Primary HARD DRIVE failure...!!!

[walls83]

AHHHHH I feel sick to my stomach...  This just flat out sucks,  the hard drive is only 3 months old.  Its covered under warrenty but damn everything is lost.  Warrenty doesnt give me everything back the way it was.  Ive spent so much time configuring and testing everything, and now its lost.  Sorry I just had to sob alittle to the peeps who know how bad this sucks.

[Generic Eric]

Sure does suck

All the time its gonna take loading up your OS of choice.

Then you have to figure in all of the time its going to take to load your programs.

Not to mention, your games, support files.  It will be worse you have any sort of MP3 collection.

Times like this that make you wish you were doing a raid configration, or at least ghosting your drive.

Feel your pain; but this thread is better suited for "everything else forum"

[RobertBasil]

I've been using OnTrack's products for over 10 years. Check them out.

http://www.ontrack.com

[Generic Eric]

I've been using OnTrack's products for over 10 years. Check them out.

http://www.ontrack.com

The management utilities, or the recovery utilities?  Wooo....thats some pricey stuff.

[RobertBasil]

I've been using OnTrack's products for over 10 years. Check them out.

http://www.ontrack.com

The management utilities, or the recovery utilities?  Wooo....thats some price stuff.

I only use the recovery utilities. When you work on databases for doctors and lawyers with years of data on them the prices are pretty cheap. You would be shocked at how much money I can charge for recovering a database for someone who does not have a backup plan. Needless to say they have one after they see my bill for my services.

[Gameboy.au]

As much as you now hate the thought of reloading your software, we should be thanking you for reminding us to back-up our PCs.

I was going to place it in the cab on the weekend for a trail (my cab is no where near complete) and your story has just reminded me to ghost the whole thing.  

[DaveJ-UK]

I feel for you!

I had two Maxtor SATA drives fail on the trot; after I got a replacement. And Maxtors are usually pretty good. Lost everything although fortunately I access my MP3's over a network drive and have most of my work on my laptop or on FTP sites.

Main thing I missed was my e-mail which I should have known to back up since I've seen so many other people lose it.

And my mobo has built in RAID so I really had no excuse with the low price of storage these days.

[JAZ]

I installed a disk mirror PCI card so if one drive fails I'm still OK. Cost US$40.00 I think

[Hamselv]

How hard is the disk 'damaged'? Is the file system completely lost or will it just not boot due to bad sectors in the swap file or?

Or can you say for sure that the disk is completely, mechanically broken to the extent that is not recognized by the BIOS?

If it is 'just' bad sectors then you might be able to save the data. I have more than once successfully transferred the OS from an unbootable disk to a new disk, without having to reinstall or anything.

On a slightly different note, I always try to have two HDDs, one for the OS and all that stuff and one for bulk data (like MAME etc.).
As a bare minimum always make two partitions (if you only have one physical disk).

Losing a HDD plain sucks! I have several times cursed the IBM GXP series to the lowest levels of Hell. Dunno if it worked....

[hyiu]

hey.... think of it from the good side !!...

now you have an extra HD motor thingy so that you can make a spinner out of it !!!!...  

ok.... actually... I feel your pain...

I have backed up most stuffs in CDs, DVDs....
but still everyone now and then, need to update my backup for all the digi pics.... etc etc...

[RayB]

Sometimes it's just a weak power supply. Have you done everything you can to trouble-shoot it before declaring it dead?

(Action Front data recovery in Toronto can recover data for as low as $500 canadian)

RB

[krick]

I recently bought a 120GB Seagate drive from CompUSA that failed 4 hours after installed it.  Unfortunately, it failed as I was moving about 30GB of data to it.  Notice that I said moving not copying.  When you move files, they are deleted from the original.

Luckily, I realized what happened and quickly turned off my computer.

When files are deleted, they are not erased, the file system just removes them from the file table and marks the space on the drive that they occupied as "available".  

