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I've never seen this before!

n4gix

n4gix

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My sim machine has been exhibiting odd behavior over the past five or so weeks, occasionally being very s l o w when trying to access it over my local area network.

Well, late this afternoon I found out why: I got a popup window I've never seen before! It was a warning that the hard drive was at risk for imminent failure, and that I should minimize use of the computer while making an immediate backup while it was still working...

So, I've embarked on the long process of backing up critical files from it to my "Personal Cloud" (aka: NAS). Tomorrow I'm going to make a run to the local Tiger Direct and buy several 1 TB WD "Black" hard drives, and perhaps an SSD for the operating system.

I've also purchased a license for Gibson Research's "SpinRite" recovery program ($89) and attempt to repair the sim's HD. Even if repairable, I will replace it with one of the new ones, and use this one in a USB adapter.
 
Ouch! Does this popup appear in Win 7 or 8, Bill? For future reference, you understand.
 
I had a similar message about a failing power supply on my laptop. It came from the manufacturer's support application - not from Windows 7. Fortunately the laptap was under warrantry from a supermarket. It no longer had the model in stock so it simply refunded the price.
 
Had that happen to me with that warning... they were right, the drive went bad in a couple of days. So you are smart in getting everything off as quick as you can. I switched from WD to Seagate and am real happy with the switch. Now I buy their 7200 3TB at Best Buy for $109.00. Using several. Very happy with their performance and a better price than WD. Just something to throw out there.
 
Yeah I had the same message with my current custom built PC a while back. Luckily it was still under an extended warranty, so I took heed and backed the drive up and then sent it away. This was on Windows 7. I thought it was great to get the warning - better than the thing just dying and losing everything. Mine ended up lasting long enough to be backed up and sent away, and as it was under warranty, the company that built my PC replaced it with a new one and even installed everything I had on my previous HDD, including the OS as it was my primary HDD.
 
Having had no fewer than three brand new Seagate 1 TB drives fail within a few days of each other pretty much soured me on that manufacturer.

Anyway, I managed to get all of the critical files copied to my NAS last night, and am now running SpinRite to hopefully repair any bad spots on the hard drive. Even if successful, I'll never trust this drive as a primary (boot) drive again. I'll use it in a USB dock for backup storage of non-critical files.

The popup is under Win7, but it is actually driven by the HD's S.M.A.R.T. system.
 
Humm! That prompted me to have a look at my own two 500GB drives, one Maxtor and one WD. Should anyone be concerned, CrystalDiskInfo will read the S.M.A.R.T. data from your HDs for reference: both of mine are okay (for now). It used to be two Maxtors when the rig was built, but one failed inside a year to be replaced with the WD. This rig is now seven years old: ooerrr, missus!
 
n4gix said:
Having had no fewer than three brand new Seagate 1 TB drives fail within a few days of each other pretty much soured me on that manufacturer.

The popup is under Win7, but it is actually driven by the HD's S.M.A.R.T. system.
Click to expand...
I "soured" on Seagate a LONG time ago. I've been a WD guy for 5-7 years now and a WD Black guy on my last 2 personal builds.

K
 
hairyspin said:
Should anyone be concerned, CrystalDiskInfo will read the S.M.A.R.T. data from your HDs for reference: both of mine are okay (for now).
Click to expand...
From the "FWIW Department" comes this bit of trivia. You don't even need any program to check your S.M.A.R.T. status:
  1. open a CMD Box
  2. type wmic
  3. type diskdrive get status
kipea.jpg

I drove 32 miles to the Tiger Direct store in Orland Park, Illinois only to discover to my utter shock that their store outlet is CLOSED! :yikes:

So a 64 mile round trip for nothing. Fortunately, there is a Best Buy near that location where I did find a WD "Blue" 1TB HD on sale for $54.99, and a SanDisk 240 GB SSD for $79.99. Unfortunately, the way my sim machine's HD is arranged, I'm not able to clone only the OS to the SSD, so am cloning to the new WD 1TB drive instead.
 
Well poop! Not only did SpinRite fail to repair the HD, but now even trying to clone the darn thing to a new HD is failing... :(

I think I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue. :rotfl:
 
n4gix said:
From the "FWIW Department" comes this bit of trivia. You don't even need any program to check your S.M.A.R.T. status...
Click to expand...

So what do I know, lol! Thanks for that Bill, hope you're sorted now!
 
This happened to me last week. A Seagate Barracuda failed. Had all of my installers on it, my website, etc. I have sent it in to Seagate as they have their own recovery program. $600.00 USD. sigh....

I also found out its a glitch with the onboard firmware in the HD. The model I have goes into a 'busy' mode, trying to boot up, stuck in boot mode. You can clear it, but its very lengthy what all you must do, so I opted for the expensive route. Supposedly they give you a new drive of the same size and put your info on it if its recoverable. I pray they saved the whole drive. I'll let you guys know when I get it back.

