I have a hard drive that's about to turn 6 years old. Surprisingly, it's been in good shape according to CrystalDisk, but I've been facing some serious problems over the last six months. Lately, my PC has been experiencing frequent blue screens, particularly while gaming, although they also occur when the PC is idle or while browsing. The error code I see is WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR, and I often notice a volgmr error in the Windows Event Viewer right before these crashes. Strangely, it points to hard disk 4, but I only have disks 0, 1, and 2, and no flash drives connected at the time.
I sent my PC for testing, and the technician stress-tested it without the HDD for 12 hours, finding no issues. They did discover some corrupted files on my main SSD and fixed those, but the crashes persisted even after I came home and cleaned up my HDD using a command prompt process (the commands escape me now). I unplugged the HDD for a while, and the crashes stopped, so I reformatted the drive yesterday for a fresh start and updated my BIOS since it was outdated by over two years.
With the CrystalDisk results showing the drive is fine and having wiped it clean, what else can I check? It hasn't crashed since I reformatted and kept it unplugged, but I'm wary about plugging it back in. If the same errors pop up again, what steps can I take? I've heard about replacing the SATA cable, but I'm not sure about that advice. Any suggestions?
2 Answers
One thing you can definitely look into is the dump files from those blue screens. These files can give you a clearer picture of what's causing the errors. Check for them in C:WindowsMinidump; if you find any, zip the folder and upload it to a file sharing site like Catbox or MediaFire. You might also want to adjust your system settings to create small memory dumps instead for easier future analysis. Having multiple dump files can help diagnose the issue better; just follow a guide for configuring that if needed.
I feel ya on the frustration! You might also want to double-check your power supply. Sometimes, if the power isn't stable enough, it can lead to weird crashes. Additionally, replacing the SATA cable could indeed help, especially if it's getting old. Make sure the HDD connections are secure too; loose connections can cause these sort of intermittent issues.
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