Some time around last October, my secondary hard drive died with a couple of huge, incomplete, and un-backed-up projects on it. It sounded to me like the motor in the thing was giving up the ghost. It would come on at first when I' d reboot, and then after about five minutes, I could hear the motor click off and wind down. I could reboot and it' d be back on, but not for long enough to copy all my files over. Also, the more I tried to reboot, the less amount of time it would stay on each subsequent time.

I took it out, replaced it, and set it aside as I considered the cost of sending it to some place with a clean room to get the disk switched out into a new drive. Hundreds of dollars, versus the long hours of re-doing these non-essential but still important projects.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I had the vague idea that I' d just wait a long time and then try again later. Tonight, I put the drive back in my tower, booted it up and successfully copied off everything onto my new drive!

Ha! It makes no logical sense as far as I can tell. What really happened? How did waiting months make it possible to do this? Did the power of my superstition somehow override the reality of a faltering mechanical construct? Whatever the case, I' ve got my files back. I' ve worked with computers long enough to know that they are quirky as all hell. This one time, I defied logic and came away a winner.

I wouldnt jinx it if i were you

Your not the only one there dude. My 2.1 PC speakers decided that they weren' t going to turn on last may, and any subsequent tries resulted in faliure.

Then about two months ago I decided to give them another go after being fed up using my old tinny speakers as a replacement. To my surprise they worked, and have been ever since.

Completely bizzare if you ask me.

Must be your Karma. Good Karma, Good things!

Computers have no good reason for failing, why should they have one for working again?

Glad you got your stuff back Zoy.

Computers have no good reason for failing, why should they have one for working again?

I' ll probably use that quote for the rest of my life.

copyrightEDDIE THE HATED INDUSTRIES

Post it at the end & it' s all good.

ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

copyrightEDDIE THE HATED INDUSTRIES

Post it at the end & it' s all good.

Hmm, let me think about it for a moment.

No

ORIGINAL: Zoy

Some time around last October, my secondary hard drive died with a couple of huge, incomplete, and un-backed-up projects on it. It sounded to me like the motor in the thing was giving up the ghost. It would come on at first when I' d reboot, and then after about five minutes, I could hear the motor click off and wind down. I could reboot and it' d be back on, but not for long enough to copy all my files over. Also, the more I tried to reboot, the less amount of time it would stay on each subsequent time.

I took it out, replaced it, and set it aside as I considered the cost of sending it to some place with a clean room to get the disk switched out into a new drive. Hundreds of dollars, versus the long hours of re-doing these non-essential but still important projects.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I had the vague idea that I' d just wait a long time and then try again later. Tonight, I put the drive back in my tower, booted it up and successfully copied off everything onto my new drive!

Ha! It makes no logical sense as far as I can tell. What really happened? How did waiting months make it possible to do this? Did the power of my superstition somehow override the reality of a faltering mechanical construct? Whatever the case, I' ve got my files back. I' ve worked with computers long enough to know that they are quirky as all hell. This one time, I defied logic and came away a winner.

Haha, yeah the logic of it doesn' t seem to fit but HDD' s are a strange breed. It may have been to do with heat. Heat tends to make failing components perform even more poorly and by letting it cool off and then trying again, it gave it a little extra time.

The drive is far from fixed though. As soon as it heats up again it' ll probably fail. Stranger things do happen to HDD' s though.

Apparently, if your HDD is failing, putting it in a plastic sealed bag and placing it in the freezer for a few minutes actually gives it some extra time. As someone who has tried this (I had nothing to lose really) - I can say that it actually works. I also found that it has occasionally worked for DVD' s that are dodgy too! Why does freezing something like a HDD/DVD give it a little extra time in the living realm? Who knows... It sure as hell defies logic. But when you' ve got nothing to lose by trying, it' s amazing to see it work.

The 2 layers in dual layer DVD' s can become separated because of heat. It happens in really fast drives and is one of 360' s most common issues (you' re told to put the disk in an Xbox 360) and a fair amount of people have reported that boiling the disk in water for a few minutes and then allowing it to cool removed the tiny air pockets and seals the layers properly.

Hard-drives are the most temperamental PC components. They are simply immune to logic, there' s no other explanation, ...except maybe the heat thing Unlucky just said...

Consider yourself lucky.

My modem just died on me last Friday. At the worst possible time. I have three seperate projects due this week and I lost the weekend and this week to work with them at home.

Haha, yeah the logic of it doesn' t seem to fit but HDD' s are a strange breed. It may have been to do with heat. Heat tends to make failing components perform even more poorly and by letting it cool off and then trying again, it gave it a little extra time.

The drive is far from fixed though. As soon as it heats up again it' ll probably fail.

I think you' re probably right about a heat issue. It did cross my mind since previously, each subsequent time I tried to work with it, it would shut down sooner and sooner. I think perhaps it was running out of whatever minute amount of lubrication kept the disc spinning in there. Fortunately I got everything off of there this time. I definitely am not about to re-install it permanently and start depending on it again!