Hi,
I recently upgraded from a WD Green 2TB to a new WD4003FZEX (Black 4TB) as system drive with one partition (fresh Windows 7 Professional x64 installation). I experience a strange and severe problem from time to time: The HDD seems to freeze the whole system, all programs stop reacting and the only thing I can do is moving the mouse. It starts with the drive not showing free space in the explorer and then continues with a total freeze. Windows resource monitor shows a sudden decrease in HDD load (dropping to about 10 KB/s) and the drive stops making the typical noise it normally makes when active (I can feel it spinning though). After 3-5 minutes the freezing stops and the PC continues running normally (e.g. music starts playing again). However, Windows explorer suddenly says the the drive is full (normally I have about 3,1 TB free space). Refreshing explorer continually then shows the free space increasing again within about 20 seconds to 3,1 TB, but when reaching this value, the drive instantly shows as full again. This happens around 2-3 times, then I can continue using the PC.
I found out that these freezes mostly happen while, but often after installing VCRedist, DirectX and Windows Update.
With the old HDD, everything ran perfectly fine with the same components. This is the second WD4003FZEX I have, I got my first one replaced (same problem). S.M.A.R.T. values are all fine, drivers and updates are installed.
System configuration:
OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
MB: MSI ZH77A-G43
CPU: Intel i5-3450 @3,1-3,4 GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3 RAM @1600 MHz
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1, 4GB
HDD 1: WD4003FEZX (system drive)
HDD 2: ST3000DM001 (storage drive)
HDD 3: WD20EZRX (old system drive, now used for storage only)
PSU: Thermaltake Berlin 630W
Thank you very much for your help, I’m completely desperate!