Reply With QuoteBack up. Now. :)
My PC was acting a bit strange this morning so I re-booted it and when I did...boom. My PC was no longer recognizing my harddrive. I would hear the drive wind and make a 'clicking' noise but it would fail to mount the drive.
I checked the cables and tried again a few times to no avail so I gave up and went to work. When I came back this evening I tried it again...and lo and behold it works!
I really wonder if all the problems I've had this morning was some sort of a fluke or if its an early sign of a dying system. Should I start backing up my data and look into a replacement soon?...what do you guys think?
Back up. Now. :)
Back up your files, run your HDD manufacturer's disk-testing utility, figure out if you're still under warranty. :-)
Yeah, what the others say. Backup. It is probably dying. There are no flukes with harddrives.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I expected...sigh. I wonder if I should just go out and buy a new system while at it...
Ah well, thanks for the advice guys!
That by itself isn't necessarily a big deal. It could be everything from a loose connection or a faulty cable to a bios hiccup. It could of course also be a dying drive.Originally Posted by Ex-S Woo
It's screwed as everybody else pointed out. Back up immediately, starting with your most important documents, then a full drive image if you want.
Based on experience, I will no longer trust a HDD once it has given me some grief, no matter how minor or short lasting. These days they are giving terabyte HDDs away in cereal boxes, so why not replace it?
Of course, there is always a chance that what happened to you wasn't the HDD's fault but was an issue with the controller on the motherboard or even the PSU, so I'd probably try to figure that out before I went replacing individual parts, but as others here have said I'd backup anything important ASAP.
BTW, when you say clicking noise, do you mean a light unpatterned clicking noise as the drive winds up (normal) or a heavy rhythmic thump-thump that you've never heard from it before (your drive is fucked for sure)?
The latter :(
Back up now. I had a dead hard drive "fix itself" about ten years ago. It died permanently two weeks later. Don't make the same mistake I made.
Don't turn your computer off before backing things up. The hard drive might not spin back up.
You've got to shoot it in the drive head!
Back up even when your drive isn't making funny noises. All drives die, sooner or later, and they usually don't give you any advance notice.
This is normally where I would advocate getting something like a Drobo so the RAID would protect you but I know how that usually turns out. But still ... Drobo!
I don't understand this thread. The answer is so painfully obvious that seeking reassurance from a forum for this specific problem is just... blah, whatever. I'm a poopypants.
Pogo
No, I see where you're coming from. I mean, why wouldn't you just back up the data? What's the downside there?
It's probably very similar to the "another go-see-a-doctor" threads. (Loved the self-awareness on that one!)
And do not turn it off. There's no guarantee it will ever boot again.
EDIT: Woops, already covered. But still imprortant.
It's perfectly fine, keep using it as your primary drive. Put the unfinished draft of your next novel on that drive. Don't back up anywhere. Stop brushing your teeth. It itches, so scratch it already. She'll be 18 in may, it should be OK. Travel to sub-saharan africa and have unprotected sex with prostitutes, then don't tell your wife.
Seriously, why ask a question you already know the answer to?
Be sure to do the backup *before* you run any sort of diagnostic.
RAID is an uptime solution, not a backup solution!
Also I've found an external drive + Acronis cheaper than something like a Drobo. Plus it lets me do differential backups.
Important stuff is bolded. Quaro, that's an awesome S/N ratio you're rocking. Listen to this man, he speaks the truth.
That click is known as the click of death because it kills your hard disk dead.
You could try running SpinRite -- if it's just one bad sector that caused a hiccup, SpinRite can remap it and the drive might work again for months. Happened to me. I'd still keep backups and a replacement drive on hand, though. :)
I'm not sure where I said it was a backup but, yes, I agree, it isn't a backup. But it does prevent situations like a single hard drive going bad from screwing you over.RAID is an uptime solution, not a backup solution!
In theory, yeah. I'm just gunshy because, as I said, a backup solution is more robust and cheaper at the cost of probably losing a day/week worth of work depending on when you did your last backup, and every time I've had a failure in a RAID (enterprise RAID no less), it's been the controller, and would have screwed up everything if we didn't also have backups. So due to my bad luck, I always advocate backups first, RAID later if you have the money to do both, never just RAID with no backups.
[EDIT]Oh, and I always clarify uptime/backup because I made the same mistake when I was starting out with RAID.[/EDIT]
RAID as an alternative to backups: Bad idea.
RAID on your backup device: Great idea.
RAID 5 on your media storage: Bad idea.
<--------- lost everything last year when two drives failed simultaneously.
Just to give an update, I ended up creating an image of my Harddrive using Vista's Complete PC Backup utility , buying a new harddrive at a local shop and restoring the image there.
But still, 1TD Harddrives at under $80! Wow, I had no idea prices had dropped so much.
Now you just need to keep backing up weekly or more frequently. You don't always get a warning.
OK, but you have to admit that you fell victim to one of the worst dice rolls in the history of the universe. I hope you buy lottery tickets!RAID 5 on your media storage: Bad idea.
<--------- lost everything last year when two drives failed simultaneously.
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