Dead Hard Drive - Western Digital...Help!!

horrocks

horrocks

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,536
Name
Toby
Edit My Images
No
My not one year old remote hard drive seems to have dropped dead. I have no backup (this was it) and it has all my photos, documents and business stuff on it - in fact, I cleared down my entire PC hard drive onto this thing about 6 months ago, with documents and photos going back to 2003! Is there any chance that I will ever be able to retrieve it?

It is a Western Digital, huge. I think it was 700GB, if that is possible.
 
Possibly.

A lot of external hard drive failures is not due to failure of the hard drive itself, but due to failure of the USB to SATA/PATA interface boards. It may be possible to open up the drive, remove hard drive and either plug into a hard drive enclosure or even directly into a PC and see if it works.
 
horrocks said:
My not one year old remote hard drive seems to have dropped dead. I have no backup (this was it) and it has all my photos, documents and business stuff on it - in fact, I cleared down my entire PC hard drive onto this thing about 6 months ago, with documents and photos going back to 2003! Is there any chance that I will ever be able to retrieve it?

It is a Western Digital, huge. I think it was 700GB, if that is possible.
Click to expand...

If it is dead you can send it off to a specialist data recovery company. They can open it up/replace boards and see if they can copy the data for you .

Not cheap though.

A tough lesson learnt I'm afraid.

Back up and have a copy of the back up too.
 
I've had 2 WD external hard drive go faulty lately and it appears to be the power supply that has been faulty as when I have removed the drives and connected them up they are both working OK.


Cheers
Ian
 
I had a WD external drive fail. It was as suggested above, the caddy it was in.

Just butcher it apart and then try your drive in the PC or another caddy.
 
This is madness. The whole idea of these things is surely that they ARE your backup. Backing up the backup starts to get expensive. This one cost £70 odd.

I have a computer somewhere that dates back to 1995 and it works perfectly well. Nothing is broken in it. Why are these extrenal drives apparently so delicate?

Sounding off - this is really worrying. Thanks for you kind replys though.
 
never ever have 1 copy of your data..

hard drives are mechanical, they can and do fail without warning. in this case it might be the enclosure but like any mass produced electronics produced theyre cheaply produced and not made to last long as they get replaced every 6 months (from a manufacturing point of view) anyway.
 
horrocks said:
This is madness. The whole idea of these things is surely that they ARE your backup. Backing up the backup starts to get expensive. This one cost £70 odd.
Click to expand...


It's only the backup if you've kept the original stuff on your PC.

Also electrical components are going to fail at some point, just some a hell of a lot sooner than expected!
 
horrocks said:
This is madness. The whole idea of these things is surely that they ARE your backup. Backing up the backup starts to get expensive. This one cost £70 odd.

I have a computer somewhere that dates back to 1995 and it works perfectly well. Nothing is broken in it. Why are these extrenal drives apparently so delicate?

Sounding off - this is really worrying. Thanks for you kind replys though.
Click to expand...

The idea is to copy the data from your pc hard drive but leave the files in place.

My external backup died but as the files were on my pc still I lost nothing.

My seagate software adds new files whenever they are added to the pc...
 
Not really madness it is still an electrical component and will fail at some point. just depends how critical your data isI suppose.

When I come back from a shoot no matter the time, Cards are downloaded onto PC immediately. If Late at night then I go to bed but I already have 2 copies of images.

~Next day or after first copy files further copied to external Drive for back up and DVD burnt of all images for storage.

DVD disks by the way can also fail after a time period. Mine are re copied every 2 years.
 
if thats the only thing thats got all your data on it it's not a backup!

it's always best to keep at least 2 copies of your data live, i.e one on your main machine and one on an external device as a backup that way you havn't got a single point of failure

hope it's just a psu or similar though ,data recovery can be very very expensive

Chris
 
Backing up the backup starts to get expensive
Click to expand...

Depends on the value of files photos etc. Camera equipment is not cheap but none of it is any good if you lose all your pics.
 
Sorry to hear about your dilemma.

I got an old server of ebay, its got 12 hard drives in, I set it up on RAID 5 and backed up all my stuff on to it, if any of the drives go down I can replace a drive (even with it switched on) and the other discs with rebuild the data so nothing gets lost and it only set me back £70.This might be worth a look for you. The other option (which I also have) is to set up mirrored drives (RAID 1) on your PC (if your motherboard supports it), I have two 500gig drives so as soon as I put any data on my pc it goes straight on to two discs so if one goes down I still have the other and as soon as I add a new drive the other drive then makes a mirror of its self and I am back two copies of everything again. I looked at external Hard drive but was put off by the failures however you can now get mirrored external drives, this also may be worth a look at. Hope you get it sorted.
 
Thanks guys. I haven't the foggiest what RAID 1 or 5 is, but I get the general loop - I was running a big risk using only one place to store everything. I just bought this thing trusting that it would be as reliable as my computers have been over the years, and it certainly looks and feels sturdy - though there was a little voice at the back of my mind saying 'don't leave it till it gets too old...' Trouble is, less than 1 year doesn't seem old at all to me.
 
