2nd internal harddive

October 14, 2007 7:52 PM

if my computer crashes will I lose my data on my second internal harddrive like I would on my first?

This is something I've been wondering for awhile now but never could find an answer to it. This past year I installed a second internal hard drive into my desktop pc, I was wondering if my computer crashes will I lose my data on my second hdd like I would on my first? I only have media files on my second harddrive no programs or system files, just videos, pictures, and music.

posted by Rustbeard to computers & internet (14 comments total)

You shouldn't.

Having your computer "crash" could mean many things - you don't necessarily have to lose all of your data on your main hard drive either - it depends on how you go about restoring your operating system.
posted by davey_darling at 7:58 PM on October 14, 2007

Any individual component can fail in isolation, as can many at the same time, though the latter is much less common.
posted by trevyn at 7:58 PM on October 14, 2007

That shouldn't happen. If your computer crashes (ie. Blue Screen of Death or completely frozen) your hard drives should be perfectly fine. You will lose anything that you were working on and hadn't saved (on both HDDs if applicable), but this shouldn't affect your hard drives. If your first hard drive does die your second won't* be affected and vice versa.

*Barring your house burning down and the like.
posted by Ctrl_Alt_ep at 8:00 PM on October 14, 2007

If by "crashing" you mean "hard drive failing", then no. There should be no correlation between the failure of one hard drive and any other.

(Assuming that your case isn't at unreasonably high temperatures or that you're not planning on spilling water in such a way as to get both HDs wet, etc)

If on, the other hand, you get a destructive virus, it's likely to affect data on any mounted hard drives.
posted by chrisamiller at 8:33 PM on October 14, 2007

Unless it's the power supply that goes tit's up, it can take out BOTH hard drives as well as other things. If this bothers you, make the second hard drive external with it's own power.
posted by raildr at 9:25 PM on October 14, 2007

Well, who's to say that your "data" HD won't be the one that crashes? Backup.
posted by misterbrandt at 9:31 PM on October 14, 2007

There is a very good that a power spike will render both drives useless.
posted by DZ-015 at 4:24 AM on October 15, 2007

Very good chance, I meant to say. Buy a surge protector - one less thing to worry about...
posted by DZ-015 at 4:25 AM on October 15, 2007

I was wondering if my computer crashes will I lose my data on my second hdd like I would on my first? I only have media files on my second harddrive no programs or system files, just videos, pictures, and music.

Unless your computer is hit by a direct lightning strike--which is to say, completely electrified--the components will fail along a path. The first element of that path (that you can concern yourself with safely) is the electrical socket (buy a surge protector), then the cable goes to the computer. Then, in rough order, the components will fail as follows: power supply, motherboard, hard drives, usb devices. This almost always stops at the power supply, however, and definitely by the motherboard, so your hard drives aren't likely to ever get "zapped."

If, on the other hand, you mean component failure, then just remember that each component is an island to itself when it comes to failure. Losing a graphics card won't make your motherboard die. A lost hard drive doesn't mean another lost hard drive.

The one caveat is that some people RAID their hard drives for either performance or reliability. If they're RAIDed for performance ("striped" or RAID-0), you must have both drive file systems working properly to be recognized by the OS.

If none of that last paragraph made any sense to you, you don't have anything to worry about.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:18 AM on October 15, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Crash" is the simple term for "something broke". It's usually only one thing, but there's not a lot of redundant parts in a computer, so one is all it takes for the whole computer to seem broken.

So the literal answer to your question is: yes, the whole computer could stop working and the problem not be a particular part that you have in mind.

The answer to the question you didn't ask, but is more important: If you care about your data, make backups onto something that isn't always connected to your computer. If you really care about your stuff, move the backup medium far away from the computer, so that a single fire or theft or meteorite doesn't destroy what you want to keep.
posted by cmiller at 5:29 AM on October 15, 2007

I think you've got things backwards. The type of crash you are thinking of is hard drive failure. If your first hard drive fails, your computer will crash. If your second hard drive fails your computer won't crash. But that doesn't mean that your second hard drive is less prone to failure.
posted by winston at 8:25 AM on October 15, 2007

It's possible, but very unlikely.
posted by Nelson at 10:01 AM on October 15, 2007

thanks for all your help guys, i'm a bit paranoid so i just like to to see what are the possibilities
posted by Rustbeard at 2:03 PM on October 15, 2007

So the literal answer to your question is: yes

I think the literal answer is the same as the actual answer, which is no, actually. To wit:

...I was wondering if my computer crashes will I lose my data on my second hdd like I would on my first?...

If your computer crashes--whether that be because of a crashed primary hard drive, or a lost power supply, or a motherboard capacitor failure--your second data drive will be fine. If you were to take that hard drive and place it in a completely different computer it would still work fine.

Computer components are modular for this very reason.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:17 PM on October 15, 2007