My hard drive is dying ...

[dud]

I was on my comp for a few hours yesterday and I had 3 disturbing instances where the hard drive (Maxtor 160) would "click" and stop accessing then my system would freeze up. A system reset would not always restore it. I have spent the last # of hours backing up my files. Anyone else have the pleasure of this happeniong to them?

My wife went out and bought a new WD 250 from CC for $80 AR. How would you handle restoring this system? I have over 100 GB of data I would like to ghost over.

 

[MustangSVT]

If that was me, I would install the new hdd on my computer, install fresh os. install the old hdd as slave. copy over all the files I need. That's probably the fastest.

Is the warrnty over for the maxtor?

 

[Conky]

Heck, I would install the O/S on the new drive, copy the entire questionable drive to the new drive in it's own folder, and then prep the old drive for RMA.

 

[vedavox]

happened to me last month. first western digital drive thats ever failed on me, too. at least they were VERY quick with the RMA

 

[Leper Messiah]

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
Heck, I would install the O/S on the new drive, copy the entire questionable drive to the new drive in it's own folder, and then prep the old drive for RMA.

and OP, you're lucky you caught it early enough to get your crap off it. The last time I had a HDD start the death rattle, it was totally inaccessable.

 

[conehead433]

If you are able to run ScanDisk and check for bad sectors. Probably all that's wrong with it. If you can't do it successfully you could always try the old freezer trick. Take the hard drive out, put it in an airtight ziplock and put it in the freezer. Take it out after it's at freezing temps, hook it up and then run ScanDisk. I was able to save a drive that I though was a goner using this method. Good luck.

 

[her209]

My Deathstars gave me no warning... no warning.

 

[BigJ]

I guess it's a "dud", huh?

 

[meltdown75]

i have a WD 60gb that's been clicking for months and works.

it's in a non-important build. don't try to be lucky. back up & replace immediately.

 

[dud]

BigJ said "I guess it was a "dud", huh?"

Touche'. You got me. Good one ...

The Maxtor is prob out of warranty but I will check later.

 

[Lonyo]

My Maxtor has been slowly dying for the last week, but I'm still using it.
Goes click click when under heavy use, sometimes slowly crashes the system, few programs at a time until I reboot.
Luckily it's a non-essential storage drives for files before they are moved to their proper places.

 

[bmacd]

i just lost two 80gig Maxtors and one Quantum Fireball drive. All that info is gone

-=bmacd=-

 

[Evadman]

I have a few times. Now I raid everything. For some reason, I have yet to have a drive fail out of raid. It seems to only happen when it is the only drive

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Didnt' someone post a recording of the click of death? I'm wondering what it sounds like

 

[Shawn]

At least you were able to backup. My 200GB hard drive died last weekend with zero warning. I was copying tons of data to it when I heard a continuous clicking sound, followed by a write error. Couldn't access it after that. I tried the freezer trick but it said the drive was not formatted when I tried to access it. Luckly all the important data that I had on it got moved to my new 300GB WD a few weeks ago. However I still lost a lot of recorded TV shows that I never got to watch. No big deal though, thankfully.

 

[Xyclone]

I would do what the other posters said (copy the info to the new drive ASAP).

 

[SparkyJJO]

couple years ago I didn't even get to hear the "click-click" - just turned the comp on one day and it just died right there, no warnings. Worked fine the day before. Stupid WD, had more than one of those things go on me, I don't buy them anymore

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Freezer trick has saved 4 out of my 5 HDDs.

Granted they didn't all live past the following week, but most did.

 

[scottish144]

Install OS/transfer Data to the new HD, then run the old one through scandisk. If that doesn't fix it, reformat and slave it. Also, get an external HD so this does't happen again. Syncback is a nice free backup utility.