I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questions?

OM goodness. Okay I'm typing quick because I do not know what's going to happen. Where do I start? Well I have two hard drives attached to my motherboard. One is my windows drive and one is just used for data. Anyways I clean out my pc every month or so with a can of compressed air. You see my pc is always running fine for months... But than it gets dusty and I worry about the dust causing problems so I buy a can of compressed air and let it blow away!

Usually everytime I do clean the computer with a can of air, the first time I turn the pc on it just freezes up and doesnt finish loading windows xp. Or my pc will freeze up like 20 minutes after runing xp and doing normal stuff like msn messaging/checking email/etc. Well when it does freeze up you'll hear just one short clicking sound coming from the inside of my computer tower and than the pc just freezes and I have to hold the power button on my tower for it to shut off.

It usually happens during the first two boots I do after cleaning my pc with a can of compressed air. What I usually do is move stuff around the inside of my pc tower to make sure the hardware is inserted and connected properly. Than usually after moving stuff around the pc works fine for months and never makes a noise again [although maybe it does I just never hear it because my tvs usually on and I live in a squeaky house whereas I may misinterpret the noise for a natural sound coming from my home].

But this week I cleaned out my pc and it's been freezing up and making the awful "click" sound right before a freeze occurs. My pcs frozen up about 10 times in a row now in just a few short days [which is extremely odd]. Anyways after long hours/process of elimination, I found out where the noise is coming from and its my 120GB secondary drive which I use for storing important data. Now that I know where the sound is coming from I've detached it from it's ide cable and and power source. I'm glad to say the freezing has not occured.

But theres one big problem... I have my entire life's worth of data on my secondary drive! [I can't stress how nervous and sick I feel right now - I'm actually shaking]

I called a friend of mine who works at HP and he said the following:

Luck... So I turned on my pc this afternoon and it didn't freeze. And after following talking to my friend I followed his advice I went into safe mode and began backing up data [don't ask me why I chose to go into safe mode - I guess I feel more comfortable there during mishaps]. Anyways I was able to pull of 70% of my entire life's work of data from my 120GB secondary [bad problematic drive] to my 80GB primary drive [good little buddy!]. Anyways the reason I haven't copied over 100% of the data from the secondary drive to the primary drive is because I have low space on my 80GB drive. So what I'm doing is:

Now just for the record every time I reboot the pc with the secondary drive attached it makes a clicking sound a couple of times or so with about 10 seconds in between each instance before going quiet as it should. It sounds like it's struggling to run or something. Sometimes the pc freezes like I mentioned earlier when I try to boot with the secondary drive attached. But it than makes way after a few tries and let's windows boot with it going strong on it's last breath.

During the copying process [pasting secondary drive contents to my primary drive]. I notice that the secondary drive is really slow to copy over the data. It takes about 3 or 4 times longer to copy over any file. For example a 100mb file would take 4 minutes or so instead of the normal time I remember this drive doing before this happened [which was about 60 seconds for a file like that]. So yes it's really slow when referring to it's speed... Put it this way it takes 60 minutes or so to copy over 4GB. Another thing it does is make the clicking noise I previously mentioned within the drive once or twice periodically while copying over data, and sometimes it just won't make noise at all [But it definitely always makes the noise when I boot up my pc with the bad drive attached].

There were a couple of files that I actually copied over to my primary drive, and than went back to recheck if I had copied them from the secondary drive and they WERE GONE! Nowhere to be seen! But I luckly copied them over before they mysteriously disappeared from the problematic drive.

My questions are:

1. How in the [bleep] do I know if the data I'm copying over to my good primary drive isn't corrupt/ruined/damaged/etc?
I mean it looks as if the datas fine when I check it on my good primary drive and view pics, listen to music, etc. But it's so much stuff it would take days for me to open them all up to check if they work. Though I guess the data wouldn't have been able to copy over from my bad drive to my good drive unless it were in perfect condition no?

2. & how about the fact that the bad drive is copying the data over soooo slowly... Can that harm my computer components [ie: motherboard], or my good drive while it's passing it's contents over? Or does my primary drive not care about the secondary drives struggling speed as long as it gets from point "a" to point "b"?

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

First thing STOP blowing out with compressed air, that is blowing dirt into places that would not get grit and grime into in 50 years, use a small vaccum with the brush attachment, get the dirt out, not blow it under and into places you cant see,[ like sweeping dirt under the rug ], Your data should be fine, your hard drive may be failing and also your power supply, the weakest link will fail first with a failing power supply. ed

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Can you show me a picture of any kind of vacuum your speaking of with the attachment?

And why do you think my PSU is dying? What would make you say that>?

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

If you don't have a network you need to set something like that up, say a USB style. At least that is my opinion, someone else could have a better idea. Do you have a second computer, or an external USB drive? With a second computer you can transfer your 1st drive to another. With a USB drive it's a bit more straightforward, just move the data over.

As to whether it is damaged or not I don't have a clue. There are simple scans included with windows that will check the basics, but if it is already damaged there isn't much you can do.

