Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with hard

EIEIOmega

rleamon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:04:20 -0800

My Iomega external hard drive died... Any chance of getting it going again? Or getting the drive(s) out and into another case? It's an Iomega HDD2H, 640GB, silver case, and I'm pretty sure it's two 320GB drives in a RAID 0 configuration. (Specs are hard to come by for this, sadly.) The case has four screws attaching the outer enclosure that mainly serves to provide feet, but the inner enclosure holding the ddrives defied my initial attempts to open it -- no apparent screws or other modes of ingress. I found a suggestion to try another external power supply with it and happened to have an exact twin that came with another drive -- but no go.

I'd rather rescue the data somehow and have a hard time believing the drives themselves are the problem; it seems more like a power issue. But even if I could get the drives out, what are the chances I could use another RAID enclosure (which I happen to have) and retrieve the data?

Lastly, yes, it's out of warranty, and Iomega quoted a minimum $900 to get the data back. Yikes!

Dual-Bay SATA Enclosures

sdis — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:05:09 -0800

Dual-bay SATA Enclosures! Which ones let me copy from one drive to the other on a Mac? I have my eye out on this inexpensive one, and in the end, I want a box into which I can stuff two harddrives, copy stuff between them, and copy stuff between my internal laptop harddrive and them. Bonus points if I can hook it up via USB to my Airport Extreme and get two network drives.

Will this EagleTech one do what I need? If not, what will?

(Having trouble finding detailed info on this enclosure, although from various reviews, it appears that it supports RAID 0 as well as "normal", though I'm not clear what "normal" would be in this circumstance)

Registry info from a crusty old drive?

ian1977 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:23:45 -0800

Can I get old registry data off a 2nd hard-drive? I had a program installed on an old computer that won't fire up. I can take the hard drive and install it on a different pc...but I need to go to regedit to get the program's licence key. I go to regedit and it only seems to have programs listed on my main drive. If I move the program from the crusty old drive into the new drive, it doesn't seem to bring the licence info with it.

I just need the license info so that I can get the discount on version two of the software.

Is the license key hiding somewhere that I can find it? The FAQ of the software says I would normally be able to find it here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Ross Bencina\AudioMulch\1.0\Registered User

At least for once, I have good backups...

tkolstee — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:46:01 -0800

iMac drives failing - first external, then internal. Seems to be hardware in both cases. Questions about troubleshooting or replacement inside. My 1TB external media drive (usually connected via firewire, but has USB as well) on my iMac went bad last week, randomly dropping off until it's powercycled. It was a WD MyBook, which I have now come to understand has an overheating issue. The firmware upgrade didn't help. I bought a new (1.5TB Seagate USB 2.0) external and migrated over the files using rsync. Opening the external case and pointing a desktop fan at the drive seemed to help it stay up longer, but SEVERAL times during the process it crashed, sometimes hanging the host computer with it. Several forced powercycles and hours later, I had all my data moved. One of these crashes happened in the middle of a Spotlight index job which I tried to kill to no avail.

I was just about to "retire" the old drive when it crashed once more, again hanging the iMac. I held down the power button on the iMac and forcefully rebooted it, and this time the system came up to the "question-mark-within-a-folder" icon. Booted from Snow Leopard install DVD, and tried to run Disk Utility. Disk Utility was having some problems detecting the filesystem/partitions on the internal drive, so I tried to repartition it to restore my Time Machine backup and found that its capacity was listed as 0 bytes.

I've gotten the drive to (briefly) recognize properly once, but most of the time the drive begins clicking as it's trying to read. When it was recognized I attempted a verify and repair, but the drive stopped working (and again hung the computer) in the middle of the process.

Is there any possible correlation (unstable power, magnetic interference, sunspots?) between the external and internal drives failing so closely together? It seems like this is a hardware failure where both drives are concerned; the external due to heat intolerance, and the internal due to unknown causes but making a telltale click. Could the internal drive have failed due to my powercycling the machine? I would think the machine should have brains enough to gracefully kill off its drive before shutting itself off....

