Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 32
  1. #1
    Wiseguy Staff Moderator
    My location

    Teho's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Norway
    Posts
    1,322
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0

    What is it with me and harddisks?

    Well I have got to wonder. These things just keep dying on me for whatever reason. Woke up this Tuesday, and after making coffee went to check the news on the PC as per usual. And it was dead. On, but not responding. Probably crashed during the night then I thought, and hit the reset button. Five seconds later I'm staring at the words "Disk read error" in disbelief. Not again!

    "Fortunately" this is a pure system drive, there's not much else on it. So rom-collections, music etc is all on the two other harddisks I got. Still there's some info on the system-drive I'd rather not lose, so cue a couple of evenings of messing about with various recovery methods, without any luck. When finally deciding to do a format and reinstall Windows anyway, it turned out I couldn't even do that. When trying to format it, the progress bar just stayed at 0%. The disk was obviously completely dead. So went out and bought a new harddisk, a 320GB Western Digital. Not needing much space on it since I intend to continue using it the system, it was the smallest I could find. And I had to look in four different places to find someone who had any at all. Seems shops don't stock internal drives anymore for some reason.

    Well I got that in and partitioned, and got Windows installed on it. And once up and running I make another interesting discovery; one of the other two drives isn't showing in the file manager. Looking in the device manager shows that it is there, but it has also crashed! What the hell!? Two drives at once?

    I haven't begun trying to recover that one yet, so don't know how bad it is with that one. It isn't even that old, it's the one I bought new last time a HD died on me. Most of the content on it isn't very important fortunately. It holds all of my music, 99% of which exist on an external drive as well. Only the original Amiga music files aren't on there. It also holds my downloaded movies and TV-shows, but fortunately I backed up most of that recently when I was running out of space on the disk. So there wasn't a lot in that folder, only a couple of shows I hadn't watched yet.

    The most important bit is that it also holds the torrent folder. Most of the downloaded material isn't important, but there's the stuff I was seeding myself. The worst being one I uploaded to Bitgamer only last week. Only one guy was able to grab the whole thing, and he isn't seeding it back. There are other people with partial downloads who'll never get all of it unless I can recover the files from that HD. But according to previous experiences with crashed HDs, I don't have much hope for it. Does anyone know of any decent HD recovery software? Does that boot CD in the sticky have any for example?

    Why do these HDs keep dying on me? It's not like it's the system, it's been happening with all three PCs I've owned. This is the fourth time that it's happened to me, and two drives at once this time? Someone down there has it in for me, I swear!

  2. #2
    Amiga PT user VIP
    My location

    Tiago's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Estoril/Lisbon
    Posts
    2,419
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    Strange, if they were all in the same PC, i would say you had a PSU problem... but in different computers.... are you using the computers near any magnetic field? or a big sound speaker? or anything else? HD use very small metalic pieces, that could be damage by magnetic fields or something like that.
    A500 - A600 - A1200

  3. #3
    RetroSteve! My location

    Stephen Coates's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Rotherham
    Posts
    2,187
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    What did you call the latest two drives?

  4. #4
    I am Legion for we are many. Staff Member
    My location

    Buleste's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Staffordshire Moorlands
    Posts
    4,079
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0
    Dead and deader?
    A1200 Power Tower
    OS 3.9 / CGX4 / OS4.0
    Blizzard 210Mhz (overclocked to 266Mhz) 603e PPC with 25Mhz 040 (Overclocked to 33Mhz) 256Mb RAM
    ZIV
    CV64/3D
    3.2Gb HDD + 20GB HDD

  5. #5
    The Darth Popsicle! VIP
    Bug Champion Sharingan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Olanda!
    Posts
    1,083
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    If this has been happening to you in three different PCs, each with different PSUs, I would guess it may be a problem with voltage spikes. Do you have a surge protector?

  6. #6
    I am Legion for we are many. Staff Member
    My location

    Buleste's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Staffordshire Moorlands
    Posts
    4,079
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0
    Hari and Kiri?
    All the names under the sun when they bust?
    I could carry on if you want...... No? O.k. i'll be quiet now.
    A1200 Power Tower
    OS 3.9 / CGX4 / OS4.0
    Blizzard 210Mhz (overclocked to 266Mhz) 603e PPC with 25Mhz 040 (Overclocked to 33Mhz) 256Mb RAM
    ZIV
    CV64/3D
    3.2Gb HDD + 20GB HDD

  7. #7
    The Darth Popsicle! VIP
    Bug Champion Sharingan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Olanda!
    Posts
    1,083
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0
    You are a mean man.



    Seppu & Ku?

  8. #8
    I am Legion for we are many. Staff Member
    My location

    Buleste's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Staffordshire Moorlands
    Posts
    4,079
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0
    I prefer cruel rather than mean. It allows for a better evil laugh. MMMMMWWWWWAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA.
    A1200 Power Tower
    OS 3.9 / CGX4 / OS4.0
    Blizzard 210Mhz (overclocked to 266Mhz) 603e PPC with 25Mhz 040 (Overclocked to 33Mhz) 256Mb RAM
    ZIV
    CV64/3D
    3.2Gb HDD + 20GB HDD

  9. #9
    Deadly VIP
    TiredOfLife's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    1,067
    Downloads
    0
    Uploads
    0

    Talking

    I'd move house mate.
    And before anyone says, no I don't think that is a bit extreme.

    Your house is just something to keep the rain of your toys.
    Sam440EP & AOS4.1, 250 gig SATA HD & DVD Rewriter.

    Towered A1200 3.1 rom, OS3.9 and OS4.0
    PPC 166 mhz 060 50mhz, 192 meg.
    Buffered Interface, 40 & 80 gig HDs, CD & DVD Rewriters.
    Mediator 1200TX, Voodoo 5500, Radeon ATI 9200, Audio, USB, Ethernet, TV/FM.
    Card reader and 19" TFT Monitor.

  10. #10
    Wiseguy Staff Moderator
    My location

    Teho's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Norway
    Posts
    1,322
    Downloads
    1
    Uploads
    0
    What Steve is referring to with the names is my maybe somewhat peculiar HD naming convention. The three drives are called Alzheimer, Parkinson and Downs. Alzheimer was the system drive, and Parkinson is the other one that's crashed.

    It reflects what I thought of PCs back when I finally made the switch from Amigas. First PC I got had only one drive as they normally do, and I almost immediately named it Alzheimer. I've kept naming them similarily over the years allthough my feelings towards PCs has warmed somewhat.

    I've actually been wanting to reformat the system drive a while anyway, as I wanted to partition it in two and install Linux on the other. I was going to name that partition Einstein.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharingan
    If this has been happening to you in three different PCs, each with different PSUs, I would guess it may be a problem with voltage spikes. Do you have a surge protector?
    No I don't. It shouldn't strictly be necessary here, our power grids hold a fairly high standard. High spikes like that shouldn't be occuring. It may be worth looking into still, so thanks for the suggestion.

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Copyright classicamiga.com