The main thing though, is get that data moved! If the drive is going out the less used the better. After you copy everything you can do the scans. Won't help much, but it will give you a clue as to the damage.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Another possibility is to use a DVD burner, assuming you have one, and move the data off that way.

Even if it isn't the HD, making backups is always good.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

There is debate between blowing and suction with cleaning PC's but I have to agree I always use my standard Vacum cleaner, placing a sock of the pipe (being held in place by the last pipe or noozle) which will catch any "Jumpers" if u accidently suck them up. Jumpers can be for your HDD, CMOS reset etc....always pay attention to where these are and be cautious around those.

Otherwise you are blowing dust into obscure and tight places that may lead to greater problems in the future. Personally I recently tried to minimise the potential for dust entry and have taped up any inlet holes that dont have a fan and those that do I remove the fan and tape some high mesh stocking tightly over the inlet (so as to not touch the fan, before attaching the fan to catch the dust. Inflow may be impeded slightly but you can then vacum the inlets from the outside every once in a while and have minimised dust entry.

HDD Problems:

Have you ran "chkdsk" and noted anything?

goto Start>>>>>Run and type in chkdsk and see if this notes anything for the HDD. For more info on this google chkdsk and goto MS's site on this so u can allocate which drive to scan;

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=true

Please read the page fully before running.

Another option is to goto WD site and DL their HDD diagnostics tool;

Data Lifeguard Diagnostics can be DL from here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

This may help indicate that indeed the HDD is failing.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

I'm very pleased and grateful for the responses I've received in this thread. We don't know each other, but it's amazing how the human spirit is so kind that we help others in our spare time without reason. I've been a long time member of this website. & I've just got to tip my hat to you all, even to myself. We help those we can and do it as if it were our own problem. That is why help forums such as the ones here on MG is proof that we are needed in life, and thankful for others input.

Hey bold eagle can you show me a picture of this sort of mesh your using on top of your fans?

I wish I could but the dying drive is way too slow to copy over data to my good drive so I'm too scared to let my burner burn the files off of the bad drive. The slow speed of the dying drive [due to it going] could probably ruin my burner and be worthless data. I think copying the data to my good drive is a smarter thing to do.

By the way guys I purchased a SEAGATE FREE AGENT PRO 500GB ESATA/USB external hard drive today. & after copying the data from the bad drive to my good drive I will than scan them and also check if they work or are damaged by opening them up. If alls well I will than pass the data over to my external drive and have a great backup! Wish me luck you all, and if theres more to say let me know.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Well nothing special basically a pair of womens tights or a very thin pair of socks to act as a "filtering medium", just make sure you use good strong tape (packing tape etc etc) and that the stocking is tight so as not to get sucked into the fans blades. That is what I do anyway, if your not to vain you could even tape it on the outside to minimise the potential of it being sucked into the blades. Then you can just vacum the outside of the case from time to time to remove the dust from your "filters".

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Why don't you use these Mr. Eagle?

[Aluminum Mesh Fan Filters]
http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/nexfan03_1974_19410866

They sell a lot of them here:

http://www.nexfan.com/fanguca.html


On another note:

You know what's strange? I was lucky enough to copy and paste over all of my data from my bad secondary drive to my good primary drive even though it copied over slow as heck [3-5 times slower than normal]. I only received one cycle redundancy error message on my bad drive during the process [I don't know what that means]. The bad secondary drive made clicking sounds on every reboot and froze most of the time. As I mentioned after pasting the data over to my good drive some data disappeared from my bad drive mysteriously. Anyways after copying over all of my data I decided to run Western Digitals diagnostic tools for SMART drives. Both of my drives showed up as being ok with the grade "PASS". I decided to use the tools to do a quick scan on my good drive. Of course the scan passed with flying colors... I did an extended scan on my good drive with the same tools and it also passed.

Now when I did a quick scan on my bad drive it failed halfway through with this notice:

I than did an extended scan on my bad drive and it ended up saying bad sectors were found or something like that and they were repaired [I can't remember what it fully said]. Anyways my hard drive is still under warranty from Western Digital so I went online and filled out their easy RMA process to get my customer code so I can mail my hard drive in for what I believe would be either repair, or replacement [I don't know which one they will choose to do for me]. So in order to prepare the bad drive I had to be sure I at least tried to wipe out all of my personal data from it. I was able to delete everything off the drive except for one file which was not able to go. So I said "why stop here?", and opened up Western Digitals diagnostic tools so I could use the "WRITE ZEROS" option on my drive. I did a quick run of "Write Zeros" instead of the extended run and it actually finished fine. I was anxious to see and hear what would happen to my pc if I restarted it there after to hear any noises or pc freezes. Oddly enough there were absolutely no freezes or noises coming from the drive when I restarted! So I than went into windows Disk Management and decided to see what would happen if I partitioned the drive and formated it for use. I did so and was amazed that it actually went through the whole process. So now I was like "okay let me restart the pc and see/hear what happens". I restarted the pc and heard no noises/pc freezes. I was like "this is weird!" and decided to see what would happen if I copied and pasted some data onto the drive. Well I must say I was amazed to see that the data was written to the drive at normal speed. Than I copied and pasted some of the same data on the same drive and it copied itself normally. I even played some of the files I copied in windows media player and they played fine. I ran the Western Digitals diagnostic tools on it and the quick scan still showed up as a failure so what is up? I also ran windows check disk tool and it only showed a few kbs in bad sectors.

