External Hard Drives

[J.Gellert]

I am very, very angry - someone knocked over my external hard drive from a height of... 15cm and it has failed, lights go crazy, windows won't recognize it and ask me to "format" it.

There goes ~270GB of stuff worthy of keeping. I would cry if it wouldn't tarnish my reputation.

Now for me, this is huge trouble. I was keeping daily automatic backups on that drive. Having suffered complete PC breakdowns without warning in the past, constant reliable backups are important to me. It's my disease.

First question.
Western Digital drive can't handle a drop from 15cm. Please, please tell me there are other drives out there that are more durable. Mankind has walked on the Moon and we can't have one serious HD? I know flash drives are supposed to suck, but expensive drives too?

Second question...
Any other good ways to be safe without having to resort to crappy drives that just bail out on you without so much as one year on their backs? Because I really don't have the money to pay for a new one every few months.

[Jack Squat]

My WD drive has been dropped from distances of a few feet (I bump it off my desk every now and then) on multiple occasions and it still works fine. Maybe you had a bad one, or maybe I'm just really lucky.

I would say that just copying to DVDs or online storage is probably best if you're looking for impact resistance. You could also minimize damage to external disk drives by only leaving them hooked up and out while you're actually backing up data, then storing them in a desk drawer the rest of the time.

[J.Gellert]

My WD drive has been dropped from distances of a few feet (I bump it off my desk every now and then) on multiple occasions and it still works fine. Maybe you had a bad one, or maybe I'm just really lucky.

I would say that just copying to DVDs or online storage is probably best if you're looking for impact resistance. You could also minimize damage to external disk drives by only leaving them hooked up and out while you're actually backing up data, then storing them in a desk drawer the rest of the time.

Consider yourself super-lucky!

I used to disconnect it at first, but it got troublesome later. Online storage? Is it safe?

[thubby]

take the harddrive to a professional if its important enough to you. drops can either break the mechanical parts or the disk inside the harddrive.

nothing can be done about the later, but someone with the know-how can swap the disk to a new drive and recover the data if its the former.

[leafman]

For a replacement drive I would recommend a solid state hard drive. A 500GB drive and an external enclosure will run you about $120 on newegg.com. The advantage here is that solid state's don't have any moving parts, so you can drop it or shake it while it is writing data to the drive and you won't have any data loss.

[Obrysii]

take the harddrive to a professional if its important enough to you. drops can either break the mechanical parts or the disk inside the harddrive.

nothing can be done about the later, but someone with the know-how can swap the disk to a new drive and recover the data if its the former.

Actually, even if the discs are broken in half data can still be recovered. It becomes very expensive, but you can recover data off of just about any level of damage.

That's why they suggest, if you have truly important data that must be destroyed, you must 1) Smash the drive; 2) grind it into little bits.

Believe it or not, but they were able to recover useful data off of the space shuttle Columbia's hard drive, despite the fact it ...
1) Was blown out of a blown-up shuttle
2) Survived reentry
3) Survived hitting the ocean at terminal velocity
4) Survived being underwater for days or weeks.

[shiram]

If you can find a solid state drive of 500gb for 120$, you need to tell me where, and now.
500gb solid state drive are about 1000$ to 1500$ on newegg.
As for the original post, hard drive are fragile things, and they vary greatly in toughness. Mostly luck I would say.
So I backup my important stuff on at least 2 different drives.

[J.Gellert]

If you can find a solid state drive of 500gb for 120$, you need to tell me where, and now.
500gb solid state drive are about 1000$ to 1500$ on newegg.
As for the original post, hard drive are fragile things, and they vary greatly in toughness. Mostly luck I would say.
So I backup my important stuff on at least 2 different drives.

This is what I know as well, SDDs are expensive.

Data recovery isn't that big a deal right now - it hurts, but I can't fork out the cash for it. Which is why I'll bite and do what windows is asking of me. "This drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?" "Gee, windows, how would that work? It was perfect a few hours ago."

In the meantime I'm backing stuff up on friendly computers

[Brother Oni]

Have you tried data recovery software on the drive, or going into the drive in something other than Windows (DOS or linux for example)?

[BlackSheep]

I've only heard of this working on internal hard drives, but it's worth a shot if you're desperate to get some data off of your external HD.

Put it in the freezer.

I have no understanding of why this sometimes works, and like I said, I've only ever heard stories of it working on internal drives, but I have heard stories about it working. Give it at least 20 minutes in there so it gets quite cold. If it works, it's a very temporary fix, but if you have nothing to lose, give it a shot.

[Obrysii]

Put it in the freezer.

I have no understanding of why this sometimes works, and like I said, I've only ever heard stories of it working on internal drives, but I have heard stories about it working. Give it at least 20 minutes in there so it gets quite cold. If it works, it's a very temporary fix, but if you have nothing to lose, give it a shot.

