Dying drive?
December 1, 2009 7:30 PM Subscribe
Is my hard drive dead? Can I save it, at least long enough to back it up?
I have a 500GB Lacie external harddrive. And a Mac with OSX. When I turn it on, the blue "on" light flashes, but never stops blinking (which it does when it's fully on.) It clicks every four seconds or so, the same clicking noise it makes if one turns it off manually. What could the problem be? How best to save the info on it? I back everything up, it had just been a while for this one.
I have a 500GB Lacie external harddrive. And a Mac with OSX. When I turn it on, the blue "on" light flashes, but never stops blinking (which it does when it's fully on.) It clicks every four seconds or so, the same clicking noise it makes if one turns it off manually. What could the problem be? How best to save the info on it? I back everything up, it had just been a while for this one.
These Lacie drives are notorious for their power supplies failing.
1) If you have another external A/C adapter, try it first.
2) If that doesn't help, take the case apart, pull the HD and put it in another case. You can find inexpensive cases in many places. I like OWC's cases.
3) If the HD is put in a fresh known-good case, then yes it's likely the HD itself has failed. You can sometimes identify the sound of a failing HD by listening to these awesome sound clips here. Seriously, it's like geek nerd audio porn.
If the HD is actually truly failing, sometimes (and it's fairly rare), you can breath some brief life back into the drive by utilizing the "freezer trick" but this depends often on how the HD has failed and/or how badly it's failed.
4) Stop buying Lacie HDs until they fix the long-standing problems with their cases and power supplies. I used to work at a facility where we had about 100 of the Lacie drives. In the one year I worked there, we had a 50%-plus failure rate on the cases/power supplies.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:40 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]
1) If you have another external A/C adapter, try it first.
2) If that doesn't help, take the case apart, pull the HD and put it in another case. You can find inexpensive cases in many places. I like OWC's cases.
3) If the HD is put in a fresh known-good case, then yes it's likely the HD itself has failed. You can sometimes identify the sound of a failing HD by listening to these awesome sound clips here. Seriously, it's like geek nerd audio porn.
If the HD is actually truly failing, sometimes (and it's fairly rare), you can breath some brief life back into the drive by utilizing the "freezer trick" but this depends often on how the HD has failed and/or how badly it's failed.
4) Stop buying Lacie HDs until they fix the long-standing problems with their cases and power supplies. I used to work at a facility where we had about 100 of the Lacie drives. In the one year I worked there, we had a 50%-plus failure rate on the cases/power supplies.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:40 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]
Doh! Forgot the best link of all of them: Super sexy geeky audio porn! Click click, whiiiirr!!
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:42 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:42 PM on December 1, 2009
On preview, seconding the freezer trick. I haven't tried it with an external drive, but it seems to do the trick for internal drives more frequently than you'd think. Seal the drive in a ziploc bag before you put it in the freezer to minimize condensation.
posted by enn at 7:42 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by enn at 7:42 PM on December 1, 2009
If it is not the power supply and it's the drive making the ticking noise no matter what you do, the freezer trick is the next step.
Note about the freezer trick:
Make sure there is NO HUMIDITY in your fridge. If your freezer has ice crystals or shows any sign of needing to be defrosted, do that first.
First, a very general primer on hard drives:
Your hard drive is like a bunch of record players stacked on top of one another. There are 'platters' that store the data, and armatures that read the data off them like a record player arm and needle. Instead of direct contact, as in a record, it reads them magnetically.
If the freezer trick doesn't work, try this:
The armatures that reads the data are stuck at some point, hence the repeating clicking sound. There is a possibility that if you could give them a swift knock, it will free up the jam that's holding the armature where it is. The key is where to knock it. There are two ways that sometimes (1 in 8, lets say) work. You could try knocking it on the edge of a table, about a quarter of the way down from the right edge of the drive (if you look at the drive from the top label, with the power and connectors closest toward you). OR, you could slam the bottom of the drive (the side with the circuit boards) down EVENLY onto a flat surface.
If that doesn't work, you can almost always get the data off the drive, for a price. Recovery estimates cost about $50, and the actual recovery could cost anywhere from $500-$3000. It depends on the drive size, the nature of the damaged part(s), etc. Usually a clicking sound can be fixed fairly easily, with minimal data loss.
posted by chambers at 8:06 PM on December 1, 2009
Note about the freezer trick:
Make sure there is NO HUMIDITY in your fridge. If your freezer has ice crystals or shows any sign of needing to be defrosted, do that first.
First, a very general primer on hard drives:
Your hard drive is like a bunch of record players stacked on top of one another. There are 'platters' that store the data, and armatures that read the data off them like a record player arm and needle. Instead of direct contact, as in a record, it reads them magnetically.
If the freezer trick doesn't work, try this:
The armatures that reads the data are stuck at some point, hence the repeating clicking sound. There is a possibility that if you could give them a swift knock, it will free up the jam that's holding the armature where it is. The key is where to knock it. There are two ways that sometimes (1 in 8, lets say) work. You could try knocking it on the edge of a table, about a quarter of the way down from the right edge of the drive (if you look at the drive from the top label, with the power and connectors closest toward you). OR, you could slam the bottom of the drive (the side with the circuit boards) down EVENLY onto a flat surface.
