It's worse than that it's dead (maybe anyway)

[JohnJAdamson]

Hello. I've got a WD 250GB External USB/firewire hard drive that I bought
just over a year ago (June 2004). It's worked fine up until today.

I was watching a film, stored on the drive, through a remote computer on the
local network and the film kept stopping. So I went into the other room to
investigate and found that films would only partly play.

I had a look in the event viewer and found around 10 Bad Block errors.

So I downloaded the latest western digital data lifeguard diagnostic program
and ran the Quick test.
After half an hour it stopped halfway through complaining about TOO MANY bad
sectors and sure enough in the event viewer they were now 12 pages of red
cross bad block disk errors.

The results of the quick test diagnostic read as:
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected !

I don't think there's enough point running the extended test.

The drive is now pretty much unreadable. I didn't have any prior warning so
I had no time to back up any data. The drive has over 200GB on it including
many personal dvd projects for which I have no backups.
Now I know you're supposed to make regular backups and I was getting round
to but I really didn't expect this new - not second-hand drive to fail
after only a year. I've been using PCs since the mid 90's and this is my
very first hard drive failure.

It's still under warranty and so I take it am eligible for a replacement
from Western Digital. But that's not really the point. Replacing a full hard
drive is not like replacing faulty RAM or a faulty graphics card. It's got
lots of things I don't want to lose.But is everything really lost??
Has anyone hear any experience with a Hard Drive failure and could they
suggest ways of saving any data if it's possible?
Also why did it fail so suddenly and completely? I would have thought there
should have been some warning.
It has been well looked after. I've been very concious of the importance not
to move it/touch it/or spill things on it.
Thanks.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello. I've got a WD 250GB External USB/firewire hard drive that I bought
just over a year ago (June 2004). It's worked fine up until today.

I was watching a film, stored on the drive, through a remote computer on the
local network and the film kept stopping. So I went into the other room to
investigate and found that films would only partly play.

I had a look in the event viewer and found around 10 Bad Block errors.

So I downloaded the latest western digital data lifeguard diagnostic program
and ran the Quick test.
After half an hour it stopped halfway through complaining about TOO MANY bad
sectors and sure enough in the event viewer they were now 12 pages of red
cross bad block disk errors.

The results of the quick test diagnostic read as:
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected !

I don't think there's enough point running the extended test.

The drive is now pretty much unreadable. I didn't have any prior warning so
I had no time to back up any data. The drive has over 200GB on it including
many personal dvd projects for which I have no backups.
Now I know you're supposed to make regular backups and I was getting round
to but I really didn't expect this new - not second-hand drive to fail
after only a year. I've been using PCs since the mid 90's and this is my
very first hard drive failure.

It's still under warranty and so I take it am eligible for a replacement
from Western Digital. But that's not really the point. Replacing a full hard
drive is not like replacing faulty RAM or a faulty graphics card. It's got
lots of things I don't want to lose.But is everything really lost??
Has anyone hear any experience with a Hard Drive failure and could they
suggest ways of saving any data if it's possible?
Also why did it fail so suddenly and completely? I would have thought there
should have been some warning.
It has been well looked after. I've been very concious of the importance not
to move it/touch it/or spill things on it.

Well, IMO you should a) stop messing with the drive immediately, i.e. do
not turn it on again b) get quotes from data recovery services.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello. I've got a WD 250GB External USB/firewire hard drive that I
bought just over a year ago (June 2004). It's worked fine up until today.

I was watching a film, stored on the drive, through a remote computer
on the local network and the film kept stopping. So I went into the
other room to investigate and found that films would only partly play.

I had a look in the event viewer and found around 10 Bad Block errors.

So I downloaded the latest western digital data lifeguard diagnostic program
and ran the Quick test.

After half an hour it stopped halfway through complaining about TOO MANY bad
sectors and sure enough in the event viewer they were now 12 pages of red
cross bad block disk errors.

The results of the quick test diagnostic read as:
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected !

I don't think there's enough point running the extended test.
Correct.

The drive is now pretty much unreadable. I didn't have any prior warning so I
had no time to back up any data.

You're meant to backup BEFORE you get any warning,
because with many drive failures there is no warning.

The drive has over 200GB on it including many personal dvd projects for which
I have no backups.

More fool you.

Now I know you're supposed to make regular backups and I was getting round to
but I really didn't expect this new - not second-hand drive to fail after
only a year.

Shit happens, particularly with external drives.

I've been using PCs since the mid 90's and this is my very first hard drive
failure.

Irrelevant to the need for backups.

It's still under warranty and so I take it am eligible for a replacement from
Western Digital.

Maybe, maybe not. Quite a few of their
drives only have a 1 year warranty.

But that's not really the point. Replacing a full hard drive is not like
replacing faulty RAM or a faulty graphics card. It's got lots of things I
don't want to lose.But is everything really lost??

Try leaving the drive turned off for a
while, it might have just got stinking hot.

Has anyone hear any experience with a Hard Drive failure and could they
suggest ways of saving any data if it's possible?

See above.

If that doesnt work, you could try putting it in a plastic bag
in the freezer for a while and see if its usable after that. If it
is, get that data off as quickly as you can before it warms up.

Also why did it fail so suddenly and completely?

Plenty of drive fail much more suddenly and completely than that.

The reason for the failure can be a number of things, it got stinking
hot in that enclosure, it has a dry joint or a cracked trace or the
head amp has gone bad, or the head is physically damaged and
isnt flying over the platter surface properly anymore, etc etc etc.

I would have thought there should have been some warning.

Nope, plenty of drives die with no warning at all.

It has been well looked after.

Even that's arguable with an external case where it may
have been running at much higher temps than it should have.

I've been very concious of the importance not to move it/touch it/or spill
things on it.

There is more to treating a drive well than just those,
most obviously with the temperature of the drive.

 

[JohnJAdamson]

If that doesnt work, you could try putting it in a plastic bag
in the freezer for a while and see if its usable after that. If it
is, get that data off as quickly as you can before it warms up.

Does this freezer thing work. It sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.
Does it really work and if so how?
Remember it's an external drive. I don't like the idea of plugging into the
mains something that might have water in it.

 

[mepe]

Remember it's an external drive. I don't like the idea of plugging into
the

mains something that might have water in it.

just put the bare hard disk in the freezer not the whole case/power supply
etc -they work on +5v and+12v

 

[Rita Ä Berkowitz]

Does this freezer thing work. It sounds suspiciously like an urban
legend. Does it really work and if so how?
Remember it's an external drive. I don't like the idea of plugging
into the mains something that might have water in it.

Freezing is nothing more than an urban legend. The manufacturer approves
method for rejuvenating SATA drives is to give it several hard jolts with
the wooden handle of a hammer. Never use a fiberglass handle for this, as
damage will result. Regular ATA drives are more forgiving and will work
after rapping against a table or floor.




Rita

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Freezing is nothing more than an urban legend. The manufacturer approves
method for rejuvenating SATA drives is to give it several hard jolts with
the wooden handle of a hammer. Never use a fiberglass handle for this, as
damage will result. Regular ATA drives are more forgiving and will work
after rapping against a table or floor.

Rita

This banging *was* actually a reliable method of getting the old Seagate
ST125 hard drives spinning again.

On the other hand, the motor spindle used to stand proud of the drive
casing and often just needed a quick twist with a pair of pliers to get
it spinning.

Odie

 

[JohnJAdamson]

This banging *was* actually a reliable method of getting the old Seagate
ST125 hard drives spinning again.

On the other hand, the motor spindle used to stand proud of the drive
casing and often just needed a quick twist with a pair of pliers to get
it spinning.

Odie

It's got much worse now
When I power it up it's only partially recognized by Windows.
The drive no longer appears in My Computer and so the files are no longer
accessible.
Also when it's switched on the platters? start spinning alright but I hear a
sort of gentle scratching noise. I've found on the web the grating sound of
the reading head scratching against the platter but this is NOT the sound
I'm getting.
It only happens on power up and sounds like someone quickly scratching the
nail of one finger against the table twice.

I can't afford to get any data recovered by one of the many companies that
offer the service.
Is their any other possible way to recover the most important files?

Also the drive is still under warrantly. So I can't put it in the
fridge/microwave wack it with a hammer or remove the drive from the sealed
plastic box etc with out voiding it.

