Tons Of Hard Drive Issues And Questions!!!!

[Cuper]

Hey guys,

I really am at my wits end with computers. It seems that something is failing all the time and am just TIRED of it... :cry: I really would like to a have a system that is RELIABLE. With that said (sorry had to vent a little) I was wondering if you guys would be kind enough to help me out with some questions.

Question 1 - Warrantee question

I have had several hard drives fail on me and I don't know what can be wart. and how I can check the drive properly to determine if it can be wart.

Here was a issue I had several weeks ago.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=429789

I had another issue last night where I was taking files (about 15 gigs) off one computer over the network (.mp3, movies, pictures, txt, ect.) and copying it to another drive and got a corrupt message. Don't remember what the message said but something along the lines with D: can't be read. So I reboot and the drive is gone. Actually I should point out that it is the partition that has failed. The OS is on the C: partition (aprox. 30 gigs) and the other stuff was on the D: drive (about 150 gigs)

Any clue as what I should do to try and get the partition back? Or even check the partition? Is it possible that a file on the drive that I was taking data from is a virus and screwed up my partition? I thought you had to open the file to cause the virus to run but I have lost track of how advanced viruses have gotten.

How reliable is the C: drive? Can I expect that to fail very soon? I know it is really just a guess on your part but figured I would ask anyways.

Problem 2 - Proper way to backup a drive.

I am SOOO tired of rebuilding a computer that I would like to take a 20 gig drive and make a perfect copy so that if one drive fails I can just format a drive and load the image onto the new drive and go. It would be awesome if I could put it on a DVD but if not that would be ok.

What program would you suggest. Would Norton Ghost work? I bought it a while ago but haven't had the time to really sit down and figure out if it would do it.

What do you guys to to properly/safely backup your data? I would really like some input into a efficient way to save data that I need. I know the options (cds/dvds/hds) but I would like a effiecient way to do it.

Problem 3 - RELIABLE HD

What is the consensus on a reliable drive. What are the safest ones?



Anyhow, thanks for any input you have. I really could use a system that works for more than 1 year without having issues...

THANKS!!

Brad

[KillrBuckeye]

Regarding Question 1:
If your drives are Western Digital, you can check their warranty status by typing in the serial numbers on WD's website. Other manufacturers might have a similar system. If in doubt, contact the manufacturer directly. Most retail drives have a 1-year warranty, but some come with 3-year warranties. Enterprise-level drives like the WD Raptor often come with 5-year warranties. I'm not exactly sure what's going on with your partitions/drives. Can you see your "lost" partition from outside of Windows? Have you run diagnostic tests on your drive? These can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website and run from a floppy (outside of Windows). Usually you must run these tests before the manufacturer will grant you an RMA.

Regarding Question 2:
I use Acronis True Image ($30 from Newegg), and I absolutely love it. I have used it dozens of times to restore clean images of my OS partition after I screwed something up due to OC'ing or installing bad apps. It's very easy--just keep your OS and applications installed on one partition, and keep all of your data/documents on other partitions. Use Acronis to make an image of your OS partition and save it to another drive/partition. Then you can restore this image whenever Windows gets slow or screwed up. You can do this from outside of Windows by creating a bootable rescue CD from within Acronis. It is possible to save this image to DVDs, but I have never done so.

Regarding Question 3:
That's a very subjective question. Everybody has his/her own favorite HDD manufacturer, but very few people can provide statistical data to back up their opinions. Every manufacturer is going to make some bad drives, and remember that retail hard drives are only designed to last a few years. My personal favorite is Western Digital, even though I have had to RMA 2 drives in the past. They have excellent an excellent RMA policy which makes the process very easy.

[Cuper]

KillrBuckeye - thanks for your reply!!! I totally forgot about the diagnostic test from the manuf. Will check that out tonight. I will check out Acronis when I get a break from trading.

THANKS!!!

[K15]

Depends on the manufacterer as far as warranties go. I will go from memory here

Seagate retail, 5 years across the board (have been since mid 2004 I think).
Seagate OEM, very little or no warranty (MAYBE 1 year, I don't think my OEM has any warranty).

WD retail, 3 years for most, 5 years for some better ones.
WD OEM, probably the same as Seagate.

Maxtor is backwards.
Maxtor retail, 1 year.
Maxtor OEM, 3 years (I am pretty sure). Maxtor's makes no sense to me, might have to verify that.

