Huh?!?!?!?

[Boerseun]

So, I've got this external 320Gb hard drive. All sweet and stuff. No problems. Until a few days ago.

 

I plug the drive in, and it runs sweet on my lappie, as well as on my desktop when I'm at home. I get to my client's office, and while I'm doin' my thang, I listen to some vibes over headphones.

 

Then, after about an hour of this, the thing just stalls.

 

Sounds bad? Wait for it...

 

I started getting errors (after the stall) saying things like "Failed to write to F:$MFT" and blah blah blah. So, I thought, the Master Boot Record went for a ball of crap on the hard drive. Which means I have to format the drive. There's no serious stuff on the drive - I've got it all backed-up at home, so its not a train smash. Mostly movies and music. No company stuff. So, no probs - format the drive, reload. End of story. So, I did. And it worked. Once again, for an hour. Then, same story.

 

So, I thought I'd just hack a few things in the registry, based on some good info I got from a few good quality sites. Which I did, after backing up the registry, of course. I thought maybe there might simply be too much files on

the drive, which will create too many entries in the file record which will clog up RAM. So, I increased the size in the memory allocated to file entries.

 

That didn't help neither, of course. So, in order to free up the memory after my previous changes, I restarted in Safe Mode and went to system restore. Only to find that the restore point and all prior restore points have been deleted. They are no more. They are ex-restore points. There is something seriously wrong with my machine, and no anti-virus software is picking up anything. I have now loaded and scanned with Norton (and scanned with the latest virus definitions), as well as F-Secure and BitDefender. Nothing picks up anything, but my machines are acting very weird. I mean, if the Master File Table crashed, why would the disk run at all? It keeps running for about an hour, and then quit. And it's not temperature - I've checked. So, what to do? Who's an NTFS boff here? Or should I just chuck it and go Apple? I'd love to do the Linux bit (and have threatened to do so in these forums before) but Linux simply doesn't support the software thats critical to my business. I am now seriously worried that there might be some nasty worm or something out there that hasn't been picked up by the AntiVirus vendors yet...

[alexander]

not necessarily, B. It could be hardware, pretty easily too. To me it's sounding like the drive itself is crapping out on you. You could do a surface scan of the drive, actually before that, i would boot into windows (well i wouldn't, but i suggest you do :) ) hit Start>Run>cmd and then do chkdsk -RF (drive letter, but it ain't a bad idea to check all of them anyways) then reboot and have it check that drive, methinks you will find some corrupted sectors on that drive. If that does not reveal it's secrets, then you may want to download the UBCD (Ultimate Boot Compact Disc), and go through most of the harware options, from there, you will also be able to virus scan your box, without the possibility of the virus corrupting the AV agent, but i seriously think it's hardware.

 

And by god (just using the saying here), if you have the means of going Mac, GO MAC!!!! Seriously, when was the last time you surfed the web without being worried that you can get a virus by just clicking something, or get some sort of spyware or something? Linux is a great platform, but for your home stuff, generally unless you are in IT, Linux is not the platform to run your apps, generally anyhow. And if there are 2-3 applications that are keeping you from going mac, then dammit, for 80 bucks you get VMware Fusion, and then you run your windows apps in a windows vm, but transparently (ja don't see da desktop) and with full hardware support (and you can choose your resource allocation).

[C1ay]

but Linux simply doesn't support the software thats critical to my business.

 

What software is that? Unix supports most business critical needs. If Linux can't fill the need then FreeBSD might be an option.

[alexander]

unless they are binaries, 99% of programs that compiles on bsd, will compile on linux.

 

nix is nix...

[LaurieAG]

Then, after about an hour of this, the thing just stalls.

 

Hi Boerseun,

 

You could have a hot hard drive problem.

 

I had an 80GB HDD that started playing up so seriously that I eventually put it aside because it took so long to set up after it lost the plot. After 6 months it would start up OK but die again after any period of use (one to two hours).

 

I eventually (recently) loaded a HDD monitoring program onto my PC and that started giving me repeated warnings about the temperatures of several of my hard drives.

 

HDDlife - freeware real-time hard-drive monitoring utility with alerts, malfunction protection and data loss prevention functions. This hard-drive inspector is a proactive hard drive failure detection system that controls 100% of hard-drive risks.

 

Down the bottom of the page is a free version.

[Boerseun]

Turns out it was a hard-drive failure. According to the nerd at the computer store, that is.

 

But instead of swopping the drive, he has to send it to the manufacturer for repair. Which makes me think, how the heck do you repair a drive? You can only change the little motherboard thingy on the back, you can't open the thing and change the platters, if it's a physical error? Those things are vacuum sealed an' stuff?

 

So I reckon he's gonna send it off and they're going to simply swop it at the suppliers with a new disk, and slap a sticker on it saying "Repaired".

 

And simply to have me carry on with my old warranty (1 year, of which about 6 months is left) instead of having a full 1 year warranty on a swopped drive.

 

Idiots.

 

I should have it by next week sometime.

 

But I think a valuable lesson have been learnt here:

 

Backup, backup and then some more backup. Which means I'm a-gonna have to buy another 320Gb drive solely as a backup to my repaired 320Gb.

 

...as well as another 160Gb for my internal 160Gb, and yet another 500Gb for my other internal 500Gb... damn. I'm gonna get a whole new pc just to back up my existing one. And my laptop. And I should get a backup refridgerator in case my fridge blows.

 

But by the by - the previous post mentioned monitoring temperature in the hard drives? How the heck does that work? I know you get fancy software for lots of cool things, but in order to measure temperature, you're gonna need a thermometer somewhere? Some kind of resistor that's dedicated to measuring temperature and nothing else, like the little thingies on your processor that you can pick up under System Health in your BIOS? Do hard drives ship with these things? :shrug:

[freeztar]

I know you get fancy software for lots of cool things, but in order to measure temperature, you're gonna need a thermometer somewhere? Some kind of resistor that's dedicated to measuring temperature and nothing else, like the little thingies on your processor that you can pick up under System Health in your BIOS? Do hard drives ship with these things? :confused:

 

Modern disks include temperature sensors and adjust their operation to the operating environment.

Hard disk drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It seems legit. :shrug:

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Modern disks include temperature sensors and adjust their operation to the operating environment.

 

But by the by - the previous post mentioned monitoring temperature in the hard drives? How the heck does that work?

And lets not forget the relationship between electrical resistance in a circuit and heat...Just ask the frigging computer in my rig...GD blankity blankin PoC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One lousy overheated (aparently it was stuck closed and desparetly wanted to be open as best I can figure) emmissions solinoid

and the whole friggin truck dies (In rush hour traffic no less!). At least that's what the computer is saying to my pc.

 

"To er is human, to really F things up requires a computer!"

[LaurieAG]

Hi Boerseun,

 

And simply to have me carry on with my old warranty (1 year, of which about 6 months is left) instead of having a full 1 year warranty on a swopped drive.

 

Bingo, that's exactly when my 80GB HDD failed. I put it aside and tested it a year later and everything worked... for a little while anyway.

 

But by the by - the previous post mentioned monitoring temperature in the hard drives? How the heck does that work? I know you get fancy software for lots of cool things, but in order to measure temperature, you're gonna need a thermometer somewhere? Some kind of resistor that's dedicated to measuring temperature and nothing else, like the little thingies on your processor that you can pick up under System Health in your BIOS? Do hard drives ship with these things?

 

Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) has been an integral part of most HDD's for a while now.

 

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The article also gives good info about HDD failures.