Secondly, is there anything else I can do to save the drive? I'm assuming the click generally means the drive won't ever be good again. I know about the freezer trick and other temporary methods, but I don't care about the data on the drive as it's backed up and easily replaceable.

Third, if the internal drive is permanently dead, how easy is it to replace it with a new one? I have a 3.5" 250GB SATA drive that I can use to replace it, but have never taken apart an iMac before.

Lastly, is there anything I can do with the overheating external? It seems to work fine, so long as I direct a lot of airflow at it, but otherwise it crashes within 30-60 minutes of use. It seems to be getting more intolerant of heat as time goes on.

The receipt lists this as an "iMac 17/2.0/1G/160/SD/AP/BT/WLKBM, Part Number MA758LL/A". It was purchased July 29, 2007 so is not still under any warranty.

Motorola S9 Headphones - Hard Case?

intrigued — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:51:59 -0800

I need a hard case for my Motorola S9-HD Wrap Around Headphones. They came with a cloth pouch, but I need something solid to protect the headphones from being crushed while in my bag. Does anyone in the MiFi crowd have these headphones and a hard case, or know where I could buy one? I would even be willing to pay to have a case made.

All thoughts are welcome!

- - -
Photos of the headphones:

Here is a link to the Motorola site:

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Consumers/global/flash_content/microsites/s9hd/index.html

And a few random google image results of the headphones:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS315US320&um=1&sa=1&q=motorola+s9+hd&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0&imgtbs=z&imgsz=m

Are there any hard drive enclosures for 3.5" form HDs that can be powered off a USB port alone?

chefscotticus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:30:29 -0800

Are there any hard drive enclosures for 3.5" form HDs that can be powered off a USB port alone? (ie, without additional AC plug) I'm looking for a HD enclosure to use with a Western Digital 1.5 TB Caviar Green SATA Hard Drive (WD15EADS) that wouldn't require me to plug an AC adapter into the wall. WD claims this drive uses 40% less power -- not sure if that matters.

It will be primarily connected to a MacBook (5.1) that has 2 USB 2.0 ports, but no FireWire.

My external hard drive wont work

sockpim — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:23:24 -0800

until today, my laptop wont read and open up my external hard drive. i haven't unplugged it without safely removing it or anything either. it also makes this constant tapping noise, like the sound of a tap dripping. (which it never used to make) does anyone know what i can do to make my laptop find my external or fix it? cheers

Please help me make school more bearable

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:47:46 -0800

How do I learn intimidating material without making myself miserable? I am in a mathematical/logical course this summer. Perfecting the material requires extended practice more than anything else - knowing how to solve a problem correctly is more of a "skill knowledge" thing than a "fact knowledge" thing. Because it is 13 weeks of material (in the regular year) being squeezed into 6 (half a summer credit), the course moves veeeery quickly, so there isn't really very much time for all that practice you need. When I study for this course, the following sequence occurs, pretty much always:

1) Do some problems.
2) Inevitably, make some mistakes (because otherwise you wouldn't need to learn, right?)
3a) Become despondent and insecure, cry: I'm stupid, I'll never pass the course, etc.
And/or:
3b) Become frustrated and angry, scribble out the whole page, crumple up my paper, hit the table, etc.

I am acutely aware that this behavior is self-defeating and ridiculous. Studying becomes so emotionally intense that it makes me strongly disinclined to study, and less effective when I do manage to make myself study. (Nonetheless, I work on this class for 4-8 hours every day.) And I do not know how to turn it off: By the time I've made my second or third mistake, the tears are welling up, by my third or fourth, I'm crying. On bad days, it takes less than that.