So now I'm like what the [bleep] is going on? Is my drive good to use now or should I still send it to Western Digital since I already applied for the RMA process? Why the heck is it working now with no noises and what could have caused the drive to go bad beforehand when I had problems?


- Thank you for your help

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

EDIT [ABOVE LAST PARAGRAPH]:

I ran the Western Digitals diagnostic tools on it and the quick scan shows up as a pass now and also the extended scan too... So what is up? I also ran windows check disk tool and it only showed a few kbs in bad sectors.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Well I'm not an expert with HDD but I would assume that maybe the bad sections are still there but will only become noticeable when there is data written and or retrieved from that specific area. Ensure that you inform WD of the process you have gone through, the problems that occured and the steps you have taken to rectify it. Do you really want to take a chance and then find the HDD fail again later?

Hopefully someone else can provide some more input here. I just wanted to provide some analysis tools which did seem to help.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

I'm not saying it is mind you, but a bad power supply can cause a lot of flaky type problems. Hard drives in general are the biggest power hogs in the computer.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

My hard drive is pretty generic... It's a no name brand called "DEER" I got for $25 when I first built my pc. It sometimes makes noises when I clean the computer out with a can of compressed air and power up for the first time. The noise sounds like something in the fan bearings. I should probably get a new psu while I'm at it yes... I just don't know what the best brand of psu's are. I need one that is really silent since I'm an audio engineer and I use this pc in an area where audio is being recorded all the time with microphones. My current psu is a:

Deer 450 Watt PSU w/20/24 Pin Connector

Any suggestions guys?


Thanks for the info BILL AND BOLD EAGLE!


P.s.
Your right Bold I should send this hdd back to them even though it seems to work again now that I've written zeros to the drive [which I did using the "quick" method in the WD HDD tools]. Just to be sure that they don't find any of my data I ran the WD HDD tools again and used EXTENDED WRITE ZEROS this time which took over an hour to finish as opposed to the quick one which does it in like 5-10 minutes!

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Now you have time I'd burn your stuff to a CD or DVD. Beats going through this a second time, and you can move the disc's to a different location in case something ever happens.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Your very right Bill it beats going through a jar of advils to take away a data loss headache!

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Well firstly you could consider that when using the air that you may have blown some crud into the PSU and thus the fan was trying to clear it out.....hence the noise. To coarsely analyse the PSU you should DL and install EVEREST (a must have imho):

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Install and run this....expand Computer>>>>Sensor....now look at "Voltage Values" if they are similar to what is defined then your PSU maybe fine but if one of these values is significantly different (say 10%) then you may have a faulty PSU.

As far as which to buy I only have high end Gaming PSU references but ideally the larger the fan the quieter the noise output. Mine has a 140mm fan and is very quite but can run to high end video cards and has a very solid reputation. It really depends on what you are willing to spend;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817341002

I would only get something like that if you were doing a complete new system.

Those Fan filters look brilliant by the way but be aware the may impair inflow so just vacum the outside of the case often and possibly wash them when spring cleaning (once to twice a year).

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

It can be noted after the most highly recommended for "extremely quite" PSU the Seasonic M-12 600W/700W is worth a look;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151030

But it may cost a fair bit more than your willing to spend.

Also doing a google on "Quite PSU" and add shootouts and roundups there is tons of reviews if you find any of interest I will have a look at it's merits. Normally if you read a good review on an individual product you will find supporting/similar reviews from other technical sites. The more similar reviews on a product the greater the likelihood it isn't just marketing hype.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Thanks for the info bold eagle. I like the first one but it's way out of my pocket!!! It isn't for a super new pc... It's actually for my first pc which I built on my own. It's the only pc I have and hey I'm typing now with it! You can see all my pc specs in my signature. I have a 450watt generic Deer brand psu [real no name stuff]. But yet my pc has a lot of expensive equipment in it even though it's an oldie I revamped. My current psu is always making loud roaring noises whenever I clean with cans of air, or when I unplug the pc from the wall and plug it back in for the first time. I'm sick of hearing the noises everynow and than which only last about 60 seconds. I think this psu is cheap...

I'd like to replace it with another psu that wont hurt my wallet and is also 450watt since thats all I need. I'd like it to protect me from bad electricity or any kind of stuff. I don't know anything about psus. Please recommend one! Because if I walk in a pc shop and just ask for one again they'll probably give me another generic one again...

I'm willing to spend $60-$70 max... I also need one thats quite because I do sound recording.

 

Re: I Think My Hard Drive Is Dying - Can Someone Help Me Get My Data & Answer Questio

Personally I don't have a problem with canned air, the only parts affected by dust are those that have to dump their heat into the air.

One thing to watch out for though, never ever spin up a fan with air. Doing so will likely burn out the fan, just hold it still when blowing air around it.