Quote Originally Posted by Whacker View Post
EMFM, your HDD appears to be rather healthy. Seagate had some problems with a number of drives made in China by the former Maxtor assembly plants. (Maxtor sucks the big one)
I already had to send one drive back to Seagate, and the one I have in here is the replacement. This one isn't doing anything overtly abnormal though, the last one I sent in was chugging loudly.

At this point, you might try a new HDD cable. Try switching HDD ATA/SATA ports on your mobo. Try powering your HDD from a different cable coming out of the PSU, try a different rail if possible. If that doesn't work, then my guess would be it's one of either the mobo (most likely), RAM (less likely), or PSU (big stretch). If you've done a low level format after a partition wipe, and then a fresh basic XP reinstall (retail, not OEM) then I highly doubt your problems are software related.
Alright, I'll take a look around inside the case. Thanks.