I wish I had had it backed up. 1 TB of data. Makes your heart sink.
 
n4gix said:
I drove 32 miles to the Tiger Direct store in Orland Park, Illinois only to discover to my utter shock that their store outlet is CLOSED! :yikes:

So a 64 mile round trip for nothing. Fortunately, there is a Best Buy near that location where I did find a WD "Blue" 1TB HD on sale for $54.99, and a SanDisk 240 GB SSD for $79.99. Unfortunately, the way my sim machine's HD is arranged, I'm not able to clone only the OS to the SSD, so am cloning to the new WD 1TB drive instead.
Click to expand...

Your sure must of been in a tizzy over the HD. Did you forget? Let your fingers do the walking or in this case the driving. :idea:
 
I use a program called speedfan to check HD smart params, as they keep a large data base of tested HD..which helps to make the decision to replace a well used hd....
Bill you can sometime get a drive to come back to life for a short while by doing the drop repair :) only do this on a drive you have given up on and just before it go's in the bin
hold the drive 4 to 6 inchs above a solid table with the sata connectors facing up.. let go of the drive :) make sure you keep your hands close to it so it doesn't fall flat when it hits the table..
Ive done this heaps of times and at best its a 50/50 shot
 
Well, yesterday afternoon the "old" HD finally got to the point where it will no longer boot at all, so I reluctantly installed the 240 GB SSD and used my last Win7 OEM install disk on it. I now have a totally virgin Win7 SP1 system. Oddly enough though, there were no drivers at all for most of the computer's peripherals at all, the most essential being the bloody Ethernet adapter!

Out of desperation, I shut it down and installed the now non-bootable HD as a secondary drive, started it up and managed to recover all the required drivers by searching the "old HD"... :wizard: So today I get the "fun" of installing the new HD as the secondary drive, and installing FSX + Acceleration, FSX:SE, P3Dv2.5 and... well, you get the idea. :banghead:

One odd thing though; for some reason I'm unable to access any other of the computers on my LAN, even though I've joined the "Home Group" and have full permissions for access configured on the remote computers.
 
There should be a way of getting the new SSD to boot as the new HD. I had this issue with a new computer and ended up taking it back. As for the Alienware, I took out the old HD and disconnected the other HD's and it installed and worked fine, then later I installed the other HD's.

Some computers refuse to use an SSD as a main HD unless there is no choice, and even then, some (some) refuse to anyways, so there is a work around to get them to 'lock' into the new drive.

One way is to get the other drive to be disconnected, install the SSD, get it running, then when the computer is running, turn on the second HD and erase windows out of the second HD. You should then be good to go. Thats if the SSD is booting up find without the other drive.

The most important space I think for a SSD (550/550+ read write) is where your main work will be. Saving a Max file that is 30 megs or a massive graphics file is one place where it is used. For a hard core gamer, its going to be either the HD that has the game(s) on it, or the primary HD with the OS on it, as a SSD is LIGHTNING FAST!!!!!!!!

So cool to boot up in the computer in 3 long seconds, lolol...

If you can, get another SSD so you have SSD's in the full loop. You'll love it.


EDIT: I think it was Windows 8 (cough) that couldnt do a SSD as the main OS drive.
 
Win7 installed on the 240GB SSD (C:) without any drama, and I've finally got it purring along nicely. Six seconds to cold boot is really nice!

The only thing aside from the OS I'm going to allow on the SSD are the User folders, and that only because I don't know how to have them on the 1TB HD (D:). I intend for all other files that get changed a lot on the HD.

I wish I could trust the "old 1TB HD" to work, because I seem to have misplaced my Acceleration Disk, so had to (re)install FSX:SE as a stand-alone version. Sadly though, some of our products won't work with FSX:SE yet, so I'm unable to test my installers on the sim machine at the moment. Darn!

I've got P3Dv2.5 installed on the D: drive, but can't activate it because I was unable to "uninstall" from the "old HD" and auto-reset the L-M server. I've sent an email for help, but no idea when that might get done.
 
One of the ways I have recovered data for friends when their HDs packed it in is to put the drive in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Then I quickly hook it up and get as much off as I can. I find this trick gives me 5 to 15 minutes to move data to a USB drive.

CK
 
I got my drive back from Seagate. They put everything on a small size 1TB external drive. Very grateful that they could save it. Looks like all of my files are rescued.


Bill
 
If you understand hexadecimal code the FAT and file headers there is software that will allow you to access the raw data on a hard drive. I used to do this in the old days of DOS when drives started to go bad especially when you ended up with bad sectors in the FAT. Check this software out. It requires the drive to be unmounted.

http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/
 
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