It's worth noting that I've always harbored extreme intellectual insecurities (I can remember feeling this way as far back as kindergarten), and I've always resorted to coasting/not trying when they threatened me: If you don't try, you can't really fail. The alternative is to face your own limitations, which is scary. Because I've been able to successfully progress through my entire education up until now, in my last year of undergrad, while coasting, I haven't had a very strong incentive to work on this problem. This is the first time I've ever really tackled it, which itself constitutes progress. But it's really, really hard. It's horrible and draining. I hate it. And I've been at it for a while, and it's not getting any better.

I think I've always held a strong but implicit belief that smart people do not have to try - they understand things immediately, and they don't make mistakes. I've seen the literature (e.g. Carol Dweck's work) that makes clear what a destructive attitude this is toward learning.

I'm asking for two kinds of coping strategies here:

1) Short-term ones that will allow me to get through the last week or so of the course while enduring a minimum of misery. (Do such things exist? Is there any way I can reduce the intensity of this problem in the short term by even, say, 10%?)
2) Long-term ones that will allow me to tackle this problem the next time I encounter it (and, given what an enduring issue this is for me, and that I want to continue in academia, I will encounter it again.)

More specifically, I'm looking for concrete practices I can implement when my emotions begin to overwhelm me, ways I can intervene in this emotional progression that feels very much outside the control of my conscious, rational mind (which knows I'm being ridiculous.) Just telling myself (or hearing other people tell me) that I'm being absurd is not enough.

Before anyone brings it up: I'm in CBT. I have long-standing and documented, diagnosed issues with depression and anxiety. Picking up meditation is on my "to-do" list, but it's not something I have time for right now, in the midst of this crazy, fast-paced course.

Pick a rolling hard case for transporting meeting IT hardware

PetiePal — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:11:35 -0800

Help me find a good box to transport a projector, laptop, cables and power cords in, preferably with wheels etc. I'm the IT manager for a Solar Panel manufacturing company. We have numerous meetings out-of-office at local hotels/convention centers. Every quarter we also have a huge quarterly meeting. I always have to pack up the loaner laptop, projector, extension cords, power strips and cables which usually ends up being 2 bags etc.

I'm looking to buy some sort of hard case that with wheels and handle (like a roller bag but a case) that I could use to create 2 of these "Meeting in a boxes" so that when employees need them for off-site they can easily grab everything in one place. I need some recommendations on good brands or models of boxes to look into. It would house the following (for size estimates):

-Dell WX1609 Widescreen Projector
-Dell Latitude D630 or E6400 laptop
-PowerSquid surge protector
-Optical Mouse
-Extension cord (6ft.)

So nothing too huge really! Thanks in advance!

What's left to try on a dead SeaGate before paying for data recovery?

Avenger50 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:30:53 -0800

500GB internal SeaGate hard drive disappears from Windows, Linux, and the BIOS. What can I try before I pay to have the data recovered? Tested it with a few different operating systems and a few different machines, and though it always "spins up" this year-old SeaGate drive, configured with no operating system and a single partition, doesn't show up anywhere to mount or browse, like it's just not there. Besides the well-documented freezer trick, what's left to try before I send it to one of several MeFi-recommended recovery companies for $1000 or more?

Ipod Hard Drive Replacement Fail!

sully75 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:50:24 -0800

Just put a new hard drive in my 5G Ipod. It's sort of working but sort of not. Should I return the hard drive? Is my Ipod finally toasted? I've had this Ipod for 4 years now and use it constantly. I've replaced the LCD once (cracked it) and the earphone jack 2x. Recently the earphone jack broke again, and then the hard drive seemed to fry.

I ordered a new earphone jack off ebay, and a new Toshiba hard drive (this is a 60gb Ipod). I put both in last night. Earphone jack sounds great. Hard drive initially was doing good. But I feel a lot of pulsing, angry vibrations from it now. Last night, it was really grindy and then it crashed. I was able to start it right up again. This morning it's hard to add music to...keeps saying "Can't find the file" or something like that.

