View Full Version : Did my HDD just die?
So I was watching Top Gear show on TV. Somewhere in the middle there were commercials, and I stepd in my room, everything's working fine. After the show ended I came back into my room, I noticed PC rebooted and froze at post screen. Somehow I managed to get into windows, didn't have a clue what could be wrong. I didn't think it was a big deal, but as I was trying to copy some files from HDD to HDD(usb) something clicked inside the usb HDD and it froze. I couldn't do anything so I pressed the reset button, and I couldn't get into windows. I decided to turn off the HDD, rebooted and got into windows easily. When I turned on the HDD windows made that sound when you connected something through usb, but it didn't show anything in explorer. I can't see my usb HDD. Is there anything I could do? Of all HDDs this is the one I simply cannot let it die!!! Plz help me!
:frown: :confused:
GymTanAndLaundry
05.06.11, 00:40
So I was watching Top Gear show on TV. Somewhere in the middle there were commercials, and I stepd in my room, everything's working fine. After the show ended I came back into my room, I noticed PC rebooted and froze at post screen. Somehow I managed to get into windows, didn't have a clue what could be wrong. I didn't think it was a big deal, but as I was trying to copy some files from HDD to HDD(usb) something clicked inside the usb HDD and it froze. I couldn't do anything so I pressed the reset button, and I couldn't get into windows. I decided to turn off the HDD, rebooted and got into windows easily. When I turned on the HDD windows made that sound when you connected something through usb, but it didn't show anything in explorer. I can't see my usb HDD. Is there anything I could do? Of all HDDs this is the one I simply cannot let it die!!! Plz help me!
:frown: :confused:
Clicking normally means the parts that try to read/write cant read/write and it's fucked. Happened to my old external HDD with all my music on it :( If anyone else can offer a more technical explanation though.... :P
Click of death - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death#Hard_disk)
Do you think there's a possibility that my files can be saved? I'm gonna go take it to service tomorrow.
And is there any good software that I can check all my other HDD for bad sectors/block?
mammamia11
05.06.11, 11:40
yes you can save your files, your hdd is kinda dead if u hear that clicking sound, leave it to service if you want a profetional recovery or u can do it yourself but it will not be as good as they do it and if you have bad luck some files will be missing
GymTanAndLaundry
05.06.11, 13:01
A friend of mines drive started clicking (and then stopped clicking and began working again) about a month ago. The drive lasted until now, and now all the files she has on the drive (about 1TB's worth) have all corrupted. The drive is being detected by the OS and it's making weird noise (not clicking) but everything she tries to click/access will not open/read so it seems this time she's lost absolutely everything. ADVISE: Don't fret, act quickly to avoid data loss.... the longer you take to do something about it the higher your chances of data loss, it would seem. Again, sorry my only help is anecdotal.
if you're going/willing to pay for some white room workers to fix your drive, don't bother reading the rest of this post.
if you can't afford a couple of thousand, then read on, because you've got nothing to lose.
i have done the following 'rescue' on 20-30 drives over the last 15 years - the results are mixed, but i've never come away empty handed.
if a drive is clicking, it's usually as a result of heat coupled with general crapness (external drives today are manufactured at a low standard in comparison to their capacity - something i could write a million pages on, but won't).
the clicking is the head actuator not being able to align due to heat swell - nothing more nothing less. imagine you had a record player on which the stylus swelled up to the size of a tennis ball every time you turned it on - in layman's terms, it's a bit like that.
soooooooooo.....
(and no, i'm not completely nuts)
crack open the casing and remove the hdd itself. it should be easy - you're gonna invalidate your warranty, but as a toss up between that and data loss, there's no competition. if you take the drive to a white room for data recovery, they're gonna crack it open anyway, so you'd be in the same position.
look and take note how the drive plugs into the connectors within the casing - you're going to be replugging it later on, and when you do, time will be a factor.
take the hdd and get a couple of small plastic bags - the kind you'd put sandwiches in for lunch.
if they have no holes in them, punch a few holes through one of the bags using a pen or pencil (small holes basically)
put the hdd into the bag and tie a knot in the bag
put the first bag into the second bag - no need to tie a knot in the second bag - then put it into the freezer. yes, the freezer. preferably not under your dripping ice cube tray :P
leave it there for 2 or 3 hours.
power up your computer - when you're ready to go, grab the drive from the freezer, tear the bags off, plug the drive into the original housing and it should work.
you're gonna have about 20 minutes before it begins to click again, so start copying. don't mess around picking photos or reading individual files - just get them off the drive. if you're running out of time and don't think you'll be able to do everything in one hit, safely remove the drive from your os before it starts clicking continuously again.
