VOGONS


Dying hard drive?

Topic actions

First post, by FXing Serious

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I just ordered a white label IDE drive on eBay and noticed a sound that I have never heard before. I am wondering if it's normal. Thanks!

Here is what I recorded and uploaded to youtube:
https://youtu.be/AIwrIwBXhHY

Reply 2 of 8, by Koltoroc

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

If its not completely dead yet, it is at the very least seriously unhealthy.

Definitely not normal.

Reply 3 of 8, by SW-SSG

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'm not hearing it actually spin up and initialize normally. It seems dead; probably damaged in shipping.

I'd be curious if you can get the BIOS/OS to detect it without hanging, though.

Reply 4 of 8, by FXing Serious

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

The drive was working but at the time of the video the motherboard wasn't detecting it. I was testing CPU's yesterday, and after my third CPU the motherboard wasn't detecting any of the drives so I thought it was the IDE cable. I tried a bunch of things but it wasn't detecting it anyways so I got tired and just shut the PC down. After 20 mins I came back and tried again. This time the DVD showed up but not the drive. I plugged another IDE drive and it worked so it wasn't the cable at all.

Reply 5 of 8, by SW-SSG

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

In that case, perhaps it was a loose power connector. Try reinserting the (or trying another) Molex 4-pin power cable to the HDD if the problem resurfaces.

Reply 6 of 8, by FXing Serious

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I tried the drive alone in different molex connectors but nothing... I tried another hard drive and it was fine. I think I will return it. Thanks!

Reply 7 of 8, by verysaving

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Could be "stiction" , head stuck to platters and preventing them from spinning
or worse a seized spindle.
In first case, if you otherwise decided to toss it, I would tap gently from the
border several times - sometimes this could free heads and platters could spin free.
Some call it "percussive maintainance" but I definively not reccomend it if valuable
data are inside. Another option is to warm up the disk with a hair drier or cool it down
since platter and heads are made of different materials they shrink or expand in a
different way and this may unstick them. Be aware that when the heads actually free
they could damage themselves or/and platter surface and this could lead to this
typical scenarios :
1) HD not ID since a system head was damaged and most of firmware could not be loaded.
2) HD IDs but if a non system head was damaged you got regular patterns of "bad sector"
(non actually bad!)
3) HD IDs fine but if there's media damage you got bad sectors in a specific zone of
the disk.
4) You are very lucky and both heads and platters are fine and HD works good as nothing
has happened. (Sometime happens !)

Reply 8 of 8, by okenido

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

don't bother buying used hdds you never really know their condition. i'd just get a small ssd with an ide/sata adapter