Not sure on Hitachi or Samsung. With retails, you are paying extra money for the box, CD, cables, screws etc, so you "usually" get a better warranty. Plus, retail drives are meant to be sold to you and me. OEM drives are overflow from the big makers (HP, Dell etc), some retailers also buy OEM drives in bulk, they are cheaper. Since OEM drives were meant to get pulled out of the package and slapped in an OEM computer, there's no point in having the CD, fancy box, cable, screws etc. There's also "usually" not much point for a good warranty since the OEMs provide their own warranty.
I know some makers have the same warranty for ALL drives, so again, check. Seagate's site has a place where you can check warranty status if you have the model # and serial #.

[K15]

I was mistaken, my OEM Seagate has a full 5 year warranty, I just checked its warranty status on seagate.com, expires october 2010 :)
Yay Seagate :cool:

[I.M.O.G.]

Definetly run hard drive diags... The quick test has a very high percentage of accuracy (well over 90% on modern drives), so you should get a good indication on if your partition just crapped out or if your drive is actually suffering a failure.

If you are looking to recover anything from the partition thats had the problems, if it becomes accessible you should make sure you do not write to it at all or you could overwrite something. If I were attempting recovery I'd use a live CD (Bart PE or something linux based), and if you go to the BartPE site you can get some details on how to do that and how to include various file recovery tools which might help you.

As for backups, I use ghost professionally and personally and I think its a great tool. I usually create a couple images... 1) fresh OS install with Service packs/windows updates, then defrag, then create the image, 2) then install all essential basic apps like office tools and other basic utilities that I don't feel the need to update, then defrag, then create another image. This leaves me without ever needing to go through an OS install, without any need to configure an unintended windows install or slipstream updates onto the OS cd... I just drop a new image onto the drive and its ready to rock in just the time that the data transfer takes.

[shadowdr]

I would run memtest and be sure that the memory is not failing or has had any setting changes.For me,it has been the biggest reason that I have had file corruption.Just recently found out that my ram needed a voltage bump to keep from getting errors in memtest,even though it had been running fine for months.I only realized somthing was wrong when I got a bad sector on a new drive.
It was easy enough to fix however because I also have Ghost.I keep a pata drive installed but disabled in device manager with all my important partitions.It is easy to use as I only do partition to partition copies in pc dos so that i can backup ntfs partitions.I always name my partitions so that there is no confusion as to which is which in dos.Keeping it disabled means no writing in windows so no corruption of any kind.It has saved my data many,many times
With the newer drives,the fluid bearings have made them all pretty reliable.I have had failures with every brand but have had more luck with Maxtor's than others.WD always sent me refurbished drives that failed again but Maxtor has always sent new drives,often bigger than I had.Any drive is only as good as the warranty you get with it.

[jcw122]

Depends on the manufacterer as far as warranties go. I will go from memory here

Seagate retail, 5 years across the board (have been since mid 2004 I think).
Seagate OEM, very little or no warranty (MAYBE 1 year, I don't think my OEM has any warranty).

WD retail, 3 years for most, 5 years for some better ones.
WD OEM, probably the same as Seagate.

Maxtor is backwards.
Maxtor retail, 1 year.
Maxtor OEM, 3 years (I am pretty sure). Maxtor's makes no sense to me, might have to verify that.

Not sure on Hitachi or Samsung. With retails, you are paying extra money for the box, CD, cables, screws etc, so you "usually" get a better warranty. Plus, retail drives are meant to be sold to you and me. OEM drives are overflow from the big makers (HP, Dell etc), some retailers also buy OEM drives in bulk, they are cheaper. Since OEM drives were meant to get pulled out of the package and slapped in an OEM computer, there's no point in having the CD, fancy box, cable, screws etc. There's also "usually" not much point for a good warranty since the OEMs provide their own warranty.
I know some makers have the same warranty for ALL drives, so again, check. Seagate's site has a place where you can check warranty status if you have the model # and serial #.


Last time I checked, Seagate has 5 Year Warrenties across the board, no other manufac has that, except Maxtor (not all HDDs), which they just bought out.

[K15]

Last time I checked, Seagate has 5 Year Warrenties across the board, no other manufac has that, except Maxtor (not all HDDs), which they just bought out.


Yeah I just posted an update, I was mistaken. I checked my warranty status a couple months ago and it said no warranty, but I must have had the wrong numbers because I checked again a couple days ago and it said 2010 expiry :)

[jcw122]

Yeah I just posted an update, I was mistaken. I checked my warranty status a couple months ago and it said no warranty, but I must have had the wrong numbers because I checked again a couple days ago and it said 2010 expiry :)

LOL Congrats :santa: