager again, I would suggest buying a 2.5" solid state drive (also known as an SSD.) But don't buy used, buy brand new. They cost like $40 at their cheapest. And if you get your money back for the newly failed HDD then it should cover most of the costs. SSDs don't experience the same kinds of hardware failiures that hit hard drives, and if one fails from something that isn't being beaten up physically, you have a lot more ground to stand on during the warranty process because SSDs are just more reliable in the short term (short term is like under 6 months) than hard drives. 

 

I would also suggest when making the switch, change which cable and port/socket you use. Your PSU should have more than 1 remaining SATA power plug, and more SATA data ports on the motherboard. I suggest using a different plug, preferably on a whole different cable (many PSUs in the enthusiast space contain two cords with links of SATA power connectors, usually 3 or 4 connectors per cable. But being Dell I don't expect them to even have more than 3 connectors total.) to eliminate that most of the possibility that both hard drives died due to a PSU or cable malfunction. And if you change the port the smaller SATA data cable is connected to the motherboard with (to a different one on the motherboard, there are usually 4 or more in total), that also removes a variable. 

 

If you do not know or understand what the SATA cables and connectors look like, I can send pictures and deliver a quick lesson on them, along with a bit better explanation for what I want you to do once you are shipped an SSD. 

[Nathanpete]

I'm sorry, I just realized this is a laptop. There are no cables to swap out, they are integrated into the board. Well this is bad because if that integrated connector has gone bad it will certainly kill the SSD too. 

[CuriousTechie]

On 5/19/2021 at 5:36 PM, Nathanpete said:

I'm sorry, I just realized this is a laptop. There are no cables to swap out, they are integrated into the board. Well this is bad because if that integrated connector has gone bad it will certainly kill the SSD too. 

No worries, thanks a lot for responding. Didn't consider the SATA cable could be the issue, will look into that. Unfortunately got the drive from a third party seller with a 2 week return policy(really small scale business with no fixed location). At the time i bought the drive there were no other feasible options. Is there any possibility that its the fan that's killing the drive?

[Nathanpete]

5 minutes ago, CuriousTechie said:

No worries, thanks a lot for responding. Didn't consider the SATA cable could be the issue, will look into that. Unfortunately got the drive from a third party seller with a 2 week return policy(really small scale business with no fixed location). At the time i bought the drive there were no other feasible options. Is there any possibility that its the fan that's killing the drive?

There is no sata cable. You plug the hard drive into the size of the board. And unless that board is seperated from the motherboard by a cable, you can't replace that. Also you can easily test that. And I would need a picture of your laptop torn down so I can see the hard drive and fan exposed.