Everything you do on your computer is writing files to the hard drive that may overwrite your data files if they are still there and may be recovered by using special software.  Here's a free utility...

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

When you lose files, the best thing to do is immediately shut down the computer, remove the hard drive, connect it as a secondary drive on another computer and run the file recovery software linked above on that computer to recover the files from your drive.

Using the process above, I was able to recover most of the files from my original drive.  Some of the casualties were large VOB and CHD files that were over 1GB each.  The larger the file, the more likely that one of it's clusters will be overwritten after it is deleted.  Also, if you keep your drive thoroughly defragged, it's supposed to be less likely that writing to the drive will overwrite multiple deleted files.

The one big lesson I learned in this ordeal...

NEVER move files
ALWAYS copy files

...that way, if something goes wrong, you still have the original copy.

[DaveJ-UK]

Seagate and Fujitsu drives SUCK. More than 3/4 failed drives I have seen have been Seagates or Fujitsus. They are about 20% cheaper than Maxtor/WD but it's not worth it. Quantum are supposed to be crappy but I haven't seen more of them fail than any other manufacturer. IBM aren't great either.

Moving large amounts of data is always a bad idea. If your PC hangs, even if you don't lose any data, you still have to either overwrite everything or keep clicking no no no no...

RAID is the best way to go. Saves you the hassle of writing to removable media and is always up to date. Althouth then you aren't covered for fire or theft. Having said that, how many of us store our backups outside our houses or in a fire proof safe?

[sirwoogie]

Ehh. You know what, everybody has said "vendor XXX drives suck" at one point or another. The fact of the mater is, these are mechanical devices, and your mileage may vary. In my 15 years of computer-dom I have had one or more drives fail from ALL vendors. This includes IBM, WD, Maxtor, Quantum (now Maxtor), Hitachi, Seagate, Fujitsu. I have IDE, SATA, and SCSI interfaces, of all capacities, speeds, and traffic patterns. I have a 500Mb WD that has been in a computer for 8 years that gets turned on/off daily at least once or twice, and it still works perfectly. I have a 72G 15k Baracudda that lasted 2 days.

It's all luck of the draw. Each vendor at one time or another has bad drives, sometimes bad batches depending on time/place of manufacturing.

The key thing to concentrate on is resilience of your infrastructure. Whether you use RAID1/5 to provide it, or some offline storage medium (tape, optical, CD, CF). It all comes down to one things.... BACKUP you stuff if you want to keep it. If you you think it costs to much... then decide how much your frustration and time spent recovering is worth to you in dollars and act accordingly

[walls83]

Speaking of backing up everything.  Thats what I was in the process of doing.  Then my hard drive started making a CLICKING noise and BOOM..  Ill check out that recovery site.  I did get lucking in one part though I had some of it backed up but not everything.

[MameMaster!]

...I've had that happen too (haven't we all at least once?)....to both my home PC and laptop.....total hard drive failures...no ability to recover anything (they were  both Gateway computers).

Ever since then....both of my arcade cabs (and important "regular" PC files) are backed up on TWO independent external hard drives AND VERY important files like roms are duplicated yet again via CD. Sure it's a pain.....
and  I know it's overkill....but it would only take me less than an hour to get my gaming cabs back up and running if any of the drives failed....despite the couple of hundred dollars the extra drives cost.....what's your time and sanity worth?

BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP!!!!

MameMaster!  

[Xiaou2]

 Ok, Ive had 3 drives die on me in the past!!! : (   - and heres what Ive done to avoid future problems...

 My pc now has 4 drives in it:

1) Operating System with limited files
2) Backup of OS

3) Data Drive
4) Backup of Data Drive

 While this might seem expensive and a waste of space... Its well worth it when you think about how much its going to pain you losing all your data.

 Also... Ive learned about why I had so many failures.