So I'm wondering, is it probably true that I got a bad replacement hard drive? Should I try to return the hard drive and get a new one? Or is it something that's wrong with my Ipod? I am able to add music to it, play it, make playlists, etc the way it is. It didn't used to pulse and make noise like this with the old drive. If it's working, does that mean that the hard drive is bad? Or could something else screwed up in the Ipod be making the hard drive fail?

What are the pitfalls of installing my OS on a 1TB hard drive?

Sully — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:38:43 -0800

Due to a virus corrupting my USB drivers, I've been thinking about a fresh WinXP install. But I'm thinking of getting a 1TB hard drive (my current one is 250). My question is, are there any potential pitfalls in having a HD that is so big? Other than the fact that it might fail six months in and I lose a large chunk of stuff. The reason why I want a huge HD is that I like the feeling that I don't have to worry about all the crap I might put on my desktop, or how many videogames I want to install.

What is the best way of backing up video recorded on SDHC cards?

chefscotticus — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:26:13 -0800

What is the best way of backing up video recorded on SDHC cards? Is it possible to upload data from a SDHC card to an external hard drive without a computer? I am about to embark on a two month documentary project in Ethiopia, and I need help figuring out the most effective equipment set up.

My requirements are this: (1) I need to record 30 hours of footage, (2) I want everything I record to exist in two places, (3) my set up needs to remain small, portable, and inexpensive (sub $2000).

I am currently planning on using a Canon HF S100 to record on to several SDHC cards (I will have to reuse the cards, rather than archive them, as they are too expensive). I will then, using a card reader and a netbook computer, upload the SDHC cards to two separate 500GB external hard drives.

But this is a clumsy set up. Is there a better way of doing this? Is it possible to upload data from a SDHC card to an external hard drive without a computer?

Why does my File Browser keep opening?

carsonb — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:49:44 -0800

There are currently 4 File Browsers open on my desktop, all displaying either the contents of my external hard drive or the folder where it's mounted (/media/). I didn't open them—they just showed up. This morning when I woke up there was 40+ File Browser windows open of the same. Another window just opened; it seems to occur at random intervals. I'm running Ubuntu Linux 8.10, wtf is causing this? It's been going on for about a week now. My external drive is a 500gb WD network drive that's been ripped out of its original case, rehoused in a new external enclosure, wiped and repartitioned as ext3, and plugged directly into my desktop. I keep my music collection on it, and about a week ago Amarok totally forgot that I have any music files. I checked the path marked for the collection; Amarok still knows where the files are, and will play them if I drag/drop them from the browser into the playlist, but it doesn't report that I have a collection. Oddly, saved playlists still work.

Then, yesterday, the drive wouldn't even mount. Every time I tried I got an odd error message that didn't turn up many results in the Google. (Hasn't happened today and I don't have the text of the msg saved.) The only concrete suggestion I got from searching was to try testdisk to root out any bad sectors, find missing partitions, etc. So I ran that, didn't really find any problems, but had the program re-write the partition table anyway. The drive mounted after I did that, but has so far continued the original bad behavior.

I've banged on all the relevant keyboard keys; it's not a stuck key. I've unplugged the drive to let it cool down and plugged it back in. I've tried prayer and idol worship and what seems like a million other things. I'm running out of ideas here.

What's going on? (4 more File Browsers have opened in the background while I typed this.) How do I make it stop? Do I have a virus? (My computer is acting like I never expected a Linux desktop to, coming from buggy, virusy Windows.) Is my drive dying? How can I get Amarok to recognize my collection again? Failing relevant answers to the above, what's the easiest way to close a zillion (but not all) windows at once?

Treating Hard Water

page123 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:58:11 -0800

What product is effective in doing dishes in hard water?

Best hard drive practice?

edbyford — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:51:48 -0800

Is CHKDSK actually any good? I had a problem a few months ago where my hard drive started corrupting my files. I don't blame chkdsk for this, but when I was trying to sort out how I could recover some of these files, somebody implied that all chkdsk did was mark the sector bad, rather than try and save what is on there. Is this true? If so, isn't it a pretty bad hard disk checker?

