All my External HDDs are giving me trouble...

[ArkiStan]

Well first there's my Western Digital 750GB MyBook Studio, which is one of the worst pieces of crap i've ever bought. It has a built-in sleep feature (which can't be disabled) which basically kills the USB connection everytime it sleeps. When it spins back up, the drives are there, but no files will show in the drive. Needless to say it gives me a heart attack every time this happens as it looks like 100GBs of music has vanished into thin air. Only after I completely pull it out, turn it off-on again, then plug the thing back in do the files show up again and my hands stop sweating/shaking.

http://www.raymondkwan.com/uploader2/files/1252/WD%20750%20Mybook_Studio.jpg

Then there's my 300GB Western Digital OEM drive installed in my beautiful black Rosewill brushed aluminum case. I have all my DivX movies copied on there and recently when I tried to play some it would crash my media player and the USB connection would be lost with the "boink" sound. The same would happen when hooked up to another computer. I'm guessing the drive is just broken as this baby has gone through two moves and several overseas trips with me. I wonder if it's the HDD or the enclosure that is the problem. I wish I could transfer the files off of it. That was a lot of ripping/downloading.

http://www.raymondkwan.com/uploader2/files/1252/rosewill%20rx-30.jpg

Somebody please tell me what I should buy next time if I want a simple, solid, stable and reliable external HDD.

Thanks!

[Jeffbx]

Probably not what you want to hear, but it doesn't really matter what brand you go with - every drive has the possibility of failure. Failures by brand fluctuate pretty widely from model to model and year to year, so you'll probably get a different answer from just about anyone you ask.

I always tell people to go with a brand you've heard of that has a 3 or more year warranty, and keep 2 copies of everything. That's the *only* way you'll be safe.

[DaFunkyUnit]

from personal experience, usually, its the enclosure thats so shoddy in quality. You might want to look up the customer reviews on Newegg before buying your next enclosure.

[ArkiStan]

So I've decided to take some action. I'm gonna disassemble my WD Mybook and put the drive in a new enclosure.

For the second drive, I took it out of its enclosure and was playing around with it when I started hearing a grinding sound. I'm gonna try freezing it overnight and see if that'll revive the drive long enough for me to copy the files off of it.


http://digg.com/hardware/Freeze_your_hard_drive_to_recover_data:_Myth_or_Reality_

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006110111270170

http://www.datarecoverypros.com/hard-drive-recovery-freeze.html

[MrGreg]

Maybe a drobo?

[Jeffbx]

Good luck!

Some tips -

Is the WD still under warranty? Don't tear it apart before you try to get them to replace it!

And you only need to freeze the drive for an hour or two - it won't get any colder if you keep it in there longer. Make sure you wrap it to avoid frost & other crap that might fall on it.

Sorry to say though, if you're hearing a grinding noise, that could mean that the heads have crashed into the platter. Once that happens, it physically damages the platters & it's next to impossible to get any data off of it. It's usually pretty loud & has kind of a screetchy undertone (where the heads are scraping against the platters).

[ArkiStan]

LOL
It worked! Until it defrosted, of course. I managed to get about 15 GB of data off of it. I'm gonna try it just one more time and see what happens. There's another 10 GB or so of data that i'd really like to get back. otherwise, this isn't too shabby for a recovery effort.

[MrGreg]

Yeah, I was amazed that the freezer was able to bring my drive back to life (for 15 minutes).

[Maarchk]

Glad you got the save. Sorry stuff sucked. :( Look at reviews, I've spent the extra 5-10 bucks on harddrive enclosures and they've worked flawlessly for years. Well word it.

[ArkiStan]

tried it a second time and the drive couldn't be read. i guess i've juiced the last bit of life out of it through cryogenic life support.

The new enclosure i'm getting is much more expensive but got tons of good reviews at newegg, so hopefully this time will be better. thanks for all the help guys.