Why did a good whack fix my (assumed) broken hard drive?

November 21, 2005 11:53 AM

So I thought for certain the hard drive on my old desktop G4 was dead. Upon startup, I was getting the "whirr CLICK whirr CLICK whirr CLICK whirr CLICK" sound, followed by the flashing question mark on my screen. Out of frustration, I gave the HD the ol' Fonzie: I whacked it good three or four times. I am now typing this on said computer. What happened?

I'd tried starting the machine 5 or 6 times with the same "whirr CLICK" result. The sound was definitely coming from my hard drive - I tried startup with the case open. Everything was connected properly - I didn't knock any connections (either of them) into place with my whacking. The HD's obviously not fried, so what can I do to ensure this doesn't happen again? Anything?

posted by Item to computers & internet (25 comments total)

Get your important stuff off that hard drive right now, it will be dead soon.
posted by knave at 11:55 AM on November 21, 2005

You should start by backing up your data. Now. Before turning off your computer again.
posted by jon_kill at 11:55 AM on November 21, 2005

Holy crap, backup your data as quickly as possible and get a new hard drive.

Hard drives die. Never trust them.
posted by chrismear at 11:55 AM on November 21, 2005

The drive motor in a disk drive has very low torque. Often when they get old, they lose enough lubrication and gain enough resistance that they have trouble getting things started - but once started, will run fine (see also: old cars and static friction vs. dynamic friction). You have a reprieve. Get all your data OFF that drive, without ever turning the machine off - because the next time you try to restart it, it might not.
posted by jellicle at 11:58 AM on November 21, 2005

You heard what they said... they're not kidding.
posted by rolypolyman at 11:59 AM on November 21, 2005

Could have been the power supply...I've done the 'whack' with monitors before. Like everyone else, back up your important stuff NOW...after thought...go grab an external enclosure, just in case. Someone needs to look at that machine ASAP.
posted by filmgeek at 11:59 AM on November 21, 2005

.. although to add a bright note to this discussion, I will add that I had an HP laptop do this to me a month ago. I got all the data off and severely cut down on using it, and it seems to be running ok so far. I certainly don't trust it anymore, though.
posted by rolypolyman at 12:00 PM on November 21, 2005

I had the same noise from my laptop. Trying to start it a few times would sometimes get it to start, and resetting the nvram seemed to work once when it failed to detect the hard drive several times in a row. Sure enough, the drive was dead a couple months later.
posted by mikeh at 12:01 PM on November 21, 2005

Back your stuff up now. Buy a new hard drive and start fresh.
posted by BrandonAbell at 12:04 PM on November 21, 2005

Maybe the pickup was stuck on the disk, my friend had this problem with a Rio device and a whack in the right direction popped it free
posted by hortense at 1:00 PM on November 21, 2005

What everyone else said: the hard drive is dying; it will soon be dead. You might have six weeks, you might have a day. Act accordingly.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:28 PM on November 21, 2005

This happens so often there is a term for it: sticktion. You want to get your data off at your first chance.
posted by Mitheral at 1:47 PM on November 21, 2005

Maybe the pickup was stuck on the disk

If the head is touching the disk your drive is already dead.
posted by mendel at 1:52 PM on November 21, 2005

Oh yeah, and don't turn it off until you've backed it up, it may not start up again.
posted by fake at 2:44 PM on November 21, 2005

My personal experience with this phenomenon was with a computer kept in a damp room. And it never died, it kept going just fine for years, except for needing the whack to get going.

But yes, as everyone else says, you should proceed as if it had a red LED on it with only 17 minutes left. 16:59; 16:58...
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:51 PM on November 21, 2005

I'm delighted to report that I resurrected an HD this way once, and sure enough, a couple hours later it conked out permanently. I got all the good stuff off it, though.

You've been warned! Go now and do thou likewise.
posted by ikkyu2 at 3:30 PM on November 21, 2005

In case nobody else said so, you should back it up now. Pronto.

Although I've got a hard drive in my computer that's been clicking like that for years. I don't put anything important on it, cause I know it will die as soon as I do.
posted by stovenator at 3:35 PM on November 21, 2005

Yes, backup.

Also, check the power connector to the drive.

If it does die before you managed to back it up do not smack it around again. Instead, stick it in the oven to warm it up for a bit, then try again.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 3:40 PM on November 21, 2005

PurplePorpoise writes "Instead, stick it in the oven to warm it up for a bit, then try again."


Whoa, whoa, whoa! Surely you mean freezer, not oven, right?
posted by mr_roboto at 4:34 PM on November 21, 2005

mendel: "If the head is touching the disk your drive is already dead."

Other than those with ramp-on/ramp-off heads, disks have a suitably lubricated "landing zone" where the heads can actually come in contact with the media safely when the disk powers down. Sadly said lube isn't always perfect, especially after a long time "in flight", hence sticktion.
posted by Freaky at 5:08 PM on November 21, 2005

Back in the day, I did Apple II tech support for a mail-order retailer. A certain brand of hard disk (available in whopping 10 and 20 MB sizes) were notorious for developing stiction. Many tech support calls included the phrase, "Now pick the unit up about six inches off the desk, and drop it." Some of them had to be talked into doing it: "It's already not working, what have you got to lose?" The grateful customer was then advised to back up immediately (to 5.25" floppies, natch) and send the drive in for repair.

Good times, good times. Some things never change...
posted by kindall at 6:52 PM on November 21, 2005

Oven? Definitely not!

The "freezer trick" works, but it's a little more exact than just putting it in the freezer. First of all, don't do it at all unless the drive has gotten to the point where it's unusable. You should have most (if not all) of your stuff backed up by this point anyway, but if you just need a few more minutes, the freezer trick could provide just what you need.

Get a ziplock bag, freezer bags are best but the little sandwich bags are fine. Put the hard drive in, and press all of the air out of it (if you have a bigger bag, stick a straw in, seal it up except for where the straw is, and suck the air out). The idea here is to make sure that no condensation can form on the drive.

Put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes, preferable sandwiched between a couple of well-frozen items. Much less than that, and it won't be effective. Much more, and it might do more harm than good.

After the 20 minutes are up, take it out of the freezer, plug it into your computer, turn it on, and copy what you need off of the drive as fast as humanly possible, because you probably only have 10 minutes or so.

The freezer trick can usually be repeated once or twice, being less effective each time.
posted by CrayDrygu at 9:25 PM on November 21, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sometimes just turning a dying hard drive upside down is enough to turn bad sectors good for long enough to retrieve them.
posted by flabdablet at 11:29 PM on November 21, 2005

The freezer trick was in relation to a bad batch of Fujitsu hard drives. A chip on the controller board used to fail due to heat, so leaving the computer off for a while or freezing the hard disk would give you time to start up and get your data off.

IBMs also had similar problems but that was just down to crazy controllers, a low level format used to fix them good.
posted by Nik_Doof at 9:19 AM on November 22, 2005

The heating-it-up trick is to lower the viscocity of the lubrication fluids. Definitely a effort of last resort and isn't terribly effective.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:16 AM on November 22, 2005