Hard drive failing 2nd time

I believe the HD is on the way out I just replaced it 6 months ago, it a western digital, the first one started to tick and click, I lost my a$$ just about, lots of music pictures and such, now this drive is ticking like a stopwatch does, and this noise is over the normal hard drive noise. I questioned my observation by opening task, and when the drive stops after i close all programs it still makes this noise, I mean it sounds just like a stopwatch.. I was told to get an external HD SOON and back up the whole drive, so i am looking now on the best buy sitem i know newegg has an 80gig for $59, thats all i need, but if i could get one tomorrow i will and take some stress off my back befor it stops working. If it may help i could try to get a clip of the sound.

Im on my 4th in one year.....whats your issue again?

the QC is off alot of times...I know what you mean by clicking...my previous one sounded like a washing machine on tumble dry when I read or write on the drive

1st: motor died
2nd: noisemaker
3rd: overheated [label melted and all]
4th: motor hums during startup...loud enough to echo...this ones about to go I think

That is most likely the problem. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the WD caviar drives. They are cheap and for good reason.

I would recommend buying Seagate.

what about the WD external drives, or should i just stay away from WD all together. Also are there some externals i should also stay away from?

Get a Seagate. I have a 160GB serial ATA drive from them and have no complaints. Best part is that its very quiet and still has decent performance.

How much will i be affected that i dont have 2.0 USB

2000xlt said:

what about the WD external drives, or should i just stay away from WD all together. Also are there some externals i should also stay away from?

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Yes, I would stay away from them all together.

I don't know where you live, but if you have a Fry's store near by you can find some great deals.

2000xlt said:

How much will i be affected that i dont have 2.0 USB

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USB 1.1 tops out at 12Mbps and USB 2.0 tops out at 480Mbps.

You could always buy a USB 2.0 add on card.

Maybe the drive is running hot due to lack of air circulation. Maybe the 12 volt power supply is bad.

USB 1 ain't gonna cut it. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

So, loud tick - tick sounds are indicators of HD death? I've been wondering how I'll be able to tell when it's time for another. They're pretty new, though. One, one of those eBay external 160gb Seagates in a "Rock" enclosure, is about a year old, and it's still works perfectly. The latest is a 250gb Acomdata, which I got from Fry's. It's only about 3 months old, so I don't think I've got anything to worry about. It's really quite, even more quiet than the Seagate.

I just hope that I'll get some really good signs that it's time for a new one before things go bad. Do you guys think I'll know when to buy another?

Trashman said:

I just hope that I'll get some really good signs that it's time for a new one before things go bad. Do you guys think I'll know when to buy another?

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Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

The best thing to do is back up the most important things on your internal HD, that way you actually have 2 copies. Storage is cheap these days, loosing important photos, music, or documents is irreplaceable.

2000xlt said:

what about the WD external drives, or should i just stay away from WD all together. Also are there some externals i should also stay away from?

Click to expand...

I have had 2 WD HDDs fail on me. I now have a Seagate inside the machine, and a Maxtor external drive that backs up my entire machine every night.

I lost everything as well a year ago, and will do everything I can, to not let that happen.

-Cameron

Playing favorites with HD brands do nothing. I used to swear by WD then it was Maxtor then it was Seagate when they had a 5 year warrenty. I've had 4 seagates go in 6 monthes. 2 Maxtors in a year seize like a rock.

They all failed on me and they were all rock solid. The important thing about Harddrives is keeping them cool. My new 7200.10 Seagate is impressive and I would recommend that.

One can resurrect a dead hard dive temporarily to retrieve files (depending on the problem) by freezing it. Yes, you heard correctly: http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

I had a problem with hardware interrupts at once time then lost all my partitions. Like magic Test Disk repaired it and all data files recovered: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Many swear by spin rite: http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

I use True Image to make an exact copy of my windows partition and store it on my slave drive.

I use SMART technology to monitor my drive's health. This application will give a prognosis of when you HD will fail:

Personal testimonial here - if you have a cranky drive you need to get data off of - there's nothing like SpinRite - the only thing better is one of those labs that will charge you thousands for data recovery.

If the drive is ony 6 months old, it should still be under warranty.

Every manufacturer is cheap, and they can all go bad. Backups are a must!
I'd avoid Maxtor just because I've never seen a quiet death from any other drive brand. I want to be warned of death throws.

I do like the new Seagates, but they aren't likely any more reliable than anyone else's drives.

If you're having many HDDs die quickly, look into a new PSU or HDD cooling. You don't need a lot of cooling; just make sure the HDDs are not in a dead zone. If you can feel air moving around them, and you don't have any stacked really close together (like 1/4" of less between them), then cooling is likely excellent.

I've been using my hard drive for 4 years (is now my slave drive) and it's due to fail on 7/14/2011 and my computer runs 24/7. I have a 120mm fan blowing on them (Coolermaster case) and a 120mm fan in the rear - and HD temps are down around 34C. I have yet to have a HD fail. Don't throw away your Hds, there's a good sized rare earth magnet inside that you can salvage.

tebore said:

Playing favorites with HD brands do nothing. I used to swear by WD then it was Maxtor then it was Seagate when they had a 5 year warrenty. I've had 4 seagates go in 6 monthes. 2 Maxtors in a year seize like a rock.

They all failed on me and they were all rock solid. The important thing about Harddrives is keeping them cool. My new 7200.10 Seagate is impressive and I would recommend that.

Click to expand...

Absolutely! I used to be in the manufacturing, then the quality department of a VERY large computer company. At the time I left, we built and tested 2800-3100 computers a day and obviously kept meticulous records of DOA rates. The DOA rate on all of our hard drives was less than 1%. Western Digital, for whatever, was the preferred brand and I think they were well under 0.05%, but we'd get batches of them where we'd see 10 out of 50 of them die during a 45 minute download and 4 hour runin.

Western Digital Caviar were not used in any of our computers because quality issues. I'd absolutely avoid them even if they were literally 25% the cost of the next cheapest choice.

Maxtor kinda rubbed me wrong because on two or three occasions, we received a box of hard drives with no foam seperating the drives. usually, there was a solid foam piece with slots for each drive, in its static bag. One time could mean that one REALLY stupid guy in shipping screwed up, two or three times indicates either a lack of training or lack of feedback channels as we obviously clearly stated our disbelief.

I like Seagate. I've never had one die on me personally. But again, to be honest, I don't think any one of the major brands is any better or any worse than any other, but we all have our preferences.

I like the info about the S.M.A.R.T. technology. I hadn't heard of it, before, or at least, hadn't paid much attention. I downloaded a freeware program called HDD Health, to check this stuff out.

I got it from this list of S.M.A.R.T. programs: http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/smart/dload.php

It detected 3 drives, but only one is listed. I think, or at least am hoping, that it tests one drive at a time, starting with the internal, and will then move on to the others. Under the extended info tab, it lists the temperature as 38 degrees C -- how does it know the temperature?

Both of my drives are Seagates. I'm waiting for large capacity solid state hard drives based on flash memory - well, when the price is right that is...

Samsung unveils 1.8-inch, 64GB solid state hard drive But I'm sure it costs more than my entire computer.