Hard Drive Failure: Need Advice

[Keebler Elf]

I woke up this morning to hear a steady clicking sound coming from one of my hard drives (never a good sign!). I tried to shut down my computer but it hanged on "Windows is shutting down" so I was forced to do a hard shutdown and restart. When it booted, I got a message that "Slave 1 hard disk failure, press F1 to skip". I skipped and Windows (Vista) loaded up normally. Not surprisingly, closer investigation revealed a missing hard drive in Explorer. I then ran a Western Digital Data Lifeguard check and the drive is also missing there. I haven't done anything else as yet.

Looking for some advice on trouble shooting whether the drive had a catastrophic failure or whether it could be something else. Everything else on my computer works so the only issue is whatever data I had on the drive (it was an old WD 500 GB SATA drive from 2008). Unfortunately I was using it for old storage so I don't know exactly what I lost (if it's just old porn that's one thing but if it's something else...).

Any advice on troubleshooting the problem?

 

[George The Curious]

Backup all your important.documents.you can think of.while it still let's you. Use USB drive or upload to internet. Then replaced hd.

 

[Keebler Elf]

It doesn't recognize the drive... That's the point of my post.

 

[benstt]

If it was already running when the drive failed, likely pooched. I say that because sometimes a cold drive will recover temporarily once up to temp.

It's likely the drive, not the motherboard, but if you are desperate try it in another pc.

 

[Anynym]

Try it in an external shell and/or in another computer. If the data is very valuable to you, you could try consulting experts in the field (which does not include the computer guy down the block). There is a possibility to connect the platters to another controller, in the hope of recovering at least some of the contents.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Try it in an external shell and/or in another computer.

That's a good idea. I'll try that.

 

[Rockslinger]

Try it in an external shell and/or in another computer.

Is there a risk this could fcuk(sp) up a second computer?

 

[Anynym]

Is there a risk this could fcuk(sp) up a second computer?

As long as it's properly installed, and not being used as a boot drive, and doesn't have active viruses on it which are activated on boot (or that you activate), there is no significant risk to a second computer.

 

[Rockslinger]

, and not being used as a boot drive,

Sorry, what is a boot drive?

and doesn't have active viruses on it which are activated on boot (or that you activate)

How does one tell if there are active viruses on it?

 

[Keebler Elf]

Just ignore the troll. Appreciate the assistance.

 

[ballow]

You can also sometimes get another boot or two out of a drive that is fubar if you freeze it.
I'd only recomend it as a last resort, but if throw it in the freezer for a while (use a zip lock to minimize condensation), take it out and hook it up to your pc right away, boot up the pc, you can sometimes get the drive going long enough to back up some files.
But again, this is a last resort, because if it wasn't fubar before this, it probably will be after.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Large SATA drives SUCK!!!

Surprised your 500GB drive went also.....

There are lots of complaints on tech boards about SATA drives >1TB and larger having high failure rates regardless of what brand you have. Drives that used to come with 3-5 yr warranties are now only giving you a year or two! This is a good indication that overall all newer large SATA drives are having quality issues. The old IDE drives by comparison were built like tanks. I never had an IDE drive fail.

For example, my 3 yr old Seagate 1TB SATA drive recently failed. Luckily it lasted about a month before totally crashing, which allowed all important files to be saved. W7 and Linux was dual booted on that 1TB drive. Linux first reported there were HHD issues and gave a full comprehensive report like you would get from a PC repair shop, for FREE of course!.... It reported issues were on the W7 side. Linux side still ran fine. Then a couple days later Dell on booting up, reported HDD problems. For giggles I booted up W7 which ran OK for a couple more days before M$ said there were problems. Then all M$ said was 'drive failure is imminent'! Backup & replace ASAP. A couple days later W7 refused to boot but Linux still ran fine allowing anything important to be saved on BOTH sides of that failing HDD.

 

[backrubman]

You can also sometimes get another boot or two out of a drive that is fubar if you freeze it.
I'd only recomend it as a last resort, but if throw it in the freezer for a while (use a zip lock to minimize condensation), take it out and hook it up to your pc right away, boot up the pc, you can sometimes get the drive going long enough to back up some files.
But again, this is a last resort, because if it wasn't fubar before this, it probably will be after.

That sometimes works for a electronics failure but usually makes a mechanical problem worse. Sometimes the bearings wear out and what was nice slippery lubricant is now a thick sticky goo (of metal wear mixed with grease) that the motor that spins the platen can't overcome (click, click, click) it keeps trying. heat it to about 65C in an oven. Sometimes that will make the lubricant thin enough and let the motor start, another technique is to spin the HD while it is trying to start and come up hard against something (the case stops hard but the platen starts to spin). Of course if you do get it to spin up one last time, it is the last time. Might work 10 more times in a row but very soon it will be back to click, click, click and you won't get it going again.

If the data on it is really valuable a good data recovery lab can almost always recover the data for you, $$$

 

[Keebler Elf]

UPDATE

I shut my computer down, plugged and unplugged the hard drive in question, rebooted, and lucked out as the drive was detected in BIOS and by Explorer. I immediately began copying over data and got almost all of it but there's a little bit left that won't copy; the file transfer hangs whenever I try to get the remaining files.

