You guys know more about computers than I do...
...and I doubt this belongs in the Support Forum, as it has nothing to do with the games or the forum, but hell, I thought I'd ask just to get some information. So, here we go!
I put together an External Hard Drive from an old WD 40GB Desktop hard drive I had from my last machine. It's about a year old, and it's been acting weird every time I turn it on for the last week and a half.
Basically, the disk will spin when it turns on and then stop about half a second later. Another half a second after it stops, it starts to spin again only to repeat the cycle for about 30 seconds. This happens both when I turn it on and after it is turned on when I connect it to the computer.
I've defragmented it, scanned and fixed bad sectors, did a sweep for viruses, and every other thing I could think of that may be related to the hard drive's data. And it still does that "Spin on, Spin off" ticking thing every time I turn it on.
Should I be worried? And if so, what can I do to fix the problem?
I put together an External Hard Drive from an old WD 40GB Desktop hard drive I had from my last machine. It's about a year old, and it's been acting weird every time I turn it on for the last week and a half.
Basically, the disk will spin when it turns on and then stop about half a second later. Another half a second after it stops, it starts to spin again only to repeat the cycle for about 30 seconds. This happens both when I turn it on and after it is turned on when I connect it to the computer.
I've defragmented it, scanned and fixed bad sectors, did a sweep for viruses, and every other thing I could think of that may be related to the hard drive's data. And it still does that "Spin on, Spin off" ticking thing every time I turn it on.
Should I be worried? And if so, what can I do to fix the problem?
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Otherwise, it could very well be a hardware failure - back up the data and get a new drive! Hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper nowadays, less than $1 per Gb (in Aussie Dollars, anyway) up to about the 500Gb mark... after that it gets a little more expensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014+50001306+1035907789+1035407759+103530105&name=250GB+-+320GB for example.
If the problem persists, check the drive with WD's tools.
Unfortunately, I don't have an extra slot internally for this hard drive. That's currently taken up by a backup drive that came with the computer. It's only 4GBs, but it contains all the opertating files for every piece of hardware unique to my computer's front panel. I guess that's what I get for buying a gaming computer with a Digital Media manager for all those USB, Compact Flash, and SD Memory Cards I've used over the course of my digital photo classes.:p
That is, disconnect your backup drive and attach the "old" disk.
Remember to re-run the BIOS disk detection procedure after switching the disks
I think your thread title was wrong in my case.
I thought about that after my post, and much to my surprise, the inside is different than what they tech who helpped me with this computer told me.
I do have space for the hard drive, but I lack a power connection and extra slot on the CABLE to the mother board. Further complicating it, I only have one hard drive. I guess what they did was give me a back-up PARTITION and not a back up DRIVE. Silly me.:o I thought I didn't have space inside of the computer.
tabacco, I just got off the phone with a friend who is also an IT grunt like yourself, and she said Western Digital is unreliable for DIY External Hard Drives. What's your take on the brand?
No protection against office manager floibles? Pshaw, that's the 2nd leading cause of hard drive failures! Way to drop the ball, WD.
The irony was that I collected the data into a brand new WD HD to sort the data and back it up. I clicked an icon in explorer to launch the backup program (after disposing thousands of old CD's and floppy disks) then the drive went berserk and the data went to binary heaven (I only managed to recover less than 10Gb from the disposed CD's that were still in the trash)
WD Diagnostics returned the most feared error: Error #1: Hardware malfunction. The reason: the disk heads detached. I only used the disk for 10 days.
I also have a WD btw...as far as reliability goes, Im not convinced that any of the HDD manufacturers really make the most reliable drives...most of the time I've found its really up to the individual drive...I've had 2 seagate's die in a period of a year and a half, but WD's seem to work fine...yet I've heard people who've had loads of trouble with WD's...so I think if you get one that works well, then you're lucky...
EDIT: I posted this same topic on another IT area on a site I frequent, and they said it could be a variety of different hardware failures. One person even said it could very well be the case itself! There is no real way to be sure unless I get the sucker physically checked out by someone. I've back'd up my data in the only place I have space for 11 GB of movies and music and will get the sucker checked out this weekend. Hopefully I nip this thing in the bud before it got worse.
Thanks to everyone to help me out in this thread, especially tabacco! I don't know what I would have done without you guys to point me in the direction I need to go.
When you ever get a grind or some kind of noise NEVER EVER EVER defrag or do meta defrag or any movement of large files on the hd. This can further cause corruption within the metadata due to moving parts of files across bad sectors. This will make most of the data soooo hard if not impossible to recover.
Get acronis or something free like GET DATA BACK NTFS for ntfs and FAT32 for fat32.
I personally have 12 HDs hooked up atm with a 1000 watt psu haha.
The problem sounds like the hd might have gotten dirt in between the heads or the thing coulda come off track. Have you gotten the data off it? how much is NEEDEd to be saved?
Sorry Im a recovery specialist/ network tech so shoot me any questions!
Lacies rock btw.. and wd's do suck XD but maxtor is FAR worse. stick to seagate for standard internal drives. Unless your a gamer then it doesnt matter if you stick to WD and raptors or something.
As for your case im not sure what you mean.. ive never seen a case cause any failure. You mean the motherboard? or maybe the power supply? ... Not following you to well.
Unfortunately, I don't have any additional hardware to check this theory out, so I'm going to have to wait until the next time I can get out to Best Buy to bug my friends over at the Geek Squad area.
Give people like me a bad name, truthfully thats all I do on a minor level, they just sold out and what a bad move it was.. I would have ran that business until I was blue in the face before selling out to someone like best buy. Meh its like the guys that sold youtube... and tom on myspace.. big mistake guys.. lol.
Actually tom.. good move! RUNN TOM RUNNN! Myspace will get ya!
It would be like sierra selling out all over again...
NOooooo not another black mondaaaaaaaaayyy
Run TTG RUNNNNN!
Edit.. Seriously though geek squad use to be self taught nerds like myself going to fix peoples machines.. when they sold out no only did the quality of the employee go down but the cost of work went up. I do exactly what geek squad does, not on THAT scale but that keeps my overhead low so I can push that savings to my customer. AND I dont push useless crap software people dont need but the OTHER real business requires to push to the customer... yes yes you need this spybegone mam.. its 180$ more. PFFTT
I think even with me getting angry you see a valid point muhaha
:No Black Monday's no black Monday's:
Anyways... I was thinking about just reattatching the EHD internally, but after experiancing a deactivation bug with TTH, I'm not going to bother. I mean, I just got it reactivated, and I don't want to do that again now that I know what happened to it.
I guess I'll just have to live without my MP3s for now. I could play them from my back-up area, but then iTunes would be all messed up with the file association... thing.