A Lesson Learned

tipes

tipes

tipes

Soldato
Joined
5 Nov 2006
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3,133
I may be preaching to the converted here, but would just like to relay a sorry story that has just happened to me - in case it might save others from the pain I have now suffered.

Like a lot of people these days I use an SSD drive for boot/programs etc, and use a mechanical hard drive for data so as not to clog up the SSD. Recently I decided to use one of my spare mechanical drives to try windows 8.1 - drive had been in the cupboard for months, but was working fine. So install the drive, and boot up - dead, motor not spinning up, oh well I thought I will use the other one - same thing happened, just bad luck or......

Worse was to come though - the hard drive I had in my machine with all my data on it was working fine - next day - dead, same as other two drives. Psu is fine and good quality, so no apparent problems from the computer point of view. So three drives, all of about the same age, 3-4 years, just out of warranty, had all died.

I thought about this long and hard as usually you would get bad sectors or other problems accessing the drive, at least giving you warning - but I had none of this. I thought about it long and hard, and then I suddenly remembered seeing errors in the event manager about a problem with hard drive controller, but I ignored these as I did not seem to have any problems accessing the drive or data, except for a microsecond delay in the drives contents becoming visible in windows explorer.

The moral to this story:-

1. don't ignore any messages in event viewer about accessing drives - even if you don't think there is a problem.
2. Upload anything you cannot afford to lose to the cloud for extra peace of mind - I didn't and am now paying the price.

I do have some of the lost stuff on CD/DVD, but by no means all of it, and some of the most important files I fear are lost forever as I cannot afford data recovery specialists.

A sorry lesson learned here - hope it does not happen to you.

Mark
 
You'd didn't statically kill the drives or something similar?

It seems a complete anomaly statistically for such a chain of events to occur, three failures in rapid succession, whilst you were handling the drives, I ponder if it is more than just drive failure here, and if something in the operations has killed them?
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
You'd didn't statically kill the drives or something similar?

It seems a complete anomaly statistically for such a chain of events to occur, three failures in rapid succession, whilst you were handling the drives, I ponder if it is more than just drive failure here, and if something in the operations has killed them?
Click to expand...

I am a qualified PC technician so I would like to think I took the usual precautions in dealing with the drives, but I certainly would not rule out any possibility. I must admit that I do think it rather unusual as you say for this to happen - at least statistically, as you point out. I thought I would bring it to the attention of the forum for general info etc. I think the other points I have made regarding event viewer and having a cloud backup is still nevertheless relevant. Thanks for your comments.Any idea what could have actually caused this to happen???????

Mark

Ps I only handled two of the drives that failed - the third which was in my machine only died after I took the machine somewhere in the car - so just coincidence maybe, there is no doubt that I have however been very unlucky. I think if I had somehow killed them via static - surely I would have felt or heard something.
 
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Bad luck :(

Just to clarify a bit, did you have a backup of the data on the 'in-PC' HDD? It reads as though you didn't, although perhaps you did before deciding to try installing Win 8.1.

I wouldn't go as far as recommending cloud backups routinely due to data security concerns and space limitations, but absolutely multiple backups for important stuff.
 
miniyazz said:
Bad luck :(

Just to clarify a bit, did you have a backup of the data on the 'in-PC' HDD? It reads as though you didn't, although perhaps you did before deciding to try installing Win 8.1.

I wouldn't go as far as recommending cloud backups routinely due to data security concerns and space limitations, but absolutely multiple backups for important stuff.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Not sure if I am reading you right here, but no I did not have a backup of the data drive unfortunately - in essence this was my backup drive!!!!. I was going to install windows 8.1 on one of the other two spare drives - but alas they had died also????? I agree about your comments about cloud backup, but what other option do you have if you cannot trust local storage dying?

A conundrum for sure.

Mark
 
tipes said:
Hi,

Not sure if I am reading you right here, but no I did not have a backup of the data drive unfortunately - in essence this was my backup drive!!!!. I was going to install windows 8.1 on one of the other two spare drives - but alas they had died also????? I agree about your comments about cloud backup, but what other option do you have if you cannot trust local storage dying?

A conundrum for sure.

Mark
Click to expand...

OK - so this drive was the only copy of your data? If so, there's your problem. Hard drives (and indeed, nothing including Cloud storage) has a 100% reliability rate. Unless it's stuff you genuinely don't particularly care if you have it or not (or the 'cost' to you of losing it is less than the cost of having a backup), having just the one copy is asking for trouble. Even DVDs etc - their reliability is good enough to buy a film on, but you shouldn't rely on one copy for e.g. family memories since they can get scratched and otherwise fail.
Cloud backup is only more reliable because the companies providing you with the storage have multiple backup systems (probably RAID arrays plus HDD backups of these, updated hourly or daily, and maybe tape backups as well, updated less frequently).
A basic and easily achievable level of home storage reliability is to have at least two copies of any important data, with one copy being offline and unplugged except during backups (in case of power surges or similar). For more important stuff it's worth having a third backup that's kept elsewhere e.g. work/relative's house so you're still ok in case of fire or theft.