If that doesn't work, you can almost always get the data off the drive, for a price. Recovery estimates cost about $50, and the actual recovery could cost anywhere from $500-$3000. It depends on the drive size, the nature of the damaged part(s), etc. Usually a clicking sound can be fixed fairly easily, with minimal data loss.
posted by chambers at 8:06 PM on December 1, 2009
Note - the slamming tricks become increasingly less reliable as the HD size increases. I only do it as a last resort, after I've given up hope of all other alternatives.
One last thing - you could look for an identical HD on ebay, buy it, and swap the controller boards on the bottom of the drive. You'll need small torx wrenches, and it might not work, but it's worth a shot. The worst that could happen is that you have a working 500GB hard drive, that you could sell right back on ebay (after swapping the boards back, of course).
posted by chambers at 8:10 PM on December 1, 2009
One last thing - you could look for an identical HD on ebay, buy it, and swap the controller boards on the bottom of the drive. You'll need small torx wrenches, and it might not work, but it's worth a shot. The worst that could happen is that you have a working 500GB hard drive, that you could sell right back on ebay (after swapping the boards back, of course).
posted by chambers at 8:10 PM on December 1, 2009
I would put it in a ziplock bag before putting it in the freezer, just in case.
(NOT GUARANTEEING THIS IS A GOOD IDEA:) Would it extend the chances of getting something off the drive by just keeping it (in the ziplock) in the freezer, with the wires hooked up, and then hooking it up to the Mac, thereby keeping the drive from warming up? Someone else should weigh in on this one.
posted by dunkadunc at 8:16 PM on December 1, 2009
(NOT GUARANTEEING THIS IS A GOOD IDEA:) Would it extend the chances of getting something off the drive by just keeping it (in the ziplock) in the freezer, with the wires hooked up, and then hooking it up to the Mac, thereby keeping the drive from warming up? Someone else should weigh in on this one.
posted by dunkadunc at 8:16 PM on December 1, 2009
i've had problems (and the horrific "i'm dying!" clicking sound) with two separate western digital external hard drives on os x, and tried on windows with no luck, and a message saying "you need to reformat!"
...and both times opening them in ubuntu linux somehow magically let me be able to view and back up my files to another drive so I could reformat. reformatting solved my problems on os x (which I thought was insufficient power) with both drives. ymmv.
posted by sarahj at 8:20 PM on December 1, 2009
...and both times opening them in ubuntu linux somehow magically let me be able to view and back up my files to another drive so I could reformat. reformatting solved my problems on os x (which I thought was insufficient power) with both drives. ymmv.
posted by sarahj at 8:20 PM on December 1, 2009
Your drive is dying. Decide how valuable the data is to you.
If it's not really valuable, go for the freezer tricks and other things.
If it is really valuable, go to a profressional data recovery service. All the ones I've dealt with will analyze the drive and give you a quote for recovery before you are committed to anything.
In either case, be aware that the more you run the drive at this point, the more data you may be damaging beyond recovery.
And, uhh, make backups so you don't have to worry about this kind of thing in the future. Drives fail.
posted by TravellingDen at 8:25 PM on December 1, 2009
If it's not really valuable, go for the freezer tricks and other things.
If it is really valuable, go to a profressional data recovery service. All the ones I've dealt with will analyze the drive and give you a quote for recovery before you are committed to anything.
In either case, be aware that the more you run the drive at this point, the more data you may be damaging beyond recovery.
And, uhh, make backups so you don't have to worry about this kind of thing in the future. Drives fail.
posted by TravellingDen at 8:25 PM on December 1, 2009
On a more positive note, if the data is not super valuable (as previously mentioned) and the drive kind of mounts......
use gnu ddrescue (available in macports I think) and dump an image of the drive to a file.. . then work on recovering data form the file. You may be able to work around the damaged areas of the disk.
posted by TravellingDen at 8:27 PM on December 1, 2009
use gnu ddrescue (available in macports I think) and dump an image of the drive to a file.. . then work on recovering data form the file. You may be able to work around the damaged areas of the disk.
posted by TravellingDen at 8:27 PM on December 1, 2009
In my Dr. Frist opinion the repeated clicking you describe is bad bad bad.
Here is my voodoo for attempting to do the cold rescue in such a situation:
Freeze the unit first- although less likely to provide a solution, continually hammering away on a faulty unit is also bad so I would attempt the most desperate step first.
Freeze it at least overnight. Moisture isn't a big issue with freezing the drive- wrap in cloth or paper towel, then I put them in a plastic bag, I don't go overboard here. Let unit get totally frozen. Don't thaw. You don't need to leave it in the freezer- an hd mostly metal & ceramics and will stay cold for a bit. Regardless get everything else ready- then plug in and pray or do whatever voodoo you do for your computer mojo. You may have a narrow window of time before it fails again. Have patience- leave it plugged in and going for a little bit. For me this has been successful twice. I've probably frozen 50 drives. Those aren't great odds.