So this tells me there must be some kind of corruption on the drive that's causing the problem. The clicking sound shows up once it hangs and then never stops, like it keeps trying to read the disk but can't.

Any idea what this could be? Bad sectors? Would running a scandisk help?

 

[backrubman]

UPDATE

I shut my computer down, plugged and unplugged the hard drive in question, rebooted, and lucked out as the drive was detected in BIOS and by Explorer. I immediately began copying over data and got almost all of it but there's a little bit left that won't copy; the file transfer hangs whenever I try to get the remaining files.

So this tells me there must be some kind of corruption on the drive that's causing the problem. The clicking sound shows up once it hangs and then never stops, like it keeps trying to read the disk but can't.

Any idea what this could be? Bad sectors? Would running a scandisk help?

I don't think running scan-disk or chkdsk against a sick drive is NOT a good idea. I used a product called "Miray HDClone Professional 4.1.4" just recently to copy a sick drive (very much like yours) in it's entirety. It gets everything it can fast and then goes back and carefully tries for what it missed. Didn't miss a thing but Windozzze certainly was unable to cope with the errors, but this was and recovered everything.

 

[WoodPeckr]

UPDATE

I shut my computer down, plugged and unplugged the hard drive in question, rebooted, and lucked out as the drive was detected in BIOS and by Explorer. I immediately began copying over data and got almost all of it but there's a little bit left that won't copy; the file transfer hangs whenever I try to get the remaining files.

You did right saving what you could. A failing HDD may cause the OS to act erratic/freeze up at times before total failure. Other times it may just crash without warning.

I had about a month before total failure. Got a new SSD to use as boot drive, when mine was going. Disconnected the failing 1TB drive to conserve what little life was left with plans to clone over the 2 OSs to a new drive. Got a great 'Black Friday' deal on a new 2TB HDD but by then W7 was dead and couldn't be cloned. Then by that time the Linux side was acting erratic and couldn't be cloned either. Oh well. Just split the new drive in half putting W7 on one side and using the other partition for mass storage. This 2 drive setup works great.

Just wonder how long the new 2TB Seagate SATA HDD will last.....:eyebrows:

 

[OddSox]

The cheap drives they sell now seem to be really hit and miss. I've seen brand name drives die within weeks, and other no-name drives last for years.

 

[Rockslinger]

The cheap drives they sell now seem to be really hit and miss. I've seen brand name drives die within weeks, and other no-name drives last for years.

Aren't they all made at the same factory? BTW: What is "defrag"?

 

[OddSox]

BTW: What is "defrag"?

Serious question? Basically, when your drive gets full enough it starts to run out of free space to write files. Whenever you delete something it frees up a chunk of space - which may be too small for a large file. So the new file gets written into a whole bunch of these little chunks and a directory on the drive keeps track of where each chunk is. When you open the file again, the drive has to hunt all over the place and put all the chunks back together again. This slows things down and also wastes a lot of space (a small piece may not necessarily fill up a whole chunk but because of the way the drive works, that extra little bit of space isn't available to other files). "Defragmenting" copies and rewrites all the files into a single contiguous chunk, speeding things up and reducing errors.

However, most modern Operating Systems routinely defrag files on the fly - rewriting them completely every time they're opened and saved, and the OS is smart enough to keep the chunks together as much as possible. So defrag doesn't help as much as it used to and is usually no longer required as routine maintenance.

Very simplified explanation and probably full of tech oversights. And I have no idea if Windows 8 is considered a 'modern' operating system in that sense - never worked with it.

 

[Anynym]

Serious question? Basically, when your drive gets full enough it starts to run out of free space to write files. Whenever you delete something it frees up a chunk of space - which may be too small for a large file. So the new file gets written into a whole bunch of these little chunks and a directory on the drive keeps track of where each chunk is. When you open the file again, the drive has to hunt all over the place and put all the chunks back together again. This slows things down and also wastes a lot of space (a small piece may not necessarily fill up a whole chunk but because of the way the drive works, that extra little bit of space isn't available to other files). "Defragmenting" copies and rewrites all the files into a single contiguous chunk, speeding things up and reducing errors.

However, most modern Operating Systems routinely defrag files on the fly - rewriting them completely every time they're opened and saved, and the OS is smart enough to keep the chunks together as much as possible. So defrag doesn't help as much as it used to and is usually no longer required as routine maintenance.

Very simplified explanation and probably full of tech oversights. And I have no idea if Windows 8 is considered a 'modern' operating system in that sense - never worked with it.

That's a pretty decent explanation, although some might suggest that there are differences not only between Operating Systems (such as Windows and Linux) but also File Systems (such as NTFS or EXT3) which apply to how efficient the disk operations are. Some file systems will actually try to split a large file over a number of "nearby" locations on the disk, so that reading it back doesn't add a lot of latency and defragmentation is unnecessary.