Now, my hard drive contains many many photos, music and video files, which I want to make sure don't get corrupted or damaged in any way. What would you recommend I use or do to check my files over and make sure they're ok?

TIA.

Apple Says It Should Copy ... Why Won't It?

Gingercat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:26:21 -0800

Why Can't I Copy My iTunes Library to an External Drive? Hi, I'm trying to back up my iTunes library to an external (WD MyBook) 320 GB USB drive (because I'd rather back it up than do the cumbersome method of backing it up to DVD/CD that iTunes 8 provides. For some reason, every time I try to copy the folder over, Windows XP Pro SP3 (on my laptop) insists that it can't copy it, but the error doesn't specify the specific folder or file it's hanging on.

I'm running off my Administrator account on the laptop, so it shouldn't be a rights/permissions issue. I'd really like to back it up in case I ever have to upgrade, so if someone could suggest why Windows isn't allowing me to copy the folder over, I would appreciate it.

How do I stop windows from taking over my portable hard drive

Syntoad — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:40:02 -0800

I have a portable usb hard drive that I use for keeping all my documents / backups on. Windows seems to love using this drive for everything, for example I am installing IE7 from windows update, and it is using the drive to hold all the temporary files during the install. Because of this the drive is always in use and I can never eject it. Using unlocker I can see that no less than three services are holding files open on this drive, and system restore is also using it (even though I disabled it for the external drive)

How can I get windows to treat this external the same way it treats a USB stick, instead of it treating it like an actual hard drive?

Data Storage Appliance

Area Control — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:18:38 -0800

Anyone own one of these? MvixBOX. I'm wondering if it lived up to your expectations.

Hard water stains

hardbop — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:27:57 -0800

How do you clean hard water rust stains from plastic and rubber? The fridge front door where you get water and ice has nasty brown stains on the rubber levers and plastic drip tray.

Hard drive fails SMART status.

ofthestrait — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:33:28 -0800

What to do about a hard drive failure? Disk Utility says my SMART status is failing. So I upgraded the hard drive on my 15" MacBook Pro. I installed a Samsung HM251JJ, 250GB/7200rpm SATA drive. When I went to Disk Utility after booting up it wouldn't let me partition the drive because the SMART status read: "failing". I downloaded SMART Utility for OSX and the specific problem is a high "Reallocated Bad Sectors" count. (1068, threshold is 10.) What should I do? I purchased the HD from Micro Computer Center.

1. Do I need to worry about this? Obviously it's telling me I have to replace the drive but it's working fine.
2. Is this my fault (something happened during installation, it was my first time opening up the MBP) or a preexisting problem with the drive? Will Samsung replace it for me or do I need to take it back to the store. I'd like to avoid taking it back simply because the store is in Michigan and I am in New York.

Thanks in advance.

Will operating an external hard drive at a 45 degree angle reduce its life?

pseudonick — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:29:26 -0800

Will operating an external hard drive at a 45 degree angle significantly reduce its life? I'd like to tuck an external hard drive into a drawer, but it will only fit at a 45 degree angle. It works fine now, but are external hard drives sensitive to angle of installation? Will this greatly increase my likelihood of the drive failing?

It may fit somewhere else at a 90 degree angle (flipped on it's side) though this would be slightly less convenient for me. Would this be better than the 45 degree installation?

Portable Media Centre

edbyford — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:46:22 -0800

I've just bought an external hard drive for carrying around my music, movies, and pictures. Is there a portable media centre program I could also put on it? At home I use XBMC, and I love it!

However, when I'm playing movies etc. on someone else's computer, I don't want to have to install XBMC on their computer to get the same functionality.

Is there a program designed to be lightweight, portable (and preferably open source) which I could store on my external drive and just run it when playing back movies on someone's computer?

Can a drive that is encrypted with software-based full disk encryption be cloned?

