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Geek Culture / Hdd failure at its best.

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lazerus
17
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Joined: 30th Apr 2008
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Posted: 4th Nov 2009 23:11
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Ive been stripping my computers memory down and moving my important files across to my backup drive. Now heres the thing, ive just plugged in the drive and tried to access a project folder. And its unreadable or This drive needs formatting Y/N?

I can get onto it, see the information, but cant access random files or folders.

If it wasnt for me not changing Max's new root, and it creating a new one with autoback's i would have just lost a months worth of work.

I have lost many small projects. I have several instalation files in thier as well as my entire Deviant art folder.


My Nanowrimo notes for bloodright. I kept backups of the actual file on several externals and my main hdd but not the notes.

Its most likely too late now to save my work, but how in the world do i stop this happening agian?


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Location: The Fifth Plane of Oblivion
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 00:07
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Don't buy external hard drives? They are atrociously unreliable (far below the reliability of internal drives) and the firmware is often dodgy. They're a bit of a con.

Athlon64 2.7gHz->OC 3.9gHz, 31C, MSi 9500GT->OC 1gHz core/2gHz memory, 48C, 4Gb DDR2 667, 500Gb Seagate + 80Gb Maxtor + 40Gb Maxtor = 620Gb, XP Home
Air cooled, total cost £160
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David R
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 00:41 Edited at: 5th Nov 2009 00:45
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Quote: "Don't buy external hard drives? They are atrociously unreliable (far below the reliability of internal drives) and the firmware is often dodgy. They're a bit of a con."


External hard drives are just internal drives in boxes and in most cases with just a SATA->USB PCB... what makes you think there's a reliability difference? (And if anything the reliability should be better because the drive isn't constantly on or being used to boot up an entire OS etc.)

EDIT: That said, air flow could be a reliability issue. But most of the externals I've seen have pretty good fans / ventilation

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
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xplosys
19
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Joined: 5th Jan 2006
Playing: FPSC Multiplayer Games
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 00:45
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Quote: "I can get onto it, see the information, but cant access random files or folders"


What are you trying to access the files and folders with?
What OS were the files copied from and what OS are you copying to?
Are you getting a message or do the files and folders just not respond?
Could it be a possession/security issue?

Brian.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 01:09 Edited at: 5th Nov 2009 01:10
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Quote: "what makes you think there's a reliability difference?"


The fact that it's in a small case which eliminates the natural heat sink properties of a large case such as a laptop or desktop, the poor airflow (most don't have any kind of cooling fan) the fact that they're quite often moved about and shoddy firmware. Proof of firmware for the USB/FW interface usually being shockingly bad is abundant. The amount I've had to disassemble for friends and family and put into their desktops so they can use it again...

Quote: "It was delivered last Friday and I went about installing it on Saturday.

It doesn’t work.

The lights come on when it is powered up but it doesn’t appear on the computer’s desktop, nor does it appear in the RAID Manager software which ships with the product (or in my Mac’s Disk Utility program).

It doesn’t seem to matter whether I try to connect using USB or Firewire – I get the same results. Swapping the cables which came with it for USB and Firewire cables which I already own make no difference either. My old La Cie external has no problem showing up."


Quote: "I bought a WD My Book 250 GB Premium Edition Dual Interface (FireWire 800 and 400 + USB 2.0).

It has worked for 4 months, with some starting issues from time to time (not coming up in Finder, has to unplug all cables, reconnect and try again, then it would work).

As from yesterday it won’t start at all. I have tried disconnecting cables, holding the button down for 60 seconds, I tried USB instead of FireWire, no luck at all."


Quote: "I´ve had similar problems with a Western Digital My Book Pro 500 GB. I purchased from Amazon.com. Item arrived promptly. Didn’t mount at first try, had to reboot. I went to sleep happily. Next morning disk won’t mount and started making a loud “click” noise."


There's 230 comments here. About one model of drive. ONE!

If you want something reliable for backup, either a dedicated tower designed to last more than a week or USB memory sticks, seriously. I've had the latter go through the wash three times and it still works flawlessly.

Athlon64 2.7gHz->OC 3.9gHz, 31C, MSi 9500GT->OC 1gHz core/2gHz memory, 48C, 4Gb DDR2 667, 500Gb Seagate + 80Gb Maxtor + 40Gb Maxtor = 620Gb, XP Home
Air cooled, total cost £160
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Jeku
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 02:00 Edited at: 5th Nov 2009 02:01
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I would recommend an online backup service for your code, like Mozy.com which is free up to 2GB. It does differentials so you can go back in time, and starts up automatically when the computer isn't in use. It's handy and, well, free for 2GB. The price for unlimited is about $5 a month, which isn't too shabby either. If you combine that with an external drive, you're doubly protected in case there's a fire in your house or if the hard drive is damaged in any way.


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
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Jeff032
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 03:28
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Microsoft's SkyDrive (http://skydrive.live.com) gives 25GB of free storage.

Ubuntu One (http://one.ubuntu.com) gives 2GB of free storage (more if you pay)

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Phaelax
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22
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 10:15
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Quote: "The fact that it's in a small case which eliminates the natural heat sink properties of a large case"

Since the case isn't touching the drive, not sure I'd consider it a HD heatsink.

Quote: "There's 230 comments here. About one model of drive. ONE!"

So ONE bad external drive tells you that all external drives are bad? As David mentioned, heat from a poorly designed box would mostly likely be the cause of any failing external drives. I have a WD external with 400gb drive inside. It's a pretty crappy design as in air flow is terrible and it gets pretty hot. But it's been on for about the past 2 years straight without a single problem.

Quote: "either a dedicated tower designed to last more than a week or USB memory sticks"

You think a usb memory stick is more reliable than a harddrive? Not to mention the insane price difference and amount of available storage. Flash has slower write times (but can read faster, im not being completely bias here). Plus, flash memory has a limited lifespan compared to HDD. They're good for copying data from one thing to another or used as temporary storage, but you can't honestly believe a 32GB would be sufficient at replacing an external harddrive. (unless you travel a lot with it)
128GB usb stick - $300
1TB HDD - $85

@lazerus,
Any messages or errors when trying to access your files?


Quote: "Its most likely too late now to save my work, but how in the world do i stop this happening agian?"

I just bought a 1TB NAS and configured it for RAID 1. Came with crappy Hitachi drives but should keep my data safe.

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lazerus
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 17:13
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Its a 2.5ich laptop drive rigged to a Usb interface. Its got 80gb of space, 20gb free.

Ive salvaged nearly all my irraplaceable gear. Some of its dead. Heres a screen of what happens when i find a randomly corrupt file. The file freezes for a bit, when you enter it. Some just wont open and explorer crashes.



Its like a minefield of broken files

____
-Laz


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/

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Phaelax
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 17:59
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ewwww, yea thats a failed harddrive alright.

Try running CHKDSK on the drive. It might be possible to move some of that data off the bad sectors and make it readable again. It'll then block the bad sectors from being written to. Obviously not a permanent fix as more sectors are bound to fail, but might help you recover a few things.

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lazerus
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 18:06
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too late, i just plugged it in, and horribly beeping then grinding/sticking now i cant see it in admin tools -_-%

Rip work...

Rip...


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/
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Benjamin
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 19:27
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Quote: "Rip work..."


Not a fan of backing up I take it?
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lazerus
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Posted: 5th Nov 2009 19:48
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It wasnt meant for long term use. Would have taken a day to upgrade at the the shop, but life got in the way, so its been on thier for 3 days. Im pretty much trading in this setup for a better one, Hdd's included so i shreaded all work realted gear after it was backed up onto my External Hdd, which ive never had a single problem with for the past eight months.

After all, id just copy paste onto the new machine when its ready.

I guess thier is a god, and hes a s.o.b.

Well, i guess ill be using discs in the near future for backups.

____
-Laz


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/
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