Now the alternatives:
Software recovery - track down someone with linux experience - they will be invaluable if you go down this road.
If you send it to a shop (which sound unlikely as you didn't seem desperate for the data) see my comments here about my suggestions for that.
Enclosure failure:
I'll second mrbarrett.com suggestions if it is not the drive but the enclosure- get a different one. Crack the old enclosure open and move the actual HD drive over. DO NOT TREAT this fix as if this jobby were a new external unit- it ain't - see over here for more info about drive life than you probably need. You can get a usb HD reader do-dad for around 15$ at tech centers ie tigerdirect
Expect and prepare for catastrophic disk failure. In my experience, I find less than 1/3 of failed external HD's to be recoverable, and at my shop we swap boards and the whole bit. C'est la vie.
posted by zenon at 9:03 PM on December 1, 2009
Here is my voodoo for attempting to do the cold rescue in such a situation:
Freeze the unit first- although less likely to provide a solution, continually hammering away on a faulty unit is also bad so I would attempt the most desperate step first.
Freeze it at least overnight. Moisture isn't a big issue with freezing the drive- wrap in cloth or paper towel, then I put them in a plastic bag, I don't go overboard here. Let unit get totally frozen. Don't thaw. You don't need to leave it in the freezer- an hd mostly metal & ceramics and will stay cold for a bit. Regardless get everything else ready- then plug in and pray or do whatever voodoo you do for your computer mojo. You may have a narrow window of time before it fails again. Have patience- leave it plugged in and going for a little bit. For me this has been successful twice. I've probably frozen 50 drives. Those aren't great odds.
Now the alternatives:
Software recovery - track down someone with linux experience - they will be invaluable if you go down this road.
If you send it to a shop (which sound unlikely as you didn't seem desperate for the data) see my comments here about my suggestions for that.
Enclosure failure:
I'll second mrbarrett.com suggestions if it is not the drive but the enclosure- get a different one. Crack the old enclosure open and move the actual HD drive over. DO NOT TREAT this fix as if this jobby were a new external unit- it ain't - see over here for more info about drive life than you probably need. You can get a usb HD reader do-dad for around 15$ at tech centers ie tigerdirect
Expect and prepare for catastrophic disk failure. In my experience, I find less than 1/3 of failed external HD's to be recoverable, and at my shop we swap boards and the whole bit. C'est la vie.
posted by zenon at 9:03 PM on December 1, 2009
If it was anything besides a LaCie, I'd think the disk was failing -- but now that I've had two LaCie power supplies fail within a year, I'm convinced that it's a widespread problem with their stupid power supplies. Use your warranty and get them to send you a new one.
posted by xil at 9:22 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by xil at 9:22 PM on December 1, 2009
In fact it's so common that it's been asked about once before.
posted by xil at 9:24 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by xil at 9:24 PM on December 1, 2009
Response by poster: By "power supplies," do you all simply mean the plug + box thingy on the cord, that I plug into the wall? (I realize this sounds a bit daft to ask.)
And thanks for all the advice. The data would be a bummer to lose, but not the end of the world. I'll post my results as soon as I have them.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:31 PM on December 1, 2009
And thanks for all the advice. The data would be a bummer to lose, but not the end of the world. I'll post my results as soon as I have them.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:31 PM on December 1, 2009
Yeah, LaCie drives are simply the most unreliable. It could be the power brick, but it could also be an internal case component. Or it could be the drive itself (the usual meaning of clicking sounds is "you're fucked"). But because it is LaCie, pull the drive and put it in a new known-good enclosure.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:02 AM on December 2, 2009
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:02 AM on December 2, 2009
Clicking sounds almost always mean near death.
You are very correct to now focus your efforts on getting one last backup, and once you have done that, retire the thing. Do not, under any circumstances, think that it's "all fixed now" and go back to using it normally!
posted by rokusan at 7:36 AM on December 2, 2009
You are very correct to now focus your efforts on getting one last backup, and once you have done that, retire the thing. Do not, under any circumstances, think that it's "all fixed now" and go back to using it normally!
posted by rokusan at 7:36 AM on December 2, 2009
I have to agree about LaCie drives (technically, their power supplies and cases and assembly) being unreliable these days. This is very sad because 10-15 years ago, they were among the best and most reliable drives available, and they had great Mac support.
posted by rokusan at 7:37 AM on December 2, 2009
posted by rokusan at 7:37 AM on December 2, 2009
Yes, the power supply is the black box with two plugs: one plugs into the wall, one plugs into the drive.
If yours is failing like mine did:
* it's making a faint hissing noise when plugged in
* the drive is still perfectly good, and works fine after replacing the power supply
posted by xil at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2009
If yours is failing like mine did:
* it's making a faint hissing noise when plugged in
* the drive is still perfectly good, and works fine after replacing the power supply
posted by xil at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by banannafish at 7:36 PM on December 1, 2009