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*poof* goes the hard drive. [Archive] - RonFez.net Messageboard

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LordJezo
01-14-2008, 04:03 AM
Yay!

It's my turn to deal with a failed hard drive. It came out of no where on a drive that is only 7 months old. 320 gigs down the drain. It wasn't failing slowly, it gave me no warning signs, and it didn't even have the kindness to give me at least one more reboot to grab stuff off of it. I turn off the monitor one night to go to bed and when I come back the next morning to check the news and weather I notice that Windows is not responding very well. I reboot the machine to fix whatever is wrong with it and the thing freezes at the initial POST screen. I futz with it for a while and when I pull the drive out to listen to see if I can hear it doing anything I hear the dreaded noise of a drive completely screwing up. It wasn't a data corruption issue either, it mechanically failed. When you turn it on the thing shakes in a regular pattern and a computer will not detect it.

I have tried external enclosures, putting it in the freezer over night, giving it a smack, and rocking it around a little bit, I know these things are not that good for a drive but it was a last ditch effort to get it working. Dead. I can't do data recovery as the hard drive hardware is busted.

Lost in the disaster are: my gigs and gigs of anime, my operating system, some music put on my desktop folders, some movies, my save game files for stuff I was in the middle of playing like Half Life 2 and Sam and Max, and a few random pictures. I am sure there was a lot more but I can't remember half of what was on there.

Luckily my second hard drive remained alive and I did not lose a year's worth of pictures, my entire music collection, and a few other game files, but for the most part everything I had was lost.

Sucks. I didn't even consider backing up this hard drive as this was a new one I used to replace an aging 40 gig one that I have had around for years, but now I am back to using the 40 gig, which is still running strong.

Bah.

I should be able to get a replacement as the drive is under warranty until 2012, but the loss of all that data is pretty terrible. Except I feel like in a week I wont even miss anything that I have lost. Sure, it is going to be a pain in the ass to reinstall Windows again and get it patched up to the latest version, but after it's all done I won't care at all about what I lost. I suppose this will be a good thing, a forced cleaning of all my crap that I was hording for so long.

Any else experience hard drive failure? It makes you feel like crap the first day but now that a weekend has gone by I am not too worried about it.

bnceo
01-14-2008, 06:42 AM
If it's worth it to you, hard drive recovery is about 500 bucks in some places. I had to do this after my HD with all my music, movies, etc went dead.

Mike Teacher
01-14-2008, 06:48 AM
Nothing sucks more then watching data just go pffffffffffffffffffft. I feel your pain.

It's Monday morning QB-ing, and you know this already of course, but backing up data to redundant external HDs, one of which you then remove from where you live in case a meteor hits is the way to go.

OK maybe not a meteor but I have so much data; tresured stuff like yours, decades old pics and music and 9,275 iPod songs and I've become obsessed with backing it up.

Bummer. Maybe not all is lost. Good luck, Br... oops.

JustJon
01-14-2008, 07:11 AM
If you are really looking to get the data back, it'll be a few hundred. I can give you a 10% discount for Drive Savers.

topless_mike
01-14-2008, 07:26 AM
stuff like this scares me.
thats why my pix i back up on my external hd and an ipod that i only use for pictures back up.
just incase my comp and another pereph both decide to go *poof*

Death Metal Moe
01-14-2008, 08:52 AM
Yea that does totally suck ass. I had my drive giving me the dreaded *CLICK* noise. The last time I tried to boot it wouldn't even get past the Windows XP screen with the litte KITT scrolling thing.

I haven't tried to retrive any data off of it yet because I always back up VERY important shit. Porn comes and goes and I can always get more but things like my digital photos and all Unhallowed projects are backed up. Once on recordable media and also on my laptop. So I always have one working system with everything important to me at all times.

TheMojoPin
01-14-2008, 08:56 AM
I thought my hard drive was doing the dreaded *CLEEEEEEEEEEEEECK*, but it turned it that the exhaust fans just needed to be cleaned.

Death Metal Moe
01-14-2008, 08:58 AM
I thought my hard drive was doing the dreaded *CLEEEEEEEEEEEEECK*, but it turned it that the exhaust fans just needed to be cleaned.

Nice. VERY lucky break.

TheMojoPin
01-14-2008, 09:03 AM
Nice. VERY lucky break.

Yeah, I was freaking out. It still does it from time to time when the fans pop on and off, but it's definitely them and not the actual drives.

badorties
01-14-2008, 09:08 AM
my PC (XPS-DELL 200) is making sounds akin to a crop duster at various levels ... not really a whirling sound, more of a vacuum

i've upped my memory, cleaned out the fan/exhaust and it still gets really loud ... but, the PC isn't really underperforming

could it be a hard drive issue, or do i need a new fan ...?

lordjezo -- i had a few system crashes, and was able to access the hard drive on another PC by disconnecting the CD drive and connecting the hard drive to it

TheMojoPin
01-14-2008, 09:10 AM
my PC (XPS-DELL 200) is making sounds akin to a crop duster at various levels ... not really a whirling sound, more of a vacuum

i've upped my memory, cleaned out the fan/exhaust and it still gets really loud ... but, the PC isn't really underperforming

could it be a hard drive issue, or do i need a new fan ...?

lordjezo -- i had a few system crashes, and was able to access the hard drive on another PC by disconnecting the CD drive and connecting the hard drive to it

I've got the XPS, too...it sounds like the fans. After a while they just kind of wear down and make more noise due to how often they're used, usually clicking loudly when they go on or off.

topless_mike
01-14-2008, 09:27 AM
I thought my hard drive was doing the dreaded *CLEEEEEEEEEEEEECK*, but it turned it that the exhaust fans just needed to be cleaned.

heart attack right there...

LordJezo
01-14-2008, 10:38 AM
If you are really looking to get the data back, it'll be a few hundred. I can give you a 10% discount for Drive Savers.

When this first happened I thought I would need and want everything off of it, that all the stuff I had on there was precious and needed. But the more time that goes by the more I realize that everything on there is completely replaceable and not worth anything. I feel like if even I lost a year's worth of pictures I wouldn't spend $800 to get them back, everything is just a tangible nothing that represents a memory that I have in my head.

Seems like this is all a deep awakening that everything I have is crap and the only reason I keep on to any of it is some sort of hoarding obsession. I guess if I had work prints of movie projects or thesis projects it'd be different, but then in those cases I hope I would have backed them up. But only 7 months old, I was pretty confident that I would have gotten a couple years out of this thing before it started to act up on me.

IamFogHat
01-14-2008, 10:42 AM
"I want in that poof"
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j110/IamFogHat/gob-gary-chair_sm.jpg