rinse, repeat.
basically, the low temperatures cause the head actuator to constrict, minimising the drift across the platters, enabling data to be read. as the drive warms up, drift occurs, hand in hand with an increased chance of crc errors, leading to full on read write errors leading to the inability to read anything from the drive. cool things down again and you get another shot, providing physical defections on the head have not been made worse by leaving the drive run in a faulty state for a prolonged amount of time.
laugh if you want, but it does work, i've used this exactly technique many times and always been able to a portion if not all of my data.
oh, you mentioned something about bad drive sectors.
hdd regenerator made by dposoft.net will physically restore bad sectors on a drive.
that's not marketing garbage either. it works. it's just a shame that a lot of people don't understand how magnetic recording mediums work, so they write things off as myth.
it's doubtful your clicking is down to bad sectors though...
that's my spin on the freezer technique. you can google the hdd in the freezer technique and no doubt find a billion guides as well as a billion naysayers who don't know jack about computers.
but what i've written above is what i've personally used to recover data from 'dead' hdds over the years.
maybe you'll find a better guide, maybe you won't believe any of it, maybe you have enough cash to get some white room pros to do it the proper way for you,
either way, i wish you luck. data loss sucks.
*takomania looks down at his 16tb raid 10 array.
:D
You could always try to plug it in manually..
^if it's a lacie drive, DEFINITELY try that first. remove it from the housing and either put it into another enclosure or plug it straight into the machine...
I assure you takomania isn't "talking shit". I've also read about the drive freezing technique some years ago, and how it's known to work. But you have to be fast.
My hardware knowledge is limited so I wasn't sure it would do the trick when you're having the click of death, but do try that out.
But you have to be fast.
That's something to have in mind. The more time that flies by, the more difficult it become to recover data. Sadly =P
takomania, thnx for this huge post! Like I said, I'm gonna take it to service tomorrow and see what they'll say. One thing got me worried now. Yesterday the disk was working, you could fell it if I put my hand on it, and the blue light was on. But when I completely turned it off, disconnected, waited a few minutes, and when I turned it back on, absolutely nothing happened. Like it had no power. This scares me the most.
you might be lucky - it may just be the main interface board within the enclosure that has died (very common). if it is that, then removing the drive from the enclosure and plugging it either directly into the computer or into another usb enclosure would eradicate the problem completely - see what 'the pros' say though - if it's a proper white room that they work in, they could perform wonders (for a price)...
They said they'll call me in two or three days. I'm praying for good news. I just want my music back!
They said they'll call me in two or three days. I'm praying for good news. I just want my music back!
It isn't fun to lose so much data, so that makes it even more important to keep backups on everything valuable :wwink:
mammamia11
06.06.11, 13:50
how do huge company like youtube backup there data? if a problem like this happend in there
hehe - when it comes to storing lots of data - nobody uses 'domestic solutions'.
in my home i have around 80tb of data storage - and i'm not talking thumb drives and usb devices. raid 5 is a minimum nowadays for backups (i'm using raid 10) plus i have multiple jbod frames which i use for video editing and specific data storage.
i basically use the same level of data backup and protection that i use at work.
youtube etc sits on server farms - dynamic backups of backups of dynamic backups.
basically, you will probably never know if they have data loss, and when they do, the worst that the end user ever sees is 24-36 hours of downtime tops, which is the wait for the data to be rebuilt onto new drives.
basically, google raid, and read around it. :D
mammamia11
07.06.11, 15:02
intresting information takomania, i didnt relly get what u mean about dynamic backups but googling it right now :)
So good news! Got my HDD back today! I've been making backups for the last 5-6 hours! :D
They said the HDD is fine, it was casing or something like that, don't know the right word in english.
Anyway I paid 40€!
i/o board/controller board would be the problem - it's the tiny little pcb board which connects the usb drive enclosure to the sata or ide connector on the front of the casing (the green circuit board in this pic)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Usb_firewire_hard_disk_enclosure.jpg
- meaning you could have removed the drive from the case and put it into another enclosure or computer.
what brand is the drive? that's really really common with lacie branded drives...
I think it's Western Digital!
lemongreentea
08.06.11, 11:00
hehe - when it comes to storing lots of data - nobody uses 'domestic solutions'.
in my home i have around 80tb of data storage - and i'm not talking thumb drives and usb devices. raid 5 is a minimum nowadays for backups (i'm using raid 10) plus i have multiple jbod frames which i use for video editing and specific data storage.
i basically use the same level of data backup and protection that i use at work.
youtube etc sits on server farms - dynamic backups of backups of dynamic backups.
basically, you will probably never know if they have data loss, and when they do, the worst that the end user ever sees is 24-36 hours of downtime tops, which is the wait for the data to be rebuilt onto new drives.
basically, google raid, and read around it. :D
What's your electricity bill for that?
