Dead HDD?

Mp4 · 31 Aug 2007 at 16:47

Well i have an old Maxtor 80GIG , which i'm guessing had 40+ GIG worth of files on it was working fine last night when i turned the computer off, i just turned it on and its not called "Stuff" anymore and when i click on it , it asks me if i want to format it ... sooo i take it ive lost everything? and the HDD is Kaput?

rpstewart · 31 Aug 2007 at 17:30

Sounds like the file system is knackered rather than the drive. Did the PC shutdown cleanly last night?

You could try running chkdsk or the Maxtor diags but I'm not sure how useful they'd be.

enigmo · 1 Sep 2007 at 00:18

Have you got a second HD or a mate's machine you could plug it into? Unless it's making clicking/grinding noises, I'd say rpstewart is right and it's more a filesystem error than a mechanical one. In such situations I've used a program called ActiveUndelete to recover data. You do have to pay for it, but the advanced scan it does is very good.

Mp4 · 1 Sep 2007 at 18:49

Its not making any bad sounds what so ever but when i get time i shall look further in to the problem, is there any other programs / things i can do ? and how good is ActiveUndelete??

on the topic of HDD's would anyone reccomend a HDD setup?

looking at the 1TB HDD atm , when they come in. maybe stretch to £400

swinnie · 1 Sep 2007 at 20:28

Your probably best getting 2 500Gb Drives and setting up a RAID that mirrors everything, think its stroke 1?

Mp4 · 2 Sep 2007 at 17:24

sounds good to me! would that be more efficient? or just having a 1TB drive partitioned 500GIG per partition would that work the same?

meh

Well i've tried checkdisk and get this

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Stuff.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File record segment 624 is unreadable.
File record segment 625 is unreadable.
File record segment 626 is unreadable.
File record segment 627 is unreadable.
File record segment 7604 is unreadable.
File record segment 7605 is unreadable.
File record segment 7606 is unreadable.
File record segment 7607 is unreadable.
File record segment 7640 is unreadable.
File record segment 7641 is unreadable.
File record segment 7642 is unreadable.
File record segment 7643 is unreadable.
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Correcting error in index $O for file 25.
Correcting error in index $O for file 25.

and it says i dont have enough space on the drive to finish the task , and carry's on loading windows

Mp4 · 3 Sep 2007 at 16:25

Anyone?

Mp4 · 4 Sep 2007 at 21:03

sigh :/ so anyone know whats up etc?

EternalMovement · 4 Sep 2007 at 21:15

Go on maxtor's site and download/run their tool to check it over as that don't look too good

enigmo · 4 Sep 2007 at 21:22

If chkdsk can't solve the problems, you really need to get ahold of some bigger guns. As an aside, what switches did you use on chkdsk? I think the one I use is /f or /p. If you go back into recovery console and type chkdsk /?, there are three options, and one of them includes the other two. Use that one.
As for the rest of the stuff you could try, I found a couple of boot CDs that have come in quite handy, one is Techies Toolkit, and the other is called Ultimate Boot Disk (I think). Both of these have a load of trouble-shooting tools, Techie's especially is all HD analysis and recovery tools. I don't think either are legal, though.
Active undelete runs under Windows so you will need another Windows installation on another drive, or another PC to drop your busted drive into. I've never used the trial version, but I suspect it only includes the basic scan, which isn't up to much tbh. The advanced scan is very good though, and what with the $/£ rate so poo at the moment, it might well be worth the cost if the above tools don't work.

enigmo · 4 Sep 2007 at 21:25

swinnie said:
Your probably best getting 2 500Gb Drives and setting up a RAID that mirrors everything, think its stroke 1?

Yep, RAID1=mirroring.
TBH, getting the latest drives is never very economical. That, and you have the concern of losing a full TB of data if you experience a mechanical failure. At the moment, I think the £/GB sweetspot is still around 300GB, but the 500GB drives are a lot cheaper per GB than the TB drives, so I'd get a couple of those. I ordered 4 of the WD RE2s today myself

Mp4 · 4 Sep 2007 at 21:42

enigmo said:
If chkdsk can't solve the problems, you really need to get ahold of some bigger guns. As an aside, what switches did you use on chkdsk? I think the one I use is /f or /p. If you go back into recovery console and type chkdsk /?, there are three options, and one of them includes the other two. Use that one.
As for the rest of the stuff you could try, I found a couple of boot CDs that have come in quite handy, one is Techies Toolkit, and the other is called Ultimate Boot Disk (I think). Both of these have a load of trouble-shooting tools, Techie's especially is all HD analysis and recovery tools. I don't think either are legal, though.
Active undelete runs under Windows so you will need another Windows installation on another drive, or another PC to drop your busted drive into. I've never used the trial version, but I suspect it only includes the basic scan, which isn't up to much tbh. The advanced scan is very good though, and what with the $/£ rate so poo at the moment, it might well be worth the cost if the above tools don't work.

