[loninappleton]

I'm writing up this error because I have a question about
operations as well.

This Western Digital 60G that I use as my main Windows
drive will not be recognized at bootup now.

I replugged on other channels to see if it was the channel
connection. No dice on that. I used my 40g backup
and it is going ok on the original channel where the
problem began.

Western Digital shows the product is out of warranty so I
apparently got a free ride for about a year on this one.


Fortunately, they've changed the policy and raised warranty on retail drives to 3 years--- again.


This one looks pretty dead. My operations question is:

At the time of drive failure I had several unattended
processes running: the DVD Shrink program was writing
an image file (long job) and I recently got dsl so I
had a BitTorrent client going to.

This was all being done on P2 400 Mhz built 5 years
ago. :-/


I got back from this unattened job and was greeted
with a BSD (Blue Screen of Death) which said that
DVD Shrink caused an error in the kernel.


I've had kernel errors in the past which meant a cpu
replacement.

My question is: did the hard drive itself get overloaded
and ceased to function?


It doesn't seem to be getting any juice at all. Even a
backup program like CloneMaxx doesn't see it at all.


Any physical tricks to do with this one-- like giving it a good shake or ***** slap? Older drives responded to
some of these 'backroom' techniques.

;-)


I was just looking at the board on the drive and didn't
see any broken traces at the power plug. Can these
be 'refreshed' by reheating them?


Just an idea.

 

[crazijoe]

Can these
be 'refreshed' by reheating them?

Just the opposite. If you have nothing to loose. Place the drive in a ziplock bag and put it in a freezer overnite. The next morning, put it in the computer and see if it fires up. If it does copy all your data you want immediately.

 

[loninappleton]

Weird.

What does that _do_ anyways?


How long specifically does it have to cool down?

 

[linderman]

The freezer trick change the tolerances of the metal through expansion and contraction / I wouldnt give the drive much time to warm up as / the benefits of this method will soon be lost after the drive operates for any length of time


regards

joe

 

[loninappleton]

no cigar

I pulled it out of the freezer and let it warm up til it
was only cool ot the touch.

It still wouldn't fire up.


But an interesting technique to try.


Is there any other tweak to try such as banging it
on the floor? I just don't see why this failed all of a
sudden.

 

[johnwill]

You're not supposed to let it warm up, just fire it right up.

 

[loninappleton]

Oh.

Well, I might retry it then.


Is that doable or is it a one time only after failure?