 

[Rod Speed]

Does this freezer thing work.

Yes, it has worked for some.

It sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.

Yeah, it does.

Does it really work

Yes, you can find some reports of it working in this newsgroup using
groups.google

and if so how?

One failure mode with hard drives is a dry joint or a cracked trace.
The large temperature change seen with freezing can see either
conduct when they dont at room temp and higher.

Remember it's an external drive. I don't like the idea of plugging into the
mains something that might have water in it.

The reason for the plastic bag is to ensure that there isnt water in it.

And you dont plug the mains into the drive anyway,
just the much lower voltage from the wall wart and
that much lower voltage is perfectly save even if you
were silly enough to put the drive in a bucket of water.

 

[Rod Speed]

It's got much worse now

When I power it up it's only partially recognized by Windows.
The drive no longer appears in My Computer

Thats just because the directory structures are now no longer visible.
You've now got bads in the directory structure or partition table etc.

and so the files are no longer accessible.

Also when it's switched on the platters? start spinning alright but I hear a
sort of gentle scratching noise.

The scratching noise is the heads recalibrating.

I've found on the web the grating sound of the reading head scratching against
the platter but this is NOT the sound I'm getting.

Thats the only real good news, a full head crash isnt
recoverable with what you have available to you.

It only happens on power up and sounds like someone quickly
scratching the nail of one finger against the table twice.

Its very likely just the heads recalibrating. Exactly what that
sounds like varys quite a bit from drive model to drive model.

I can't afford to get any data recovered by one of the many companies that
offer the service.

Even the cheapest ones ?

Is their any other possible way to recover the most important files?

Like I said, it is worth trying freezing the drive. That has worked for some.

In some ways its a pity it does spin up because
it can be possible to fix a logic card that no longer
spins the drive up anymore by replacing the bit of
the electronics thats involved in spinning the drive up.

Also the drive is still under warrantly. So I can't put it in the
fridge/microwave wack it with a hammer or remove the drive from the sealed
plastic box etc with out voiding it.

They arent likely to be able to work out that you have put it in
the freezer if you do that sensibly, with the drive in a plastic bag.

And sacrificing the warranty is a small price to pay if you can
get your data back. Lot cheaper than any recovery service.

 

[JohnJAdamson]

Yes, it has worked for some.


Yeah, it does.


Yes, you can find some reports of it working in this newsgroup using
groups.google


One failure mode with hard drives is a dry joint or a cracked trace.
The large temperature change seen with freezing can see either
conduct when they dont at room temp and higher.


The reason for the plastic bag is to ensure that there isnt water in it.

And you dont plug the mains into the drive anyway,
just the much lower voltage from the wall wart and
that much lower voltage is perfectly save even if you
were silly enough to put the drive in a bucket of water.

OK I've had a look through groups and on the web
The freezer advice seems to vary. Some say put it in there for 1/2 hour,
others over night.
Some say try it straight away and others to leave it until it's warmed up to
room temp.
Do you know what the correct procedure is here?

 

[JohnJAdamson]

Yes, it has worked for some.


Yeah, it does.


Yes, you can find some reports of it working in this newsgroup using
groups.google


One failure mode with hard drives is a dry joint or a cracked trace.
The large temperature change seen with freezing can see either
conduct when they dont at room temp and higher.


The reason for the plastic bag is to ensure that there isnt water in it.

And you dont plug the mains into the drive anyway,
just the much lower voltage from the wall wart and
that much lower voltage is perfectly save even if you
were silly enough to put the drive in a bucket of water.

OK I've had a look through groups and on the web
The freezer advice seems to vary. Some say put it in there for 1/2 hour,
others over night.
Some say try it straight away and others to leave it until it's warmed up to
room temp.
Do you know what the correct procedure is here?

 

[Rod Speed]

OK I've had a look through groups and on the web

The freezer advice seems to vary. Some say put it in there for 1/2 hour,
others over night.

What matters is obviously how long it takes
to get it to the temp that the freezer is at.

Some say try it straight away and others to leave it until it's warmed up to
room temp.

There isnt any point in letting it warm up.

