Resolved Drives Dying Left and Right

Hi all,

This past week I've had three good, relatively new, hard drives fail.

It all started when I unplugged the W7 drive (NOTE: I always turn off the PSU and unplug it). I plugged in one of my regular drives and it wouldn't boot.

So I reconnected the W7 drive and it wouldn't boot either. Then I hooked up another drive and it booted OK. Tried again with the two non-boots: Same results "” no boot.

Then I tried to connect the drives as Slave to the working drive and it still wouldn't boot. In the BIOS it said I didn't have any drives.

I though my "new" PSU might be acting up, so I replaced it with a new PSU. No difference.

Then I connected one of the bad drives and tried to boot to the XP CD and try a repair. Well, I couldn't; it just hung. The CD drive is working and the XP CD is OK (I did an install on an extra blank drive to test).

As it stands now: One drive spins up but does nothing; One drive spins up but "clicks" every few seconds; One drive does nothing.

I'd like to get the info off one of the drives (not W7), but when it's hooked up as slave, the system won't boot at all.

I have a USB HD enclosure and was wondering if I booted to the good drive and then plugged in the USB drive if that would crash the system or whether I'd be able to access it through Explorer and copy the stuff I want off it? I do not want to mung my good drive.

Any ideas as to why so many good drives would die in such short order?

 

Check the cable at the motherboard end, disconnect and reseat it. Use another cable if you can. They sound like ATA HDDs, are you using an 80 lead cable as opposed to a 40 lead one?

It might be how the drives were partitioned. If they were partitioned as extended/logical drives, you may not be able to see them when they are not in the correct position/location.

Look for any drive identification menu/selection in the BIOS. Set the BIOS to "defaults" (Save and Exit). If you are stuck, look at doing a BIOS upgrade (via a boot disk).

You can get the drive manufacturer's utilities (I don't know "W7 "), but if it is WD, get their Lifeguard utilities or Maxtor get Maxblast and PowerMax.

Something might be corrupting the MBRs. AH, could a "drive overlay" be installed? I think Maxtor called it EZBIOS, those can wreck MBRs.

The drive not spinning up does not sound good. Clicking...mmmm.

Consider what could possibly be causing them to die (if they have). Are you overworking them by say, not having enough RAM or could they be badly defragmented? Is your antivirus scanning them to death? Could the PSU have been supplying the wrong voltage?

Matt

 

I think you were smart to suspect voltages and try another PSU. Even though that did not pan out, it could still be voltages from a faulty motherboard/IDE controller damaging the drive's electronics board. I would be hesitant to install any more drives in that machine.

Another possibility is heat, or a big coincidence and bad luck - drives do fail.

As for retrieving data, it's not going to happen if the drive does not spin up. The clicking is typically the read/write head/arm assembly banging against the stops and a diagnostics from the maker's list Arie provided might help. Depending on the value of the data, you might consider a data recovery service that specializes in forensic data recovery - but this can be very expensive - into the $1000s.

I would not suspect the wrong cable (40 versus 80) as that would show up a problem from day one with the wrong cable - and the wrong cable would not damage the drive, unless, perhaps, the cable was seriously damaged. Did you try another data cable?

An enclosure may be your best bet, not so much for the potential to recover data, but to isolate the drive from the machine, hopefully preventing further damage.

Then keep it away from that computer! Use a different computer that is working just fine.

 

Hi all,

Sorry for the tardy response, but I've been trying to figure this out. MB, RAM, CPU, Controllers, et al, are working perfectly. I had the old "new" PSU tested and it was perfect in every respect.

@Bill,
I've tried 4 other drives and they bootup fine. I've switched cables (new and old) with each drive and no problems. There are no heat issues because I have 7 fans total (3 on PSU, 3 case fans, 1 on CPU). Also, I'm meticulous in keeping the insides clean.

@mattman,
None of my drives has\had Drive Overlay and they were working fine until they started dying. I've got 1GB RAM so that's not an issue; nor is overworking them. And as far as fragmentation, I defrag once a week (I use DeFraggler), and the MBR's were OK because the drives booted.

@Arie,
I know drives die, but 3 in as many days is very suspicious. And, I have the Diagnostic disks for Max and WD (from your other posts) "” thank you.

I think my only option at this point is to buy a couple of star\torx bits, take the drive apart and finger spin it up from a USB enclosure then get what I need off them.

 

3 dying is suspicious, but we didn't know 4 drives work fine.

That's might help with the drive that does nothing, the other two, probably not. Keep us posted.

 

Hi Bill,

Totally off topic: How did you get "Quinqagenarian" added? I petitioned the Powers That Be to amend mine to "Senior Moments Member" but I got shot down.

And, yes, I'll keep everyone posted as to my progress, or lack thereof.

 

Thanks for pointing that out - I noticed it was spelled wrong - I left out the second 'u'. It must have been QCF, quinquagenarian cranial flatulence.

Anyway, fixed now. It's under Details in your CP - Custom User Title.

 

Oops! Sorry. Thanks for the clarification, Arie.

 

Resolved

Hi all,

Mystery Solved!!! And I'm so I don't want to admit it.

When I take out my hard drives I have a plastic box that I set them on. Well, it turned out there was a s c r e w I had placed on the box that I didn't see.

That's what killed my drives. The s c r e w was where I couldn't see it and when I moved the box a little, the underside of the drive would make contact with the s c r e w and Bingo! I mean, Blammo! Dead drive.

I discovered this just now. With the computer off, I plugged in a cable for a USB drive to try to get the info off any dead drive. I moved the main drive a little and when I turned on my computer, I saw a white flash of light from the underside of the drive and then I smelled burning plastic.

And, that's when I saw the s c r e w.

!!!!!!

So, bottom line: I did it. Through sheer carelessness\stupidity, I burned out my drives.

The other drives I don't care about, but, there's one drive that I really need to get some info from. The drive spins up, but the "arm" keeps going back and forth and clicking.

Is there any workaround for this? Or, am I going to have to disassemble it and put the disk in a working HD? If so, would it make any difference if the disk is from WD and the electronics from Maxtor (or vice versa)?

 

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the info. I don't particularly care about a clean room (except for not touching the platter, of course) because I'll only need it long enough to get the info off.

 

I agree with Pete all the way on this. Platters are not interchangeable - that would be a neat way to go from 100Gb to 1Tb. And the boards must be the same model, same version number, and same firmware version too. Basically, you can swap parts between drives that came off the same assembly line on the same production run of that day, and even then no promises - especially not knowing the extent of the damage.

The alternative is to take it to a data recovery service. Those guys have the clean rooms and special (read: very expensive) equipment needed. Since it is not likely your platters are physically damaged, it should not cost a fortune - but it won't be cheap. You need to decide if the value of the data warrants it.

Now if you just want to do it to see if you can, go for it. But don't get your hopes up.

 

Hi guys,

@Pete,

Will do.

@Bill,

Yep, I just want to see if I can. But, I gotta have a little hope, don't I?

 

Nothing wrong with that.

 

Hi JP, FWIW, why don't you use the underside of a mouse pad to sit your HDD's on when working on them. Definitely no nails in mine. Neil.

 

Hi Neil,

I always use a plastic box (no top or front) with a small foam pad under the drive to isolate and insulate it.

But, as I said, much to my chagrin, I dropped a s c r e w in there and didn't realize it.

p.s. Did you notice you can't use "s c r e w" in this forum?

 

The forum has an automated monitor for unfriendly terms, just happens it is also a hardware term.