HDD sudden death. What could be the cause?
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Hi all^^.
About 8 months ago I bought a Samsung 1.5TB HDD for the sole purpose of warehousing my growing mountain of digital data. To make my life simple, I also bought an Arkview HDD hub, which allows to connect 2 HDD's via USB interface. Everything was well, but a few days ago, after about a week of not connecting the drive, I needed to transfer some information into my warehouse HDD. To my surprise, the drive didn't start. I moved it a bit but nothing. I checked the BIOS and it wasn't recognized. Finally, I held it in my hands and discovered that the inner disk wasn't even spinning, which meant no energy feed was happening.
Now, I've taken utmost care of my disks. I keep them in their anti-static casings all the time except when in use, I leave no wave electronics near them (cellphones and such) and have made sure that no impacts occur as they are kept safe near floor level away from feet. I've tried everything except freezing the drive in an attempt to ID the problem, but I've come up empty. Even changing the drive board didn't work and it's not the the hubs fault since all my other disks; which were bought from a same lot, all work normally. At this point I've resigned myself of recuperating the information lost (it doesn't actually matter anyway as I always double back-up everything) but I am left with the doubt as to what could've happened that caused a reliable HDD to suddenly die. Any ideas? TYVM^^.
About 8 months ago I bought a Samsung 1.5TB HDD for the sole purpose of warehousing my growing mountain of digital data. To make my life simple, I also bought an Arkview HDD hub, which allows to connect 2 HDD's via USB interface. Everything was well, but a few days ago, after about a week of not connecting the drive, I needed to transfer some information into my warehouse HDD. To my surprise, the drive didn't start. I moved it a bit but nothing. I checked the BIOS and it wasn't recognized. Finally, I held it in my hands and discovered that the inner disk wasn't even spinning, which meant no energy feed was happening.
Now, I've taken utmost care of my disks. I keep them in their anti-static casings all the time except when in use, I leave no wave electronics near them (cellphones and such) and have made sure that no impacts occur as they are kept safe near floor level away from feet. I've tried everything except freezing the drive in an attempt to ID the problem, but I've come up empty. Even changing the drive board didn't work and it's not the the hubs fault since all my other disks; which were bought from a same lot, all work normally. At this point I've resigned myself of recuperating the information lost (it doesn't actually matter anyway as I always double back-up everything) but I am left with the doubt as to what could've happened that caused a reliable HDD to suddenly die. Any ideas? TYVM^^.
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Since you changed the controller board, you might have gotten a bearing lockup in the motor. At this point, freezing would be your best bet.
edit: I'm blind, but have you tried powering it with a normal sata power cable?
edit: I'm blind, but have you tried powering it with a normal sata power cable?
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sciwhiz wrote...
Since you changed the controller board, you might have gotten a bearing lockup in the motor. At this point, freezing would be your best bet.edit: I'm blind, but have you tried powering it with a normal sata power cable?
Yes, I didn't mention it before. I tried hooking it up to the mother board directly, but nothing. I'll try freezing it in the next few days to try my luck.
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Was it clicking the last time you used it or is this a SS drive? There's always the possibility of it just being a bad drive. If you're lucky you could exchange it for a new one.
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Well if you herd any funny noises last time you used it, could be a bad sign. Grinding or screeching noises might mean the bearings or spindle motor are failing. A clicking, clunking or clanging sound could be the read/write arm slamming back and forth. Also, a power spike could have fried it.
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In response to the previous:
I'm very paranoid about an HDD clicking (plus I am an IT graduate^^) and there was none. About a power spike, I keep all my electronic gear hooked up to a 10 minute UPS with surge protectors, which in turn is connected to a surge insulation multi-outlet.
I'm very paranoid about an HDD clicking (plus I am an IT graduate^^) and there was none. About a power spike, I keep all my electronic gear hooked up to a 10 minute UPS with surge protectors, which in turn is connected to a surge insulation multi-outlet.
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It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad.
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Flaser
OCD Hentai Collector
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
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guammastermind671
Da RL Lurker at FAKKU
Flaser wrote...
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
I agree with you 100% Flaser. It happens at times
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Flaser wrote...
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
I know this all too well. In my previous job I had a woman send over her desktop to IT support. She claimed that she couldn't access her info. and had some very important work documents that she needed to retrive. When I opened it up, a near explosion of dust blew out, making me gag and cough. The pc had never once been cleaned in about 4 years.
Unfortunately, the disk was dead and there was no getting it back. She cursed our guts for our "uselessness and ineptitude" and even called our boss (who for some reason knew actually less than she did about tech gear lol). Apparently she had over 100GB of mail in her disk (WTF) and countless other data, though it never occured to her that a disk could fail. In her words: "This can't be! PC's are made to last forever right?!". To this day I still feel good about telling her that all of it was gone for good. A guilty pleasure among techies I'm sure^^.
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Flaser
OCD Hentai Collector
VGuy wrote...
Flaser wrote...
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
I know this all too well. In my previous job I had a woman send over her desktop to IT support. She claimed that she couldn't access her info. and had some very important work documents that she needed to retrive. When I opened it up, a near explosion of dust blew out, making me gag and cough. The pc had never once been cleaned in about 4 years.
Unfortunately, the disk was dead and there was no getting it back. She cursed our guts for our "uselessness and ineptitude" and even called our boss (who for some reason knew actually less than she did about tech gear lol). Apparently she had over 100GB of mail in her disk (WTF) and countless other data, though it never occured to her that a disk could fail. In her words: "This can't be! PC's are made to last forever right?!". To this day I still feel good about telling her that all of it was gone for good. A guilty pleasure among techies I'm sure^^.
You could've twisted the knife by getting in touch with a data recovery firm and having them send her an estimate. (These things start at hundreds of dollars and can cost thousands).
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Flaser wrote...
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
I know all hard drive will fail, which is why we need to push the marketing of SSD. SSD still be failed but mostly in a long run.
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polke451 wrote...
I know all hard drive will fail, which is why we need to push the marketing of SSD. SSD still be failed but mostly in a long run.True. SSD drives are faster, more reliable and less prone to HW failure than their bulky HDD cousins. The only problem I see is storage capacity. The bigger ones clock out at about 256GB max with a hefty price tag attached. This size is good for a primary partition and can handle most games and software without a problem.
My problem lies in the 6TB of personal data I handle on an almost daily basis. Only HDDs or their external USB buddies are up to snuff to handle so much. I don't even want to think of the cost of switching all that to SSDs.
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Flaser
OCD Hentai Collector
polke451 wrote...
Flaser wrote...
polke451 wrote...
It could just be a bad hard drive. Since you brought it under a year, it should still be under warranty. It could not be a power spike. If anything, it is likely your motherboard will fry before your HDD goes bad. The thing is, eventually all hard drives *will* die. This is because even in the manufacturing environment, they can't ensure that no particles bigger than the gap between the platters and the head (mere nanometers nowadays) are in the air... so eventually a dust particle *will* cause a crash and from that moment things snowball as the crash creates fragments which lead to more crashes and so on.
http://blog.smalldog.com/article/why-did-my-hard-drive-die/
I know all hard drive will fail, which is why we need to push the marketing of SSD. SSD still be failed but mostly in a long run.
...and electronic components, just never-ever go bad? Dream on.
Frankly we don't know enough (there's not a big enough body of data) to make accurate statements about the shelf-life/longevity of data stored on SSDs. Current conservative estimates is about 5 years (about the same you'd get with DVDs) before data gets corrupted due to minute leakages of the static charge in each cell. This occurs regardless of whether the drive is turned on or not.