Do you know what the correct procedure is here?

Leave it in the freezer until its at about the same
temp as the freezer, then see if the system can
see the data on the drive as quickly as possible
before it warms up.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Does this freezer thing work. It sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.
Does it really work and if so how?

It works sometimes for very specific problems. One is dying
semiconductors. They will work better when cold, which can give
you some minutes.
Other than that the general idea is that if you have something just
about not working, if you change environmental conditions you
might shift it into a working state again for a short while.
Does of course only work sometimes and may also cause more
damage.

Arno

 

[JohnJAdamson]

It works sometimes for very specific problems. One is dying
semiconductors. They will work better when cold, which can give
you some minutes.
Other than that the general idea is that if you have something just
about not working, if you change environmental conditions you
might shift it into a working state again for a short while.
Does of course only work sometimes and may also cause more
damage.

Arno

Right. This is really odd.
I connected the drive last night and waited for about half an hour. Then
windows recognized it as a local disk drive and I was able to transfer data
off it but at a very slow rate. Sometimes the transfer would stop with a
'cyclic redundancy' error. But on most occasions it worked.
In the event log there are still lots of bad block and paging errors along
with 'ntfs file system is corrupt' errors.
But these are becoming less frequent and the drive much faster.
So I wonder what could have been the trouble.
I'm still going to replace it under it's warranty. But would WD now claim
that there's nothing wrong with the drive?

 

[Rod Speed]

Right. This is really odd.
I connected the drive last night and waited for about half an hour.
Then windows recognized it as a local disk drive and I was able to
transfer data off it but at a very slow rate.

The slow rate is retrying on errors.

Sometimes the transfer would stop with a 'cyclic redundancy' error. But on
most occasions it worked.

In the event log there are still lots of bad block and paging errors along
with 'ntfs file system is corrupt' errors.
But these are becoming less frequent and the drive much faster.
So I wonder what could have been the trouble.

Likely it does have a dry joint or cracked trace. Those can produce quite
variable results as the joint sometimes works and sometimes doesnt.

I'm still going to replace it under it's warranty. But would WD now claim that
there's nothing wrong with the drive?

Nope, bet it still shows faults with the WD diag.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Right. This is really odd.
I connected the drive last night and waited for about half an hour. Then
windows recognized it as a local disk drive and I was able to transfer data
off it but at a very slow rate. Sometimes the transfer would stop with a
'cyclic redundancy' error.

Interessting. If that is right, then the interface electronics has
problems. The interface (cable) is the only place where CRC (cyclic
redundancy check) is used, the surface uses some ECC variant.

But on most occasions it worked.
In the event log there are still lots of bad block and paging errors along
with 'ntfs file system is corrupt' errors.
But these are becoming less frequent and the drive much faster.

Hmm. Still, save what you can now.

So I wonder what could have been the trouble.

I would say the drive is still dying. Dying is not necessarily a
linear process. Electronics (like humans and other beings) can get
better before they get even worse and die.

I'm still going to replace it under it's warranty. But would WD now claim
that there's nothing wrong with the drive?

Unlikely. Most disk manufacturers do not even test incomming drives
immediately but ship them off to a place with cheap labour for
diagnostics and repair. The disk was undetectable, i.e. there is
something seriously wrong with it, even if the problem does not
manifest itself all the time.

Arno

 

[JohnJAdamson]

Right. This is really odd.

The slow rate is retrying on errors.



Likely it does have a dry joint or cracked trace. Those can produce quite
variable results as the joint sometimes works and sometimes doesnt.


Nope, bet it still shows faults with the WD diag.

Yes you're right. It still fails the diagnostic program.

 

[J. Clarke]

This banging *was* actually a reliable method of getting the old Seagate
ST125 hard drives spinning again.

On the other hand, the motor spindle used to stand proud of the drive
casing and often just needed a quick twist with a pair of pliers to get
it spinning.

I'd dearly love to see the formal statement of approval for wanging on an
SATA drive with a stick of wood or banging the drive on a table.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

I'd dearly love to see the formal statement of approval for wanging on an
SATA drive with a stick of wood or banging the drive on a table.

I believe this happens an awful lot when the frustration builds up to
explosive levels.


Odie