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:43:47 -0800

Can a drive that is encrypted with software-based full disk encryption be cloned? I have a laptop with a hard drive that is encrypted with software-based full disk encryption (Utimaco SafeGuard Easy), and I want to upgrade to a faster and larger drive. Can the entire drive be cloned without unencrypting the drive? Will I be able to clone to a larger drive? I am not able to remove/modify/reconfigure the encryption software, as it was installed by the IT overlords.

(For extra points, any suggestions for open-source/free cloning software?)

What did I do wrong?

peewinkle — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:02:57 -0800

So I was trying to install a slave drive into an old Gateway box and now it won't see the OS. Help! (Long, confusing story ensues) (disclaimer: I am a novice, at best, hardware guy)

I recently dumpster-dove an old Gateway Essential 500.
-Pentium III
-Windows 98
-20 Gig HD
-128 RAM

I deleted everything I didn't want off of the machine. I found it surprisingly quick. So I loaded my audio editing software onto it (Cool Edit Pro 2.1, Audacity, etc) and discovered that it performs much faster than the Dell Dimension I have been using. (I am a ghetto-tech audio engineer. I record music onto a Fostex DAW and then dump the files into CEP to mix/edit/etc).

After installing a Dio 2448 soundcard (for monitor reference) and an Ethernet card (it still had a dial-up card when I found it), and finding the drivers and getting those to work correctly, I found the machine will work great as a stand-alone music-editing work station. I only installed the ethernet card to facilitate data transfer from my network, not to connect to the internet.

I also installed a faster CD/RW drive and a DVD/RW drive. After a few days of frustration, I also got those working fine (somehow). The machine then ran like a song. Booted up in like 20 seconds, worked great.

Well, a 20-gig HD isn't a lot for audio processing, as far as data storage goes. (I have already ordered more RAM, two 256-sticks for even faster processing).

So I decided to install a Western Digital 450AA 45 gig HD as a slave. I figured I would install that, clone the 20 gig HD onto that, turn the 450AA into a single drive, replace the 20 gig drive with a Western Digital WD400, and use that as a slave, making the 450AA the master.

Well, I installed the 450AA. Found the correct jumper pin locations for a slave drive, hooked it up and fired the machine up. Went into BIOS and it recognized both HD's. So I configured them as Primary (20-gig) and Secondary (450AA). But I forgot to change the jumper on the original 20 gig HD to "master" from "single."

Now the computer won't boot. I can get into Bios, have played around a little bit, but realize I don't know enough to mess with it too much.

After the Bios initial start up, I get the message "Operating System Not Found."

I removed the 450AA and tried again, same result.

I have reset the Bios to default settings and get still the same result.

I have tried safe mode.

Still with me?

Question one: Did I blow the original 20 gig HD by trying to boot with the 450AA hooked up like that?

I tried running a boot disc (three, actually, that I have found and downloaded) but I can't get the machine to boot from either the CD nor the DVD drive. It wants to boot from the floppy, but I have no way to make floppy boot discs. In BIOS, it says the CD and DVD drives are secondary drives and that there are no primary drives. I cannot seem to make either a primary drive, if that even matters. I also cannot get the BIOS to boot from the "boot" menu.

Question two: Am I in way over my head?

I have also tried installing both the 450AA and WD400 drives as single drives, and have had the same results, though I have no idea what are on them. All three drives spin up when started, ,but after the 'Gateway" /enter BIOS screen, I get the same result.

This is the first time I have ever messed with the internals of a machine, other than installing sound cards.

Question three: Why does this old Gateway with 128 RAM run CEP much smoother and faster than my Dell Dimension that has 512 RAM? (The Dell has a 80 gig master drive and a 20 gig slave). I have removed as many back ground processes as I could off of the Dell and it is still slow, compared to the Gateway.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Or should I just STFU and leave such things to people who know? (Remember- key word here is GHETTOTECH).

Thanks very much in advance for any advice, ideas, and or knowledge.