Can you be more specific about it not working?

What is it doing or not?

Are any lights coming one?

Does it make any sounds, can Windows see it?

Have you tried it on another computer?

Have you added anything new to your PC recently hardware wise?

John.
 
horrocks said:
Thanks guys. I haven't the foggiest what RAID 1 or 5 is, but I get the general loop - I was running a big risk using only one place to store everything. I just bought this thing trusting that it would be as reliable as my computers have been over the years, and it certainly looks and feels sturdy - though there was a little voice at the back of my mind saying 'don't leave it till it gets too old...' Trouble is, less than 1 year doesn't seem old at all to me.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately hard drives do tend to fail every few years. I use my hard drive as back up, but also have DVD's stored away as back ups of the hard drive with everything on them, just because it's not worth the chance of losing all the data.

Best thing as above, to send away to the specialist companies.

Oh, also, people say its stupid to back up your back ups... But hard drives are convenient. Really, if you're backing up, you should use DVDs/CDs which will last a good amount longer. The only annoying thing about them is, you'll have such a big pile of them to go through. Hard drives are convenient to store it all at once, with ease of finding what you want. Don't want to back up your back ups? Use DVDs/Cds in the first place.
 
If you can get your data off the drive then take it back for a refund.
 
If the drive spins up then the recovery is cheaper and you possibly even get this public domain. I have some professional recovery software which is rather good but you are a bit far away!
 
RAID is not a form of backup but helps prevent data loss, they run as follows:

RAID 0: Striping - Mainly for speed. Writes Data accross multiple disks.
RAID 1: Mirroring - Duplicates the disks
RAID 3/4: Striping with parity disk. Similar to RAID 0 but with a disk to hold check files
RAID 5: Striping with parity built in so can rebuild from a failed disk

You can mix and match a couple of these so couple mirror and stripe for example...

RAID controllers have been known to fail and scrap data from disks in the array.

If the data is important to you find a decent backup solution, unfortunately most people don't look into a decent backup solution until it's to late and they've been bitten on the backside...

Good luck getting your data back, it's not cheap but there are options open to you.
 
We had an external hard drive fail and, after looking into the cost of specialist data recovery services, took it to a local pc repair place and they managed to recover the data (and in fact the hard drive works fine now, 2 years on).

A
 
If you have to open it up to attempt to get your data off you will invalidate any warranty you have, may be worth checking a data recovery firm about cost.

If you do open it be careful not to damage the casing, check out youtube theres bound to be a video of someone opening one up ( a hairdryer may be useful ). Some failed hard drives can be ressurected temporarily by putting them in the freezer! but you only get about 15 minutes to get your data off. If you do use the freezer make sure the drive is in a sealed bag first - they dont mix with water!!
 
TheNissanMan said:
RAID is not a form of backup
Click to expand...

what he said.

but helps prevent data loss
Click to expand...

to be honest id say more helps with machine uptime and redundancy more than data loss..

RAID controllers have been known to fail and scrap data from disks in the array.
Click to expand...

THIS. even with RAID you SHOULD have a 2nd copy of your data and RAID mirroring does NOT count.

i WILL keep banging this drum until youre all fed up with me lol
 
madmackem said:
If you have to open it up to attempt to get your data off you will invalidate any warranty you have, may be worth checking a data recovery firm about cost.

If you do open it be careful not to damage the casing, check out youtube theres bound to be a video of someone opening one up ( a hairdryer may be useful ). Some failed hard drives can be ressurected temporarily by putting them in the freezer! but you only get about 15 minutes to get your data off. If you do use the freezer make sure the drive is in a sealed bag first - they dont mix with water!!
Click to expand...

the freezer trick is usually for stuck read heads and even then does not always work.

if you send it away for data recovery theyll probably open the enclosure anyway voiding any warranty. plus theyll charge you for the pleasure so you may as well strip the drive out yourself and mount it into a computer for access. 9 times out of 10 thatll work with a failed external drive.
 
Hard drives have two states. Failed and about to fail.

If you're semi hardware literate I would suggest opening the external hard drive (carefully), and plugging it into your PC directly as a 2nd drive, or getting a hard drive enclosure form a local computer shop.

I had a small portable Lacie drive which failed. Got this replaced under warrenty, and within a few months the 2nd had failed. Got an ICYBOX enclosure and its been fine ever since - it was the controller interface which is usually the cheapest part of the system.
 
Take it to you local computer shop (specialist not chain) and see if they can help.

There is one near me which recovered all my stuff when i had a hard drive failure - cost about £40 at the time !
 
Regardless of the fact that you had no backup............

.........you are quite right in implying..........

...................that external drives are as much good as a chocolate fireguard!
 
JohnD76 said:
Can you be more specific about it not working?

What is it doing or not?

Are any lights coming on?

