HELP! dropped a hard drive!

[invictius]

Instead of backing up to 20 dvd's, a friend suggested using a hard drive that's sitting around doing nothing (I have the stuff on dvd already, but always keep another copy of REAL important stuff). Anyway...

I DROPPED IT.

It would have been about a foot, BUT it landed on a 1-2 inch thick mess of cables, which MAY have cushioned its fall. It fell, I think, on the top. Scandisk (attempt recovery of bad sectors) said everything was fine, with only 4gb free on the drive. But how many years since you used scandisk? I'm almost going to fill the drive, if something is wrong, will it just not write? Please advise, I feel like SUCH a fool...the damn thing had come out of a cold room and just slipped out of my hands :bang head

[Drinkyoghurt]

HDD's can withstand a LOT of force, around 300G orso, so a one foot drop should not harm it at all. I think it's safe to say the HDD is still intact :)

[EmAn]

The drive will be fine. It can withstand forces up to 180G's and be garunteed by warranty. They have been tested up to 400G's with semi succesful recovery rates.

EDIT: My friend though they were super fragile so I took my main drive out and dropped it off my house into the grass... He was shocked!

[CGR]

40gb is a fairly old drive. How many years have you had it? Also, newer drives may be more shock proof than older ones.

Personally, if that happened to me, I wouldnt trust the drive.

[tuskenraider]

I've killed a brand new drive by a 3ft. drop on concrete basement floor, so I don't know about all the other stories about drive toughness. I'd never trust a dropped drive unless it was on a carpet, etc.

[Old Thrashbarg]

There are a bunch of disk testing programs out there that'll read SMART data and do surface scans and all that... if you're really worried about it you can run one of those to be sure. (I don't remember any specific names of programs, but something like the Ultimate Boot CD includes about a dozen of 'em.)

But, if it still works now, chances are it'll continue to work as long as it would've otherwise. Even so, a 40GB drive is starting to get kinda old now, and if it was a used drive already, you might wanna consider getting a newer one. A 250-320GB drive is around $60 now... get one of those, run it through all the tests you can find to make sure it's good, back your stuff up to it and then leave it in your case disconnected. And don't drop it.

[JamesXP]

i have a 40gb drive, i've dropped it onto carpet, laminate flooring, wires, and is just fine.

[ratbuddy]

It's only something to worry about if the drive is running while you drop it. If it scans OK, it's fine.

[jaymz9350]

I've killed a brand new drive by a 3ft. drop on concrete basement floor, so I don't know about all the other stories about drive toughness. I'd never trust a dropped drive unless it was on a carpet, etc.

Yeah i killed an almost new raptor by dropping it only about 4-6". Tough if it scans all right it's probably fine.

[burningcpu]

Well isn't this just an additional backup copy? I wouldn't hesitate one bit if I was just using it as that.

[rainless]

Instead of backing up to 20 dvd's, a friend suggested using a hard drive that's sitting around doing nothing (I have the stuff on dvd already, but always keep another copy of REAL important stuff). Anyway...

I DROPPED IT.

It would have been about a foot, BUT it landed on a 1-2 inch thick mess of cables, which MAY have cushioned its fall. It fell, I think, on the top. Scandisk (attempt recovery of bad sectors) said everything was fine, with only 4gb free on the drive. But how many years since you used scandisk? I'm almost going to fill the drive, if something is wrong, will it just not write? Please advise, I feel like SUCH a fool...the damn thing had come out of a cold room and just slipped out of my hands :bang head

Wait a minute... Aren't you that guy that worries about everything? :)

EDIT: Yup! That's you:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=570631

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=568330

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=567076

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=561692

Here's my advice: STOP WORRYING. You may need to intentionally tell yourself: "I'm just being silly..." But if that's what you've got to do... then do it.

That 99% that nero "stopped" at was probably just finalizing the disc. You didn't need to go ripping the CD out of the drive or shutting down. That 512MB memory card you replaced the 360 hard drive with because "hard drives tend to break more", will probably last a shorter period of time than the hard drive you replaced.

And that memory Firefox is hogging... I think the 50 tabs you have open might have something to do with that... but hey: It's your stuff.

I'm just saying if it works: Then assume everything is okay until it STOPS working. Don't go into a complete panic for no reason. There'll be plenty of time to panic when something actually DOES happen.