Question : Problem: Gateway Laptop Hard Drive unexpectedly powers down

I have a Gateway 200ARC Laptop that I am having problems with.  About 60 days ago I thought the hard drive was going out so I replaced it with the same type that was in it.  Now I am beginning to wonder.

Recently, but not consistently, the hard drive sounds as if it powers down while you are working.  Sometime it just stalls for a few seconds then picks back up other times it just locks up.  I have to power down to restart it.

It is also hit and miss if BIOS recognizes it during boot.

I have gotten an error message from Windows, with a general message that a problem was caused by a hard drive and I have also gotten STOP ERROR 0C0000007A, KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE.  In the event logs, I do show and ATAPI error periodically. However all three of these are not consistent.

I updated the Controller drivers but still have a problem.

Could I have a faulty hard drive?  I have not worked on many laptops, but could this be the motherboard?  Does anyone know of any tests I can run or the best way to troubleshoot it?

Thanks for your help!

Answer : Problem: Gateway Laptop Hard Drive unexpectedly powers down

The Ultimate boot cd has lots of Hard drive diagnostic programs on it. If youknow the manufacturer of your hard drive you can use one that corresponds to it. If not just run the Hard drive fitness test found on the Ultimate Boot cd. This cd runs on its own from startup and is called a Live CD.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html