I've been using chkdsk d: /f , it goes through it and says inefficient disk space and closes tbh, i think its shrewed , going to get the active undelete when i can next week , and go from there.

enigmo said:
Yep, RAID1=mirroring.
TBH, getting the latest drives is never very economical. That, and you have the concern of losing a full TB of data if you experience a mechanical failure. At the moment, I think the £/GB sweetspot is still around 300GB, but the 500GB drives are a lot cheaper per GB than the TB drives, so I'd get a couple of those. I ordered 4 of the WD RE2s today myself

^ Any link to those WD RE2's? are they the muts nuts atm?

enigmo · 5 Sep 2007 at 09:18

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-102-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

You can get quieter/cheaper for less money, but these are intended to be RAIDed and so I wanted drives that are rated for what I want them to do.

Mp4 · 6 Sep 2007 at 17:01

What if i didn't raid them ? would it make any difference?

Also if i had to buy 1 HDD at a time would it be a pain to raid it when i get 2-4 HDDS?

rpstewart · 6 Sep 2007 at 17:14

Mp4 said:
What if i didn't raid them ? would it make any difference?

No, they'll run fine as single drives but I'd avoid those particular ones, the use older, lower density platters than the current generation of drives and hence are a bit slower.

Mp4 said:
Also if i had to buy 1 HDD at a time would it be a pain to raid it when i get 2-4 HDDS?

Yes. While it can be done if the RAID controller being used supports online capacity expansion you need to get the driver setup correct a tthe start and then worry about extending partitions etc. Far easier to set it up the way that you want from day 1 or reinstall when you want to go RAID.

Mp4 · 10 Sep 2007 at 09:30

A noob question , If i go to RAID mode im guessing all it does it crate a mirror image on the other drive?

Basically i want 1 drive for everything , windows , games etc and then 2nd drive to back up all my music , photos , drivers , etc.

i'm guessing two separate drives would be better for this?

soz for the noob questions , i've never had more than 1 HDD. . lol

bloody games

Or would i be better with 1 750GIG and an external 500GIG?

rpstewart · 10 Sep 2007 at 10:30

Mp4 said:
A noob question , If i go to RAID mode im guessing all it does it crate a mirror image on the other drive?

RAID1 will give you 2 disks with mirrored contents for redundancy. Other RAID levels will give increased speed, capacity and redundancy in varying degrees dependant on the RAID level chosen

Mp4 said:
Basically i want 1 drive for everything , windows , games etc and then 2nd drive to back up all my music , photos , drivers , etc.

i'm guessing two separate drives would be better for this?

Yeah, 2 drives would be a decent plan

Mp4 said:
Or would i be better with 1 750GIG and an external 500GIG?

It depends on what you want to do and how much data you need to store and backup. I always recommend having at least 2 copies of everything which you need to keep - photos, music etc. If you can keep everything on an internal 750Gb disk then a 500Gb external should be big enough to back everything up - there's no need to backup Windows etc.

Mp4 · 10 Sep 2007 at 10:58

rpstewart said:
It depends on what you want to do and how much data you need to store and backup. I always recommend having at least 2 copies of everything which you need to keep - photos, music etc. If you can keep everything on an internal 750Gb disk then a 500Gb external should be big enough to back everything up - there's no need to backup Windows etc.

Yeah that was my thoughts exactly the drive that i had before was 80GIG and i think i only used 40GIG so a 500GIG external would be a good.

i take it Western Digital Caviar SE16 750GB 7500AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

is the muts?

Anyone recommend 500GIG external - pref W&D?

rpstewart · 10 Sep 2007 at 11:37

Of the current 750Gb drives the WD AAKS is probably the quickest going.

For an external if it's only for backups then performance isn't necessarily the most important thing so there's plenty of choice. The Lacie Porsche drive is OK, I think they're using Seagate drives internally these days, or there's the WD MyBook which is on special this week, a lot of folk seem to be using those these days.

Mp4 · 10 Sep 2007 at 11:57

Ordered the Western Digital Caviar SE16 750GB 7500AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

&

and the Western Digital MyBook Essential 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive (WDG1U5000E)

I think this will suit my needs for now