Hard Drive Resuscitation

Hard Drive Resuscitation · 17-02-2008, 11:49 PM

Why is it that hardware tend to die immediately after their warranty has expired?

My Seagate 80GB has been troubling me for the past year only after its one year warranty had expired. When it was my primary disk it refused to boot any OS at all after an extended period of ticking, clicking and whirring sounds. Frustrated, I used to slightly wiggle it and somtimes bang it inside the case when my patience was running low. This little antic usually fixed it for a while until it started clicking again. A similar problem had occurred with my previous 40GB Seagate which after its demise I opened up to discover the sound of the clicking was the erratic movement of the head.

Eventually I bought a WD and I have been using the Seagate as a secondary drive which it still seemed capable of doing; it just didn't have enough 'juice' for booting an OS anymore. A couple of days ago I heard a nasty audible click and that was the end of it. No matter how hard I slapped it around or no matter how hard I prayed, it failed me. The BIOS post froze at the IDE detection part and the windows boots to find missing drives.

"Freeze it!" a little voice inside my head kept telling me, this impulse was part based on a solution to this predicament I came across the web and part of it was well ... curiousity. Then it came to me like divine revelation, I flipped it upside down.

The demonic clicks are no more to be heard and it has been working ever since. My intuition amazes me somtimes.

The purpose of this thread is to educate people. People should share their experiences with hard drive related failures, the tell tale signs of hard drive failure and moreover how to revive a succumbing hard drive.

ali.tayyab · 18-02-2008, 01:33 AM

i've tried various methods of re=sus, including freezing, flipping, oiling, mounting vertically, praying. and none of em ever worked for me. tried on different drivers ( old st-506s, conners, quantum fireballs, seagates and WDs).

but the moral is, try before u trash. u never know when u would get lucky. backup and trash after!

theDarkDisciple · 18-02-2008, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xe Phantom

My Seagate 80GB has been troubling me for the past year only after its one year warranty had expired. When it was my primary disk it refused to boot any OS at all after an extended period of ticking, clicking and whirring sounds.

Yep, had the exact same prob with one my ancient Seagate 80GB. Refused to boot the OS. Upon system boot, there was a series of horrible click sounds after which the system froze, at the 'Win XP loading bars' part. Didnt go any further than that.

The click sounds had actually been coming since day 1. After being concerned initially, I dismissed them as being something normal to the drive's operation. Worked for 3 years.

Mind you, its still working as a 2nd secondary HDD in my system..

Fahad · 18-02-2008, 03:23 AM

I remember when I didn't knew the "alif bay" of computer hardware I used to do these kinda things with my P3. My PSU used to trip and my PC used to shutdown due to it and when ever I tried to turn it on again it just failed. In the starting days I was unable to catch the problem and I though that some cable used to get loose or I used to get some stupid thinkings.

So, came the day when it tripped again and didn't started. I lifted my PC from the front and smashed it hardly down on the table.... and then you know what I'm going to tell you.... it didn't just started working it never tripped for 2 months!

After those 2 months I realized that my PSU was creating the problem so then I got it changed and joined an institute to learn how to tweak, repair, assemble computer hardware.

Asad · 18-02-2008, 03:45 AM

One of my HDD clicks frequently but it is just a case of loose power connector and an ageing PSU (works fine though - just the connectors are loose). I am planning to get a cooler master PSU but don't have any urgency to do so. I am bidding my time.

Xe Phantom · 18-02-2008, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ali.tayyab

i've tried various methods of re=sus, including freezing, flipping, oiling, mounting vertically, praying. and none of em ever worked for me. tried on different drivers ( old st-506s, conners, quantum fireballs, seagates and WDs).

but the moral is, try before u trash. u never know when u would get lucky. backup and trash after!

Wow that's a lot of methods. Oiling you say? You don't mean massaging the drive with oil do ya?

Oiling the central shaft seems a better fit though.

I just wish there was more durable media than this magnetic disk. Flash drives are more durable eh and faster too I guess. Why not just make a 200GB flash drive?

Asad · 18-02-2008, 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xe Phantom

Wow that's a lot of methods. Oiling you say? You don't mean massaging the drive with oil do ya?

Oiling the central shaft seems a better fit though.

I just wish there was more durable media than this magnetic disk. Flash drives are more durable eh and faster too I guess. Why not just make a 200GB flash drive?

Cost, perhaps?

ali.tayyab · 18-02-2008, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xe Phantom

Wow that's a lot of methods. Oiling you say? You don't mean massaging the drive with oil do ya?

Oiling the central shaft seems a better fit though.

I just wish there was more durable media than this magnetic disk. Flash drives are more durable eh and faster too I guess. Why not just make a 200GB flash drive?

yep oiling the aix, the silvery bit inside the silver tab

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asad

Cost, perhaps?

they do make ssd's, they are very expensive though atm as rightly pointed out

several high-est end lappys and eepc by asus comes with a ssd only

Xe Phantom · 18-02-2008, 07:14 AM

I just wikied this Solid State Drives. The advantages are pretty impressive indeed and the main bottleneck is indeed the cost. I think the trend of lowering costs should see common use of SSDs in the future. Isn't it the next evolutinary step for our present hard drive?

theDarkDisciple · 18-02-2008, 08:12 AM

High-end Alienware systems use Solid State Drives. Very expensive though. Do a search on newegg for SSDs..

17-02-2008, 11:49 PM	#1
Hard Drive Resuscitation Xe Phantom Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 385 Xe Phantom 17-02-2008, 11:49 PM Rating: () Why is it that hardware tend to die immediately after their warranty has expired? My Seagate 80GB has been troubling me for the past year only after its one year warranty had expired. When it was my primary disk it refused to boot any OS at all after an extended period of ticking, clicking and whirring sounds. Frustrated, I used to slightly wiggle it and somtimes bang it inside the case when my patience was running low. This little antic usually fixed it for a while until it started clicking again. A similar problem had occurred with my previous 40GB Seagate which after its demise I opened up to discover the sound of the clicking was the erratic movement of the head. Eventually I bought a WD and I have been using the Seagate as a secondary drive which it still seemed capable of doing; it just didn't have enough 'juice' for booting an OS anymore. A couple of days ago I heard a nasty audible click and that was the end of it. No matter how hard I slapped it around or no matter how hard I prayed, it failed me. The BIOS post froze at the IDE detection part and the windows boots to find missing drives. "Freeze it!" a little voice inside my head kept telling me, this impulse was part based on a solution to this predicament I came across the web and part of it was well ... curiousity. Then it came to me like divine revelation, I flipped it upside down. The demonic clicks are no more to be heard and it has been working ever since. My intuition amazes me somtimes. The purpose of this thread is to educate people. People should share their experiences with hard drive related failures, the tell tale signs of hard drive failure and moreover how to revive a succumbing hard drive. __________________ Intel Dual Core E2160 1.8Ghz (OCed to 2.48Ghz) XFX 630i motherboard 2GB DDR2 667 memory (1GBx2 Kingston) 80 GB Seagate & 160 GB Western Digital Hard drives Asus DVD Writer 2.1 Edifier X100 Speakers
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