HDD Grinding

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gavin
  • Start date Start date
G

Gavin

Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?

Cheers
Gavin
 
Gavin said:
My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?
Click to expand...

Before doing anything else, do a complete backup of the drive. Then you
can try whatever you want (take care that the contents of the drive are
not substantially changed, or you'll have to do another backup).

However, it sounds like the drive is on its last leg, so to speak, so
it's probably time to get a new one. Fortunately, disk drives are
pretty inexpensive now, so much so that you can often keep one or two in
reserve for emergencies (except for SCSI drives, which are much more
expensive).
 
Gavin said:
Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?

Cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...

the drive is not "nearing the end of it's time"
it's past it...
back everything up you need, then replace the drive
 
Gavin said:
Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?

Cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...

Gavin,

This drive should have been buried long ago.

As the pastry man suggests, get your data off asap and ditch it.


Odie
 
Consider how cheap harddrive now-a-day why would you want to do anything
other than toss it aside. Unless you need precious data from it just shoot
it and get a new harddrive
 
Gavin said:
Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?

Cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...

It's probably bad sectors. Backup what data you can and plan on a new drive.

However, you use chkdsk to find and potentially fix those kinds of
problems, not 'clean up' and 'defrag'.
 
Gavin said:
Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer
everytime it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer.
Is there anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its
time?

Cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...

Like the others said - back up your precious shit, play taps, and get a new
drive.
 
Hi

My rather old Slave HDD is grinding and then crashing the computer everytime
it tries to access certain parts of the drive.

If I try and clean up or defrag the drive it crashes the computer. Is there
anything that can be done or is it nearing the end of its time?

Cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...


Power it down until you have your tools:
THEN
1) IMMEDIATELY scrape your data off it as best you can. Try to ahm, borrow a
copy of On-Track's $450/year or something EZ-Recovery Pro (they have you over a
barrel when your crit data's burning so they can charge you and you'll
pay....)and BUY a copy of Steve Gibson's Spinrite 6 www.grc.com , one of the
greatest pieces of disk repair software ever built by an underpaid genius.

2) Take That Drive and Shove It - Figure on replacing your hard drives about
once every 3 years unless they're Seagates and warranteed for 5 or Western
Digitals which are "warranteed" for 3 but the company will never pay out.

Remember to back up too - like DVD everything and keep separate copies of
critical materiel on more than one computer on your local network.

Drives are freak'n cheap! Less than $1 a GIGbyte for between 80 and 350, 400 GB.
You may have to keep changing 'em, but burn-once DVDs are cheap (considering the
al;ternative.

The alternative - you send the drive to On-Track, for they're the best at what
they do, with check or credit card for $250 for them to LOOK at it.

THEN you pay them up to $1K more to rescue the data you hold dear.

Do this even if you go to RAID 5!

Costs money? Yeh it costs money - a little bit now vs. A LOT later.

Trucker Al
<btw> drives make great wall clocks and other hacks when opened, and also
contain some neat supermagnets.<g>
..
 
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