Having a Drive Failing. Advice

[Ron Barry]

I am having a drive fail. Any advice on how to possible keep it alive so I can back up the data. It does work off and on, but definitely on its last leg.

[PokerJoker]

It's quite possible that this is a heat-related failure in progress. The 622 is a known overheater. Make sure it is out in the open and not inside any kind of rack or cabinet. As a last resort you can take the lid off the box (remove 4 small phillips screws on the perimeter of the back panel, slide the lid back slightly, lift off) and position a desk fan so it blows a lot of air down into the hard drive and circuit board area.

This might not help at all, but in my case it kept a failing 622 alive for an extra week.

There is no warranty seal on the box lid so don't worry about that. The usual caveats apply - keep your fingers and foreign material out, keep children away, don't lose the four screws.

Good luck with it, and good luck when you have to call Apu to get it replaced.

Keith

[Ron Barry]

this is not my 622. this is one of my drives in my home PC. :D

[scooper]

Get the data backed up ASAP and replace. If this is a boot disk, I'd suggest getting GHOST image quickly.

[Marlin Guy]

Ron, shut down the system and let it cool.
Open the box and make sure the drive is getting good ventilation.
If possible, pull the drive and attach it to an external adapter, then to another machine. Go for the most important files first and work your way back to the least important.

[PokerJoker]

this is not my 622. this is one of my drives in my home PC. :D

Oops, my bad. :o

Same basic theory might still apply. Back it up NOW.

Keith

[fmcomputer]

Obtain a new drive of equal or larger size and interface using a usb adapter. Obtain a copy of Paragon Disk Copy and mirror to new drive. If drive is SATA you might be able to connect directly to motherboad, and forget usb interface. Good Luck

[Ron Barry]

I am moving from EIDE to SATA. I thought i Read something here a while back about if a drive has appeared to fail freezing it and then running it might give you enough time to get the data off the drive. Perhaps I just had that in a bad memory but thought I would through it out.

[Marlin Guy]

Freezing can work if the failure is based on mechanical issues like bearings seizing.
I'd try it as a last resort only.
If the drive isn't making any irregular noises, a utility like Spinrite can sometimes help recover lost files.

[rudeney]

My mother-in-law called me last Wednesday with computer problems and it turned out to be a failing HD. Her computer is about six years old and had an 80gb PATA IBM Deskstar HD. I took it home and put it in an external USB case and tried to recover it. It was definitely a bad bearing as it would work for a few minutes then fail. After an hour or two of sitting, it would work again for a few minutes.

I was finally able to recover her critical data. The first thing I did was to put some penetrating oil (don't use WD-40!) in the bearing. This required removing some plastic stickers so I access the ends of the spindle axes. The other thing I did was to wrap the drive in an ice pack (using a cloth to keep moisture way from the circuit board). Between the oil and cooling, I was able to keep it running long enough to get what I needed.

Another time, I had the controller board fail on a drive and I was able to swap it with a working one. I think that was a Maxtor drive and it was a common problem.

[Ron Barry]

Well I definitely getting a high pitch whine on the drive and I have heard some clicking.

[RasputinAXP]

sounds mechanical to me. Freeze it for about 10 min, 15 tops (CONDENSATION BAD) to chill it down then get as much off it as possible.