I think it's Western Digital!
Not surprised really. In 90% of cases WD's HDD's get fucked up.
takomania I forgot to ask you, what software do you use for making backups?
@ yoco - for major backups that i need automated, i use symantec backup exec. another good one is acronis backup and recovery.
for small amounts of data, i just do manual backups, because i'm used to working that way and have done for many years.
@ lemongreentea - i'd love to know where you pulled that 90% figure from.
people seem to take their own personal experiences and those of friends when it comes to tales of various drive manufacturers churning out bad drives, but from what i've seen over the years, no one manufacturer is any worse than the other. western digital is often referred to as western disaster, seagate as shitgate etc etc etc.
yeah, hitatchi has turned out a bad batch of drives in the past, but so have others.
the only drives i warn people against buying are lacie branded removable storage, as their controller boards have been consistently bad for years - lacie are just style over substance (which is why apple love them i guess) and have a track record of failures in the media industries - i deal with a large number of companies that literally wont take digital media submissions on lacie branded discs, due to their failure rate. the hdd's themselves are fine - and are made by a range of manufacturers (hitachi, seagate, samsung to name a few) but the enclosure builds are awful and do are not up to the standard of even budget removeable drives - something that's shocking for a device that is made with mobility in mind.
oh, and my electricity is included in my rent (which is high anyhow!) :D
-and my kit is not all powered up 24/7!
@ yoco - for major backups that i need automated, i use symantec backup exec. another good one is acronis backup and recovery.
for small amounts of data, i just do manual backups, because i'm used to working that way and have done for many years.
I heard both of them, and also that Acronis has some issues sometimes(?!)
I have just over 100GB of music files, and I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager 11 for my backup!
One question. If I'll ever need to restore these files, do I need a recover cd or something?
Hey fellas! I have a question. If you HDD has bad blocks/sectors does that mean it's destined to be doomed or can complete format fix these issues?
I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager 11 for my backup!
One question. If I'll ever need to restore these files, do I need a recover cd or something?
usually, you just need somewhere to install the program, plus lots of drive space. (depending on what archive method you are using)
Hey fellas! I have a question. If you HDD has bad blocks/sectors does that mean it's destined to be doomed or can complete format fix these issues?
formatting wont really solve anything - using a tool fuch as hddregenerator can work wonders though (depending on the age of the drive and the number of bad sectors).
Dmitriy Primochenko Online (http://www.dposoft.net/#b_hddhid)
I already have this software. It's really good, but can be so sloooow! My 800Gb drive was scanning and repairing for almost 3 whole days!
well, you can't take shortcuts!
either that or buy a new drive :P
-edit-
also, i think you'll find that the software isn't slow - your drive is.
hdd technology has barely evolved since the 80's.
I'll probably buy a new 1TB drive next week, just for backups!
Hey fellas! I have a question. If you HDD has bad blocks/sectors does that mean it's destined to be doomed or can complete format fix these issues?
Once bad sectors are flagged as such (this can be done with a surface check if you aren't willing to fight and revive them), the healthy part of the drive can be used without problems - you'll have less storage capacity depending on how many sectors are damaged, of course.
I've been skeptical about HDD Regenerator, but if takomania says it works, then it's worth a try.
Hey! Today just before lunch I double clicked on uSerenity, it didn't open and my PC was unresponsive. Two error messages pop up, didn't even read them, just clicked on OK. Nothing happened, so I forced restarted the PC. After I logged into windows I noticed my external HDD isn't recognized. So I unplug usb cable and plug it in again. I can hear that windows beep it does, but nothing happens, still no drive. I checked Device Manager and it's there, saying it's working properly. After that I tried plug it in on my laptop with W7, same thing, you can hear the windows beep sound but no drive is seen. So now I don't know what to do. I read on internet that if this happens your HDD is dead. Is this true or could it be just the casing faulty? How exactly do you know if HDD is really dead?
And my HDD is WD My Book Essential 1TB.
With your drive plugged in, go to Start -> Run, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter. Can you see it there? Post a screenshot if you do.
No I don't see it there when it's plugged on my PC (XP SP3), I will post screenshot tomorrow of when it's on W7.
---------- Post added 07.05.12 at 10:55 ---------- Previous post was 06.05.12 at 23:59 ----------
Here's how it looks like in W7.
http://shrani.si/f/1u/du/18XSY08y/disk1.png
Basically it says it's not initialized, something like that.
In theory you can try to right-click and reinitialize the drive, but that will delete your data, so don't do it.