P.S. the nice folks over at xkcd reckon Google has a hard drive die every few minutes :)
 
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miniyazz said:
OK - so this drive was the only copy of your data? If so, there's your problem. Hard drives (and indeed, nothing including Cloud storage) has a 100% reliability rate. Unless it's stuff you genuinely don't particularly care if you have it or not (or the 'cost' to you of losing it is less than the cost of having a backup), having just the one copy is asking for trouble. Even DVDs etc - their reliability is good enough to buy a film on, but you shouldn't rely on one copy for e.g. family memories since they can get scratched and otherwise fail.
Cloud backup is only more reliable because the companies providing you with the storage have multiple backup systems (probably RAID arrays plus HDD backups of these, updated hourly or daily, and maybe tape backups as well, updated less frequently).
A basic and easily achievable level of home storage reliability is to have at least two copies of any important data, with one copy being offline and unplugged except during backups (in case of power surges or similar). For more important stuff it's worth having a third backup that's kept elsewhere e.g. work/relative's house so you're still ok in case of fire or theft.

P.S. the nice folks over at xkcd reckon Google has a hard drive die every few minutes :)
Click to expand...

Hi,

Thanks for your in depth reply - Your right, I should have been more careful, and I should have known better. As I said in first post - lesson learned:(
All that said - I do feel I have been very unlucky because normally you would get more warning of a failing drive, but.......

Mark
 
tipes said:
Hi,

Thanks for your in depth reply - Your right, I should have been more careful, and I should have known better. As I said in first post - lesson learned:(
All that said - I do feel I have been very unlucky because normally you would get more warning of a failing drive, but.......

Mark
Click to expand...

Look on the plus side, you've still got some stuff backed up! It often seems to take something like this for people to realise the importance of backing up :( I suspect it's quite common.
Yes you're right, you often do get a warning - but by no means always. Just a few weeks ago one of my 3TB drives died without warning - one minute working fine, the next time I plugged it in it spun up but wouldn't get detected (internal drive). Off to RMA it goes :)
 
tipes said:
I did not seem to have any problems accessing the drive or data, except for a microsecond delay in the drives contents becoming visible in windows explorer.
Click to expand...

A microsecond? Really :p

Sometimes hard drives have a delay loading contents because Windows turns off disks after around 20 minutes of inactivity (actual disk inactivity, not mouse inactivity). But this delay in re-starting the drive is typically around 2 or 3 seconds long.

I am not sure whether too many on/off cycles has any effect on HDD lifespan, but it may well could.
 
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Mockingbird said:
Can I just check - are you sure it's the drives, and not the on-Mobo controller?

Have you tried them in another system, or on a different segment of SATA ports?
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Hi,

Unfortunately these drives are refusing to spin up - so motor is dead - as confirmed by a local pc shop. Now I have a new mobo I will try them again, but don't expect them too work.

Thanks for your input.

Mark
 
asim18 said:
A microsecond? Really :p

Sometimes hard drives have a delay loading contents because Windows turns off disks after around 20 minutes of inactivity (actual disk inactivity, not mouse inactivity). But this delay in re-starting the drive is typically around 2 or 3 seconds long.

I am not sure whether too many on/off cycles has any effect on HDD lifespan, but it may well could.
Click to expand...

Fair points - may have been more than a micro second tbh, but hey doesn't change the fact they have died, shame really. I usually leave my machine in standby when not in use and only turn off for overnight.

Mark
 
miniyazz said:
Look on the plus side, you've still got some stuff backed up! It often seems to take something like this for people to realise the importance of backing up :( I suspect it's quite common.
Yes you're right, you often do get a warning - but by no means always. Just a few weeks ago one of my 3TB drives died without warning - one minute working fine, the next time I plugged it in it spun up but wouldn't get detected (internal drive). Off to RMA it goes :)
Click to expand...

Bad luck for you too !!!

Mark
 
For three drives to have died like that, I would be desperately looking for the common thread, before you kill any more drives. Is it the motherboard? Cable? Power supply?
 
rotor said:
For three drives to have died like that, I would be desperately looking for the common thread, before you kill any more drives. Is it the motherboard? Cable? Power supply?
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Quite so - exactly what I thought, but both psu are high quality, corsair 860AXi/850 Gold, both less than a year old. Did all the usual checks on cables etc. Thinking back on it - I may have been the stupid culprit. I might have not quite let the capacitors on the board drain fully before attaching the drive - so may have given them a bolt when attaching the two spare drives that had been in storage. The main drive though was attached throughout and had been working fine up till the day of Mobo change etc. This drive just failed to spin up after the car journey and fitting of the new mobo - so just bad luck I think????
Have since attached a new Seagate 1TB drive to the system and no issues - hope I am not begging my luck here:eek:
Mark
 
miniyazz said:
A basic and easily achievable level of home storage reliability is to have at least two copies of any important data, with one copy being offline and unplugged except during backups (in case of power surges or similar).
Click to expand...

This is the important bit, the number of cases of people getting hit by things like Ransomware which go through network shares and encrypts data - anyone without offline/cold backups may be in for a nasty surprise.
 
I also am using a UPS so power surges should not be an issue. Just have to put this one down to experience and being unlucky :eek:

Mark
 
This doesn’t make sense; three drives failing at virtually the same time with similar faults. I would be looking elsewhere, Mbo, PSU, voltage spikes. Do you have the event viewer logs?
 
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