Does it make any sounds, can Windows see it?

Have you tried it on another computer?

Have you added anything new to your PC recently hardware wise?

John.
Click to expand...

See above and respond to the questions before you start taking things apart or sending the drive off to Ontrack.
 
JohnD76 said:
See above and respond to the questions before you start taking things apart or sending the drive off to Ontrack.
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't look in yesterday.

No lights.
No Sounds.
Windows can't see it.
Haven't tried it elsewhere on another PC.
Haven't added anything to my PC.
I have taken the facia of, (reluctantly) because the mounting for the sockets had lost a screw very early on, and whenever I tried to plug in the USB and power supply the sockets ran into the casing. I don't think this was directly connected to the failure - it was permanently connected to my PC, and simply wasn't working one morning.

Thanks so much again everybody for this response. I am very grateful.
 
horrocks said:
Sorry, didn't look in yesterday.

No lights.
No Sounds.
Windows can't see it.
Haven't tried it elsewhere on another PC.
Haven't added anything to my PC.
I have taken the facia of, (reluctantly) because the mounting for the sockets had lost a screw very early on, and whenever I tried to plug in the USB and power supply the sockets ran into the casing. I don't think this was directly connected to the failure - it was permanently connected to my PC, and simply wasn't working one morning.

Thanks so much again everybody for this response. I am very grateful.
Click to expand...

With the above info in your last post I think it's time to start again with this.

No lights/no sound = Power supply failure, most likely.

Does the drive have an external power adapter, is it hot? does it have a light on it (not all do but a few do).

Try the REALLY SIMPLE THINGS FIRST, it may be a blown fuse in the plug ;)

I would be pretty confident that your data is safe on the drive.
Once you've sorted this we'll be able to advise on a backup routine.
 
If its any consolation, (however you spell it) I find its best to keep a copy on your systems HDD, and an External device, 700mb is not too much, you can get 1.5/2.0TB Drives now.

Last week I went to Currys Digital they have 320GB Hard Drives @ £39.99 I would sudgest you get one as a backup..
 
Ahem: 700GB.

What's a millibit anyway? ;)
 
neil_g said:
what he said.



to be honest id say more helps with machine uptime and redundancy more than data loss..



THIS. even with RAID you SHOULD have a 2nd copy of your data and RAID mirroring does NOT count.

i WILL keep banging this drum until youre all fed up with me lol
Click to expand...

I agree.....but better than naff all!!!
 
I've just had the pleasure of my first HD failure - WD 320Gb external unit that was about 3yrs old. Lost some data but fortunately it was expendable and I'd got most of it backed up elseware.

Blame myself partially as the drive had been noisey for ages, to the point where I'd got into the habit of giving it a sharp tap to stop it resonating (I know, not clever).

Think the read heads are knackered as I get the famous clicking as it tries to seek.. will try the freezer trick when I have a replacement as I've got nowt to lose.

Sounds like you might have got away with a power failure with this one, though.


I've lost faith in external drives tbh - I don't think the cheaper WD units have any built in cooling which can't be good, and given the lack of information on the drives they house I suspect they're lower end examples.

For what it's worth I'm now aiming to replace the lot with a series of bare drives - two internal and two used externally with a drive dock for backup. I see this approach has several advantages over external units; it's easier to upgrade drives, easier to get around interface / controller malfunctions, and the drives should stay cooler too :cool:

2Tb internal drives are now pretty competitively priced (comparable and sometimes cheaper per gig than smaller drives) so worth a look ;)
 
Arrrrggghhhhh! I know your pain - I've been there a number of times with Western Digital external hard drives. On both occasions, it was the drives themselves that died. I don't know whether there's an issue with the drives that they use in the external enclosures but both did the same thing - a weird repeating 'click, click, wirrrr' sound. On one particular occasion, I lost three months worth of photos including some that I would never be able to reshoot. I was not a happy bunny.

Having had two Western Digital drives go down, I'd never buy them again - I now avoid WD external drives like the plague. After that, I bought two Seagate drives and used some drive mirroring software to make a mirror copy of one to the other on a regular basis. As others have said, never have just *one* copy of your data regardless of how reliable you think your drives are. Even now, I use a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with two Seagate 500GB drives configured for RAID1 (mirrored) and I *still* backup the ReadyNAS to an external HD regularly. Paranoid? Nah - just been burnt too many times by hard drives failing for no reason.

More info on the ReadyNAS Duo here...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Netgear-Rea...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1271072464&sr=8-1
 
A quick note to thank everybody who so kindly and in such detail responded to this thread. I took the external drive into a local specialist yesterday, he removed the drive from the caddy and quickly confirmed that it and all the files were fine. The electrics in the caddy had shorted out. I bought a new caddy, he popped the drive in and I was back on my feet. He was charming, helpful and efficient - DBS Computer Services of Harlow, should anybody in my area need help.

I will now study the responses to this thread in detail to prevent any future accidents. My thanks again to all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top