HDD crashed

Post by **Legacy777** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:09 pm

Well my inspiron laptop drive died two night ago. It had been making some weird noises for a while, so it's not really a surprise. I had planned to back everything up a few weeks ago, but it never finished properly......so now I'm out some stuff.....not exactly sure what though....which sucks. I still have the drive....if you shake it lightly you can hear stuff move around. The platters don't even spin when you plug the drive in......I'm tempted to take it apart....but probably shouldn't....and I'm sure any sort of data recovery service would be insane.

Only "nice" thing I guess is Dell is sending me another refurb unit.....which is nice considering I got the puter in 2001...and my warranty is almost up. I guess I just leave the damn thing on too much.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:13 pm

no such thing as leaving a comp on too much. The problem is it was a dell

I leave my comp on for more than a month more than once, I think since I built this bad boy last may its been off a total of a week, maybe two. Cool that you're getting a new one sucks the old hd died. I wouldn't advise taking it apart either, dust = enemy. Dunno what you can do about restoring data though.

scottzg · Post by **scottzg** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:39 pm

THAWA wrote: The problem is it was a dell.

My dad has been in the hard disk industry on and off for 20 years and is currently at western digital. Drives are tested after manufacturing and sorted. Those that fail contamination testing are sold in retail boxes. The other ones are sold to major computer manufacturers; dell, hp, compaq, oem. These are the only hard disks to buy. A dirty drive WILL die eventually, it's only a matter of time.

magnux · Post by **magnux** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:49 pm

scottzg wrote:
THAWA wrote: The problem is it was a dell.
My dad has been in the hard disk industry on and off for 20 years and is currently at western digital. Drives are tested after manufacturing and sorted. Those that fail contamination testing are sold in retail boxes. The other ones are sold to major computer manufacturers; dell, hp, compaq, oem. These are the only hard disks to buy. A dirty drive WILL die eventually, it's only a matter of time.

Um, I'm going to try and see if I read this right:

Only drives that FAIL contaimation testing are put in to RETAIL boxes? Ugh, my brain hurts now..

Be nice to your hard drives. I used to burn up drives about once a year, but ever since I got my Prometia case, my hard drives are immortal.

(Note: Prometia is a phase-change cooling case.. I keep below 0 temps in my case.)

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:51 pm

nice I or II?

mTk · Post by **mTk** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 12:41 am

Legacy777 wrote:Wif you shake it lightly you can hear stuff move around.

Laptop drives make noises when you shake them. Some say that the noise is normal right on the label.

MK

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 12:52 am

Agh, that sucks.

Was it an IBM TravelStar?

I have absolutely no faith in that line of hard drives. I can't even count the number of times I've seen a "DeathStar" quit. On our submarine we'd go through them like water.

There is a such thing as leaving a computer on too much if it's a laptop and it's not getting the cooling it needs (which is the case for many of the newer slim laptops). What kind of Inspiron do you have, Josh?

My girlfriend's DeathStar quit again a couple weeks ago for like the 5th time since she got her Inspiron 2100 about 2 and a half years ago. Dell sent a refurbished replacement (I can't imagine what the refurbishing process could be, since hard drives aren't internally serviceable), and it's loud! When it spins it makes a buzzing sound loud enough that she's embarrased to use the computer in class. We called Dell up and they sent another refurbished one, and it's just as loud. It puzzles me, since the drives both seem fully functional and other drives of the same model number operate properly quietly. But it's just something you may want to watch out for.

Hopefully you have all your important stuff backed up? It couldn't hurt to contact a recovery specialist if not, and at least get a quote. Those guys must love IBM for making the TravelStar. :)

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:28 am

Suck, I think some of your luck transfered through the screen to me. One of our NetApp filers just screwed up. Im waiting on hold from support.

Its crazy, no visible errors (outside the crash logs) but we lost nearly half the drives at once. This means nearly all the volumes arent accessable and any servers with storage on the device are in limbo.

Post by **Legacy777** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:41 am

yeah it's a travelstar....farkin POS.......It made noises all the time.

I pretty much leave my computers on 24/7. I don't think any of them have been off for more then a few hours since I moved in August. They get rebooted occasionally, but they stay up. My server's got quite a few fans in it, and I have fans directly on the drives......so hopefully they'll last.

The laptop is an inspiron 8000. IMO, it's one of the last "GOOD" inspirons, before they made the gay ones with no floppies and didn't put out drivers for 2k. We bought a new one for my mom...I didn't want XP on it.....ended up sending it back....bought one similar to mine on ebay for half the money as the new POS dell.

I'll see how the refurb drive sounds. I may just buy a new one....maybe faster one or something.....because I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the deathstar craps out again.

I'd say most of my important data was on the server like documents and mail. But I did loose stuff. I'd pretty much just want the downloads folder, as that's where I usually keep everything.

I think when I get everything loaded up again, I'm going to restructure everything so all the files are either on the server, and that directory gets backed up to another drive once a week via batch file.

I had something like this setup on my computer in college....backed up all the important stuff once a week on the second hard drive.....it was great.

The laptop drive definitely won't even spin up.....and is not even detected via the bios....wonder if the electronics got fried.......

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:57 am

Your drive was probably already failed, it was just waiting to spin down. Its like a light bulb, was it already bad before you turned it off or did it blow when you turned it back on?

I got the filer back up. We had to send a 1.6GB compressed Dump to NetApp and it will take 3 days to analyze

scottzg · Post by **scottzg** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:44 am

ciper wrote:Its like a light bulb, was it already bad before you turned it off or did it blow when you turned it back on?

The constant heating and recooling makes it brittle over time. The sudden heating from turning on the light makes the filament snap. If you could gradually add power every time you turned on the power, it would last forever.

And yea, retail box hard disks are bad.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 9:02 am

Slow start up, like rapid start ballasts (versus instant start). They're flourescent lights, but its the same idea. The best are the inductive lights that have no filament or cathode to wear. I can show geek too!

I can vouch for retail HDD as junk - I've had 3 fail. So what would anyone recommend for a new lap top? I need to get one before summer so I don't waste away indoors writing. Plus chicks like writers for some reason... I just want something reliable. Is there such thing as a computer that can last 5 yrs without problems when treated well? In my experience PCs and laptops are about as advanced as cars were in the 1910's with the reliability I've experienced.

Steve

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:41 pm

But retail drives come with warranties from the manufacturer right?

Laptop hard drives in general fail a lot because they experience a lot of heat and vibration. If you are careful about these two things, any decently built drive should serve you, but 5 years is a long time; I've never kept a drive longer than three. Granted, I'm not so easy on them (I use them in the car and outdoors and I'm not as careful as I should be indoors either)...

Post by **Legacy777** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:45 pm

ciper, it failed over night. not at shutdown or startup. I leave the laptop on 24/7 and the drive is setup not to spin down. I run all my systems pretty much this way.

I got to thinking though.....the drive does not even show up in the bios on the laptop or desktop....I'm wondering if something fried on the electronics......really need to find hex driver that is the right size. If the board is bad and I can swap it for the new one......I might be able to get my data back......we'll see

I know that's being VERY VERY optimistic.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 3:56 pm

It's been done before. I've seen a writeup on the web of someone who did it with a desktop drive of some type.

Just get your data out of there pronto, since the dust you let in will kill the drive again quickly.

Also, watch out -- a lot of manufacturers sell two different devices with identical part numbers. It can be very frustrating to those of us who care what's in what we buy.

stant093 · Post by **stant093** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 4:25 pm

im not quite sure if you did take it apart or not, but ive had a wd drive or two fail on my and was told to put it in the freezer in a zip lock bag for about 10 minutes, then fast as hell, plug it in and you should, *should* be able to recover data off it, i had to do that 5 times to get the data off the one 120gb i have here dead now...im 2 for 2 now with westerndigital one dead 80gb and one dead 120gb, both brand new out of the bag, growing tired of them real fast...its buy a new harddrive, use it for a week, RMA it...freaking bullshit...ive had a WD 15gb as my main C drive for over 4 years now, not one problem, i think theyre getting ahead of themselves regarding reliability

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 5:05 pm

I guess I'm lucky then with two retail hd's that have lasted days. :\

Josh there was a write up somehwere where some guy explained pretty well how to remove a hd case without getting dust it in I'll see if I can find it.

Post by **Legacy777** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 9:20 pm

Thanks for the tips guys.....may try the ziplock method....hell...don't have anything to lose.

I got the new drive today....at least dell was fast about it. The new drive is a hitachi.....so at least i don't have to worry about the deathstar dieing again.

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 10:57 pm

Lose = the opposite of win
Loose = the opposite of tight

Come on Josh, I expect more of you

I have two hard drives in my home computer that have been rocking for ~3 years now. I only turn off the machine once every two weeks or so and that's just 'cause the system resources get hell of low after a week or two. Sometimes the machine's on for a month straight, but not too often. I'm not sure about the laptop hard drive I've got because someone just gave the laptop to me and I haven't really delved into all the hardware yet. It's a Dell Latitude PII and the hard drive's already full, so I'll be swapping out the hard drive in the next few days.

The freezing trick is interesting. I'll have to give that a try with some of the old, trashed HDD's we have laying around.

-Brian

Post by **Legacy777** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 7:45 pm

yeah yeah yeah.....I fixed it

I've got the HDD sitting in the freezer....was busy this weekend so I'll give it a shot tonight.

Apparently......even though the new drive is a hitachi....it's still a travelstar.....wonder if they took over that from IBM....or what's goin on.

magnux · Post by **magnux** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 9:14 pm

Legacy777 wrote:yeah yeah yeah.....I fixed it

I've got the HDD sitting in the freezer....was busy this weekend so I'll give it a shot tonight.

Apparently......even though the new drive is a hitachi....it's still a travelstar.....wonder if they took over that from IBM....or what's goin on.

Hitachi/IBM, same thing. I have a 120GB IBM Drive that has Hitachi labeling on it as well. Confused little drive, it is.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 9:22 pm

Oh yeah, I forgot -- Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive business.

Post by **Legacy777** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:09 pm

they any better now that hitachi owns them.....or they the same POS?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:20 pm

I don't know. My guess is that the only significant change is that the IBM drives are sold as Hitachis (meaning a Travelstar is a still a Travelstar, while other Hitachi drives are still Hitachi quality).

georryan · Post by **georryan** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:30 am

im 2 for 2 now with westerndigital one dead 80gb and one dead 120gb, both brand new out of the bag, growing tired of them real fast...its buy a new harddrive, use it for a week, RMA it...freaking bullshit...ive had a WD 15gb as my main C drive for over 4 years now, not one problem, i think theyre getting ahead of themselves regarding reliability

That's disconcerting, since I just bought an 80 GB WD drive for about 20 bucks after rebates.

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