Crash and now No Boot

[Goody]

I just built a new computer about a week ago. Got it put together with no problems, and it worked perfectly until this afternoon. Today I was playing WoW, and had iTunes and a browser running in the background. I alt-tabbed out of game to the desktop, and everything just locked up. The screen went to a slightly whited out look, but you could still see everything. The only thing I could do was a hard restart.

When the computer restarted, it came up to the post page, then to the Vista loading bar, then flashed a very fast blue screen, and rebooted itself. On the reboot, I get the "you computer shut down unexpectedly" message. Regardless of which option I choose, I always get the same quick flash blue screen and auto start cycle before Vista loads.

If I put in the Vista cd, and attempt to repair, get the following. The initial loading bar runs, then when the next screen should come up, the entire process goes into slow motion. it takes a solid 5 minutes to load the next screen background, and another 5-10 minutes before it totally loads. If I wait it out, I eventually get to the install/repair screen. When I choose repair, I wait another 5 min, then I am at a dead end, as the OS doesn't show up in the repair window.

Anyone have any ideas as to how I should proceed here?

[Goody]

So after some testing, I think my HDD may have crapped out.

Here is what I have done so far. I pulled the memory and tried each stick individually, with no changes. I pulled the video card and replaced with an older one with no change. I pulled the sound card and tried without one at all with no change. I unplugged the extra fans no change. The last thing I tried, was to unplug the HDD. When I did that, I was able to bring up the installation disc and go through the repai menu, although since the HDD was unplugged, there was obviously nothing to repair.

So that would be a HDD that just bombed out right? All the parts in my new machine are all still within the return deadlines, so I can get them replaced at least.

[Goody]

Last step. When I got up this morning, I pulled the HDD out of my old computer, and replaced the suspected bad HDD. With the old drive the system booted right up, and worked fine.

So I think I will RMA the new drive, and pick up another.

Just seems kinda odd that it worked just fine for about 5 days, and then just crashed out of nowhere. I did find on the Western Digital site where they have had a problem with the model drive I bought, and the Asus board I have doing exactly what mine did. Oh well.

[proxops-pete]

That is rather odd... how is the PSU health? It may have jolted the HDD, maybe?

[Goody]

The power supply is a brand new OCZ 600w. It seems to be working great, and I have had no problems with any other components. I put a new HDD in my system yesterday, and it seems to be working just fine also.

I did find on the Western Digtal site, where the combination of this particular HDD and the Asus Mobo I am using have had this exact problem. Complete lock-up, with control of the mouse still intact. Then upon reboot a blue screen, and when trying to repair with installation disc there is extreme loading times. I can only attribute this problem to that atm. I went ahead and installed another HDD, and I can see what happens from here.