Instant Death of my drive?!

[Clob]

NOO! OMG!

I was sleeping and I was awakend by a CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK that was very loud and very fast!

I instantly determined that it was my drive and kill the power to the PC in hope of saving it!

But WTF! It was Realy hot! This should not be... It was nearly to the point of burning my hand! Holy crap!

The drive was outside of my case and had plenty of fresh air! It was on a hard surface (no carpet) and it never moved or anything...

What could cause this Instand Death of my drive?!?

 

[sailer]

Its possible that by being on a hard surface, the side against the surface didn't have any air exposed, so that side overheated. Then the heat started to freeze the bearings and the disc began grabbing and trying to spin again. Thus the Click, Click, Click. Other than that, it might just have been the bearings going bad, with the same clicking sound. Maybe your disc will survive and be usefull, but it may have just been turned into a paperweight. Depends on how messed up the bearings are.

To help prevent such in the future, always keep the disc suspended so that no side is against a solid surface. That way air can circulate around it freely.

 

[blue68f100]

I have seen that before. I was able to replace the controller card and get the drive backup. Then run spinrite to check/repair any problems with the drive media.

 

[Clob]

NOOOO! 4 gigs of my music gone! NOOOOOO!!!!!

I will hook it up later to find out...

 

[maury73]

Sailer is right: NEVER run an hdu on a plain surface unless it is a large metal plate. Always keep the drive suspended at leat 3cm to allow airflow.

If you are lucky and the bearings aren't damaged you can attempt a recovery after some hours (unit's internal mechanics take much time to get cooled) eventually replacing the controller PCB if it doesn't work (spindle motor mosfets can be damaged due to overheating).

 

[FatFunkey]

dude i know your pain get this

i turn on my computer ....i see a flash and smoke..i shit my pants im like oh god no what blew up T_T

so i check everything turn it on....everythings fine..ok running yep, but i see 1 of my HDD isnt reading so i take it out....the thing blew up, 1 of the chips was toasted, luckly it was a 10gig back up HDD but it had all my music T_T

 

[ET]

Just for kicks, Make, Model or size and how old was it? How long did you have it on a hard surface?

Even though I agree that it is always better to have it mounted in a case, many of us using test benches do it everyday loading OS and programs on a HDD out of the case and never have a problem. Could it just be an age issue perhaps?

 

[Codesmith]

Most likely such heat was the result of the failure not the cause of it.

Drives have moving parts which wear out.

They do seem to last longer with adequate ventilation, but simply running the drive on a flat insulating surface wouldn't cause it to overheat and die.

 

[1Tanker]

I thought you usually get the clicking, when it's a head crash?

 

[Clob]

I am 90% sure its a head crash!! I can hear it squeaking when I shake the drive! I am willing to bet that one of the barrings starting to fail and got realy hot and damaged something... When I plug in the drive the head thrashes violently! Everything else seems to be Ok when I shake then drive... No other klanking near the platters..

The electronics where face down (sticker up) On the Maxtor drive and I have had many many drives sitting like that and never before have become warm, much less HOT! So I am 90% sure its a mechanical failure that caused the demise. It was sudden enough to never show any wear or any symptoms beforehand. Not noises before this...

No burnes on the electronics either...

Bummer that all my data is gone... This was my backup drive! The one I assumed was more reliable that my 5 yearold 40 gig! ROFL!

 

[Codesmith]

Rather than riot at WD, Hitachi and Seagate it might be easier just to form a Fight Club-esque cult which randomly bursts into people houses and holds guns up to their hard drives, telling them that either they implement and carry out a sound backup strategy or their bissness docs and precious baby photo's are gone forever.

EMC Retrospect Pro is $90, a DVD+RW is less than $40 and Discs are about $.23. Most people realy only have a few GB of irreplaceable bissness documets and photographs.

Granted my probably couldn't install and configure backup software if I didn't handle it for her remotely, but people like her can always buy an external hard drive with one touch backup.

