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I was wondering if when your external hard drive crashes, exactly what happens?
Aside from loosing all your files, do you just throw it away?
Linda


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Linda, Gene or Chuck or someone more knowlegable on this can help more but I think you can take it to try to have it repaired or see if your info can be retrieved somehow.

Kim
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how exactly did it crash?
make a noise, just stop working?

The heads on my dropped and it started making a clicking sound.
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Exactly what happens depends on the nature of the crash. The heads dropping and hitting the platters of the drive is never a good thing. That generally is a problem that cannot be easily repaired, if at all. The tolerances are very close. Best thing there is to stop using it to minimize any damage, and if you are inclined to have someone try and recover the data, give them the drive to have a go at. But that type of recovery can be very expensive and there are no guarantees.

There are probably as many ways for the drive to fail as there are parts in the drive. "Crash" is just a generic term that is applied to the problem. You may be able to have one repaired, again depending on what really happened to it, but drives are getting so cheap nowadays. Best Buy has a 1TB (terabyte) drive advertised this week for $129.

I have an EHD that recently just quit working. I think my problem is something with the interface of the enclosure and not the drive itself as my being able to "see" the drive would come and go. It was preventing me from booting my PC, and if I booted with it unplugged, my PC would start up and then I could plug it in. At that point, sometimes I could see it and sometimes I couldn't. I am planning on moving it to another enclosure to see if that really is the problem or not. I replaced it in the mean time with a 1TB WD EHD that I found for $129 before the holidays.
GeneVH

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No NO No, Sorry, I didnt mean to give the impression that it crashed.
I just want to know what to do if/when it does. If I just throw it out or where I would take it.
Its a very scary prospect. Thank you for the answer Gene.
Linda


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Gene, I hope you check back on this thread cuz I have a question. You and I have pretty much the same set-up (computer wise). I have 2 WD T-byte externals using esata connections. Since I installed sp 3, everytime I turn my externals off, I am getting a "delayed write failed". Took it to my computer guys and the only thing they suggested was to go to device manger and uninstall it before I turn it off. My safely remove hardware does not show these drives when turned on. It never did this with sp2, have you noticed anything along these lines.
While I am picking your brain, here is another thing. Everyonce in awhile I am hearing a very faint scratching noise coming from my computer. Not all the time and not very loud, have to be listening for it. Should I be worried???
"Delayed write failed" tells me that the PC was trying to write some data to the drive and couldn't due to it being turned off. How are you using the drives? Do you strictly just use them for data (i.e. photos) or do you have scratch disks or your virtual disk on one of them? If you are powering your drives down while the PC is still on, make sure the drive light on the EHD is NOT flashing. This is an indication that the drive is exchanging data in some fashion with the PC and powering down at those times can cause corruption. I leave my drives powered up all the time, so have never run into this myself. They self power down (hibernate) when I turn off the PC.

As for noises coming from the box, this can be caused by a fan starting to go bad, or a problem with a drive. If you listen closely, you can hear when the drive is being used, which is a fairly low pitched noise. High squeaks or squeals are other things entirely. The only way to pinpoint them is by putting your ear to the machine and trying to hear exactly where the noise is coming from. Don't have enough info to say whether or not its serious until we know where its coming from.
GeneVH

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Gene, I use my external for backing up my photos and that is it. I turn one on, transfer the photos, make sure they are all there then turn it off. Then I do the same with the other. The information is always there before I turn off.
As for the sound, I have taken the back off but can not pin point where it is coming from. It only happens once in awhile. Just a real faint scratching sound. Everything is running fine, so I have backed up all my stuff and am waiting for the shoe to fall.
I'm on XP SP3 and can try powering down one of my drives and see what happens.
GeneVH

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Suzi,
Last year I kept hearing a noise that seemed pretty faint. As time went on it got a bit louder. By the time I ended up taking it in it was pretty loud & sounded like 2 knives rubbing together.
It ended up being the fan like Gene suggested.
Not to say that's what your problem is, but giving you an idea of the sound it made.
Linda


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"struggling to learn"
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