My only guess is that the cold causes the various parts to shrink ever so slightly, allowing the disc to spin freely again.

Of course, it is very temporary because as soon as the drive powers up it'll re-seize pretty quickly once the drive is back to room temperate.

[Erloas]

The thing about drops is that they aren't predictable. One might survive a lot and others might seem to die from something much less. But it depends exactly how it hits and what the drive was doing at the time. You are especially likely to loose the drive if it was being accessed at the time it was dropped.

The computer says the drive isn't formatted because it can't read anything from it, the computer doesn't know it can't read it because the drive head it messed up, all it knows is that it can't read it.

[factotum]

I'm unclear on what the issue is here. On the one hand you say this drive only has backups on it, but on the other you say you've lost a bunch of stuff by losing it? If it really *is* only a backup drive, replace it and then put it somewhere it isn't going to get knocked over so easily!

[J.Gellert]

I'm unclear on what the issue is here. On the one hand you say this drive only has backups on it, but on the other you say you've lost a bunch of stuff by losing it? If it really *is* only a backup drive, replace it and then put it somewhere it isn't going to get knocked over so easily!

Half/half. Losing the stuff hurt, but once I realized I don't have money to get a new drive, a different way to back up became more important.

[eidreff]

Exeternal drives are for taking data walkabout.... you need to back up your data regularly (this is not criticism... i have screwed up plenty by not doing this) but you need to what media you area going to use. my thought is a spare drive you dont use that can be put safely away (and updated regularly). anything that might be upset by regular use needs to be backed up more. just one hard drive aitn enough

[factotum]

Half/half. Losing the stuff hurt, but once I realized I don't have money to get a new drive, a different way to back up became more important.

Unfortunately, an external hard drive is about the cheapest backup method you can get! Tape drives cost a fortune...

[leafman]

Sorry for the mix up, I can't reproduce the search results I got the first time, but it seems whatever I typed in was giving me the wrong information.

[Lord Seth]

I am very, very angry - someone knocked over my external hard drive from a height of... 15cm and it has failed, lights go crazy, windows won't recognize it and ask me to "format" it.

There goes ~270GB of stuff worthy of keeping. I would cry if it wouldn't tarnish my reputation.

Have you tried taking it into get fixed? Barring it being completely smashed into pieces, it's very rare that it's unretrievable. If you're lucky it won't be too big a deal and a regular computer repair place will be able to get it for you. If you're not so lucky, you still can probably get it back, but you'll have to go to a specialty place like Gillware or DriveSavers. They can get stuff out of even really messed up stuff (just look at some of the hard drives DriveSavers has gotten stuff from) but they'll be pretty expensive. When I dropped my laptop and had to take it in to get the data retrieved, it cost about $500--and that was with several discounts.

Now for me, this is huge trouble. I was keeping daily automatic backups on that drive. Having suffered complete PC breakdowns without warning in the past, constant reliable backups are important to me. It's my disease.

But here's the thing: External hard drives, just like PCs, can have those breakdowns. Having a file on an external hard drive is really not that much more "reliable" than having it on a PC. If there's data you really need to have, make sure to have it in at least two places at once. Whether that means it's on both the PC and the external hard drive or if it's on two external hard drives, you want critical data to be in more than one place.

First question.
Western Digital drive can't handle a drop from 15cm.

My Western Digital drive handled a drop from 40cm (I measured), is visibly damaged, and still works perfectly. Of course, luck certainly plays a part as to whether a hard drive survives a fall.

Please, please tell me there are other drives out there that are more durable. Mankind has walked on the Moon and we can't have one serious HD? I know flash drives are supposed to suck, but expensive drives too?

There are external hard drives out there that are very durable, like being water and fire resistant. They also cost more.

Now if you're talking about a better manufacturer, the main problem is that all of the manufacturers are going to have some "bad batches." One person is going to get an a drive from Western Digital/Iomega/Seagate/etc. that lasts for years and years, and one person is going to get the same kind, but it won't last a month. Best way to figure out which brands have the least chance of failing is to go to a place like amazon.com and see what the review average is. If there's a fair amount of reviews and it's at least 4 stars (remember that people who have a complaint are more likely to write a review than people who are happy, so 4 stars means people who are happy greatly outnumber the annoyed people), that's usually a sign it's reliable.

Second question...
Any other good ways to be safe without having to resort to crappy drives that just bail out on you without so much as one year on their backs? Because I really don't have the money to pay for a new one every few months.

There's always online backup, but I think that's fairly expensive. If you want to be safest, though, you'll want several external hard drives and to be sure to have the data backed up somewhere else (whether that be online or on an external hard drive that's somewhere else) just in case the place the other ones are at burns down or something.