I did a little searching and a common solution seems to be plugging it as an internal drive, or booting from a Linux live CD, and seeing if you can see your files in either case. If so, you can backup and then see if reinitializing as MBR solves the problem.
I decided to take to service and let them figure out. Only bad thing is, I'm gonna wait at least 2 weeks if not more!
Extraterrestrial
07.05.12, 18:41
chkdsk for errors.
I'm sure you're HDD is dying so my advice is to back up your data immediately.
Can you run a chkdsk if the drive has no letter assigned?
Can you run a chkdsk if the drive has no letter assigned?
nope.......
---------- Post added at 22:53 ---------- Previous post was at 22:44 ----------
I didn't have the Click of Death yet, but only time my HDD was clicking is when the cable was faulty and it couldn't provide enough current.
The HDD was working normally, and at some point it started clicking. Disk management showed it like your, that it is there but no letter because it detected the case but has no power to spin the drive. I changed the case and it works great now.
---------- Post added at 23:01 ---------- Previous post was at 22:53 ----------
Also, HDD Regenerator can fix bad sectors, but HDD with bad sectors if often a failing drive and regenerated sectors will have much longer access times than normal. You will need more time to read/write files stored across regenerated sectors. Essentially, a failing drive needs to be replaced and not used for important data.
I didn't have the Click of Death yet, but only time my HDD was clicking is when the cable was faulty and it couldn't provide enough current.
The HDD was working normally, and at some point it started clicking. Disk management showed it like your, that it is there but no letter because it detected the case but has no power to spin the drive. I changed the case and it works great now.
I had the same problem last year. HDD working fine now =)
Also, HDD Regenerator can fix bad sectors, but HDD with bad sectors if often a failing drive and regenerated sectors will have much longer access times than normal. You will need more time to read/write files stored across regenerated sectors. Essentially, a failing drive needs to be replaced and not used for important data.
I think I checked it not so long ago, and there was no errors. I hope it's not that serious, if I managed to get it back in one piece, I'm buying a new one and using it only for backups every few months!
Extraterrestrial
08.05.12, 13:45
Can you run a chkdsk if the drive has no letter assigned?
He can assign one using either one of these software ( EASEUS.Partition.Master.Server.Edition - OOPartition Manager Pro).
So after a month of waiting I finally got a call. They said my HDD died, couldn't be repaired, so they gave me the same one, except instead of 1TB I got 2TB HDD! :biggrin:
But now I have a question. After some time HDD seems to go into sleep mode ore something like that. And it takes a few seconds to get back and running. Can I see anywhere if this is the case?
But now I have a question. After some time HDD seems to go into sleep mode ore something like that. And it takes a few seconds to get back and running. Can I see anywhere if this is the case?
Go to Power Options in the control panel to check the disk turnoff timeout. It's right there in XP, but you'll need to open the advanced power plan settings in 7. Set the timeout to "never" or 0 and apply settings. That's what I've personally done, since Instab told me it's better to leave the disks running than turning them off and on too often.
It was already on "never", but there's still this delay.
Master Razor
10.06.12, 15:28
It was already on "never", but there's still this delay.
Sometimes windows 7 return to the default settings even though they were set by the user differently (I know how it sounds...). Try to select balanced, apply it and then change the HDD power setting to none again.
Other than the above, your HDD may have a built-in setting that powers down on low activity. Usually, this can be controlled using the manufacturer's diagnostics floppy/cd.
If you can give me the exact model of your drive I'll help you find some answers.
I only get this, if you know the other way, let me know.
WD My Book 1140 USB Device
Master Razor
10.06.12, 18:59
Do you have, on your My Book, a software called SmartWare? If so, it controls the HDD power settings, internal backup etc. Its built into the firmware so... it can't be uninstalled.
My Book external drives are designed to save energy. WD GreenPower Technology™ lowers internal drive power consumption by up to 30%; a sleep mode reduces power during idle times, and a power-saving feature turns the drive on and off with your computer.
I'll see what I can find out about this undocumented-crapware.
LE.
Read this (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/passport-vcd.html) because it contains info about removing smartware. At least it should.
You may need this GPARTED (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php) and the HP FORMAT TOOL (http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml).
Do it only if you do not need SmartWare!
I do have this SmartWare but it's not the same as in that first link. I do not have SmartWare Virtual CD Manager.
Master Razor
10.06.12, 22:28
I do have this SmartWare but it's not the same as in that first link. I do not have SmartWare Virtual CD Manager.
It could be hidden or non-existent. Can't really tell.
Tried to find some more info and there's no way to disable greenpower. I'm thinking that destroying smartware is the only way.
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