 HEAT  is the main destroyer of drives.  And especially if your pc has more than one - as the heat rises from the bottom drive to make the top drive twice as hot : (

  Ive bought a new sever type case that has tons of room and airflow to it.  It has fans that mount right in front of one of the hd bays... and on the top bay  - i use one of the drive 'undermount'  fans.  

  Airflow in the case isnt enough.  You must cool the drives by blowing air across them cosntantly if you want them to last a long time.

 Heat causes the metal to expand - and makes the heads get out of line.

  Lastly - try to avoid purchasing drives from places where you can easily grab them off shelves (like compusa)  - because people (esp kids) drop them... and the shock ruins them before you even have opened them.

  Ive had better luck with drives from staples and other places where the drives are locked in showcases.

  Once I got the better case and the special fans that mount in front of the drives... ive had no problems with my drives in years....  but im still prepared for it ; )

  Sorry to hear of your misfortune.  Hope this stuff helps...

 Sincerely,
 Steve

 

[walls83]

Ya it does help thanks Steve and everybody else.  I call the site for recovering harddrives.  All I can say is    $2400 to recover 60 gigs of data.  Thats so far out of my league.  

[DaveJ-UK]

Ehh. You know what, everybody has said "vendor XXX drives suck" at one point or another

Quite right; that probably applies to most hardware too.

What I should have said was imo these drives suck

Having said this, it does seem to be the opinion of a lot of people I've worked with. these drives are significantly cheaper (notice a 40GB fujitsu laptop drive costs within

[RayB]

Ya it does help thanks Steve and everybody else.  I call the site for recovering harddrives.  All I can say is    $2400 to recover 60 gigs of data.  Thats so far out of my league.  

Action Front wants $2400?

http://www.actionfront.com/

[Xiaou2]

 Heya - if the drive isnt too far gone... you might get a little more data off of it...
 
  Ive heard from techs that if you pop the drive in the freezer for a few hours... that it will come back to life for a bit.   However... its a dangerous thing to attempt.. as the moisture may cause a short.  

  Many times... its a single platter that isnt working right.  I found this out when my drive was just starting to hang the pc.   I started to copy files from the bad drive to the good - and when it got to a certain folder... it froze.   After reboot - i was able to start copying files from other places over.   Got most of the data before it was toasted.

 I think I recall using the freezer trick as well... but sadly,  it didnt work for long.   Once the thing gets going - it heats up very quickly.

 Also... i think once it gets to a certain state of destruction - it wont give you a thing.

[DaveJ-UK]

Ive heard from techs that if you pop the drive in the freezer for a few hours... that it will come back to life for a bit.   However... its a dangerous thing to attempt.. as the moisture may cause a short.

Yes that does work. Wrap it in some kitchen roll while it's in the freezer to try and soak up the worst of the moisture. I've left several in over night before and got all the data off. Works well with Seagate disks that tend to be coated in rubber so are much better protected from moisture. I can't recall ever doing it with a laptop drive although I'm sure it would work.

[the3eyedblindman]

I know how this feels, my computer recently crashed somehow, i lost about a downloaded 500 song collection, mame, all my games, everything, i had to reload windows and now im back to the beginning, nothing! and to top it all off i got the sasser worm and the msblaster worm! but there gone now.

[Darkstalker]

"Seagate and Fujitsu drives SUCK. More than 3/4 failed drives I have seen have been Seagates or Fujitsus."

Seagate's IDE drives suck.  They're SCSI drives are WAY better.  As for Fujitsu, I can't say I agree with you.  I used to build comptuers at a local shop when I was younger, and none of the drives have ever conked out.  I STILL have a 20GB drive that still works.

"IBM aren't great either."

I believe IBM's drives are made by Hitachi, but I wouldn't quote me on that.

As it's been said many times:

1) BACKUP
2) RAID is a must when you don't want to lose anything
3) BACKUP your files!!!
4) Did I mention BACKUP?

CDs are cheap, No reason why you can't burn your critical files to CD and put them somwhere.