--
WARNNING BACKUP RANT CONTINUES FAR PAST THE POINT AT WHICH A SANE PERSON WOULD STOP TYPING AND DRINK A BEER
---

Right now I have a neighbor running a bussiness with irreplacalbe, mission critial documents on a 7 year old hard drive with zero backups (not even paper printouts) despite the fact that two months ago two different hard drive utilities showed that his drive was failing and recommended immediate replacement. HDTach shows the tranfer rate repeatedly dropping from 40 MBps to 4MBps over failing area's of the drive.

I showed him the graphs, screenshots from the drive tests even plugged in a dead hard drive so that he can hear the clicking noise his drive is soon going to make, told him how expensive lab recovery is once a drive makes the click of death. I even emailed him him a link to a cheap drive with a 5 year warranty at www.newegg.com along with an offer to move his OS to the new drive for just $10.

And I know at least three people who keep thier only copy of their family photos on thier PC and a fourth who now hates digital camera's because he lost 4 years of vacation photos by reinstalling Windows. One of the three cried when she though she deleted the last photo's of her now dead mother and still would not bother to burn them to CD after I did a hard drive search and found she only forgot what folder she saved them to.

Then again I know people who drive a car with the engine light on for four months then are supprised when their engine dies.

 

[1Tanker]

Rather than riot at WD, Hitachi and Seagate it might be easier just to form a Fight Club-esque cult which randomly bursts into people houses and holds guns up to their hard drives, telling them that either they implement and carry out a sound backup strategy or their bissness docs and precious baby photo's are gone forever.

EMC Retrospect Pro is $90, a DVD+RW is less than $40 and Discs are about $.23. Most people realy only have a few GB of irreplaceable bissness documets and photographs.

Granted my probably couldn't install and configure backup software if I didn't handle it for her remotely, but people like her can always buy an external hard drive with one touch backup.

--
WARNNING BACKUP RANT CONTINUES FAR PAST THE POINT AT WHICH A SANE PERSON WOULD STOP TYPING AND DRINK A BEER
---

Right now I have a neighbor running a bussiness with irreplacalbe, mission critial documents on a 7 year old hard drive with zero backups (not even paper printouts) despite the fact that two months ago two different hard drive utilities showed that his drive was failing and recommended immediate replacement. HDTach shows the tranfer rate repeatedly dropping from 40 MBps to 4MBps over failing area's of the drive.

I showed him the graphs, screenshots from the drive tests even plugged in a dead hard drive so that he can hear the clicking noise his drive is soon going to make, told him how expensive lab recovery is once a drive makes the click of death. I even emailed him him a link to a cheap drive with a 5 year warranty at www.newegg.com along with an offer to move his OS to the new drive for just $10.

And I know at least three people who keep thier only copy of their family photos on thier PC and a fourth who now hates digital camera's because he lost 4 years of vacation photos by reinstalling Windows. One of the three cried when she though she deleted the last photo's of her now dead mother and still would not bother to burn them to CD after I did a hard drive search and found she only forgot what folder she saved them to.

Then again I know people who drive a car with the engine light on for four months then are supprised when their engine dies.

Yes.......Some people just have to learn the hard way. :?

 

[Codesmith]

Hmm I just realized that fitness experts probably see me and thinks doesn't he know his extra pound are going to put him in an early grave.

Guess my heart is probably more important than the data on my hard drive.

I am going to walk 2.2 miles to the library now before some crazed fitness gang puts a gun to my head and tells me to lose weight or die.

Hopefully on the way I will manage to avoid the fashion police, I imagine they also have an ultimatium of their own to issue.

 

[1Tanker]

Hmm I just realized that fitness experts probably see me and thinks doesn't he know his extra pound are going to put him in an early grave.

Guess my heart is probably more important than the data on my hard drive.

I am going to walk 2.2 miles to the library now before some crazed fitness gang puts a gun to my head and tells me to lose weight or die.

Hopefully on the way I will manage to avoid the fashion police, I imagine they also have an ultimatium of their own to issue.

I've always belonged to the "some have to learn the hard way" group.

Even at 41, i still like to do things MY WAY. My Molson muscle is proof,

just as you said.


P.S. I wish they had pills for procrastinators, for things Other than health.

ie: my lack of fitness has me taking blood-pressure pills, pills for Acid

Reflux, Nerve Pills, and is probably the cause of my Sciatica that has had

me off work and on Pain pills for over 3 years. If only they

had a pill to prevent HD failure.