Hardware Demonic Hard Drive

[drakorex]

I have a 1.5TB Seagate that I was storing movies, games, various computer stuff on. Been fightin to move all the contents onto a 2TB for days now. Was constantly getting unexpected errors that prevented things from being moved. I got most of what I needed off there, now I'm havin trouble formatting the bastard. I'm using Easus, and when I format it to the default Fat32 settings (64kb/s, I believe), it goes through, no problem. But when I try to format it to 32kb/s, it jumps to 40% complete, and stays there. Been like this for about an hour now.

 

[Arras]

Try using a tool that scans the hard drive for issues (bad sectors etc) - something like http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/gr/seagateseatools.htm . If it reports errors and things chances are the drive is fucked and you really shouldn't use it anymore unless you like losing data.

 

[chemistryfreak]

I also had a bad experience with my 2TB Seagate hard drive. It failed in less than 2 years of purchase. Luckily I was able to salvage all my data and transfer them to 4TB Buffalo HD. Highly recommend Buffalo brand HD. So far I have a 4TB, 2TB & 1TB Buffalo Hard drives and they are all working perfectly fine

 

[drakorex]

I/O device error... That's bad, right?

 

[ieatpixels]

Very bad, your HDD is probably dying.

I recommend using SwissKnife, I used it to get data off my dying HDD once.

 

[drakorex]

3,4 years, maybe? If you read my OP, you'd know I already backed up my data and tried reformatting it. All Data Has Been Erased. All Space Is Unallocated. Trying To Reformat To Fat32 32kb/s

 

[Enigma Hall]

He is dead jim.

 

[Arras]

Yeah, this happened to my internal HDD half a year ago. Had like over a million bad sectors or something, and every time I ran the scan there were more. It's likely simply beyond repair. HDDs just tend to break sometimes.

 

[Originality]

It's not sometimes, ALL HDDs will break eventually. External drives (from any brand) are more likely to fail because their operating environment tends to be worse than internals (movement, heat from enclosures, less vibration dampening, and lower quality energy supply).

Before writing it off, I suggest opening the enclosure, taking out the drive and trying to use it in a computer to run your error checks. It may just be the PCB of the enclosure causing problems (low chance but still worth checking).

 

[Subtle Demise]

Hard drives are just archaic, terrible technology. SSDs aren't much better, especially with constant use, but they are our only options until something better gets invented. I feel for you, I've got an external and an internal failing right now, and they're both for my PS3.

 

[Originality]

Hard drives are just archaic, terrible technology. SSDs aren't much better, especially with constant use, but they are our only options until something better gets invented. I feel for you, I've got an external and an internal failing right now, and they're both for my PS3.

SSDs are a lot better than HDDs in that they're not affected by movement and vibrations (two of the three biggest factors of HDD failure) and have much faster access times. They're only let down in terms of reliability by the lifespan of the MLC (because MLC is cheaper than the more reliable SLC) flash memory in terms of read/write cycles, however each new wave tends to improve on that (well, SandForce 2000 was a step backwards in that regard, but they fixed that with firmware updates).

Also, the other thing that limits SSDs is their current dependence on the TRIM command to maintain performance, but that's mainly because operating systems are designed for HDDs primarily, and have yet to be redesigned to make full use of a SSDs potential.

Now until one of the "future-tech" (optical, crystal, or organic) storage solutions gains ground, all development on storage is going to be targeted at reducing the cost of SSDs (shrinking manufacture process) whilst improving their capacity (stacking MLC flash memory, maybe even using that 3D RAM that's been in the news) and access speeds (first breaking the 6Gbs limit, then the 10Gbs limit M.2 and SATAexpress has achieved).

 

[jonthedit]

Hard drives are just archaic, terrible technology. SSDs aren't much better, especially with constant use, but they are our only options until something better gets invented. I feel for you, I've got an external and an internal failing right now, and they're both for my PS3.

Thats why you use 4 2TB HDDs and setup a RAID5.
They repair each other

 

[Originality]

Thats why you use 4 2TB HDDs and setup a RAID5.
They repair each other

So long as only one dies. If two or more dies at the same time (e.g. power surge), then it will not be able to rebuild. RAID 6 can survive two drives failing at once, and RAID 50 has mirror plus parity for extra protection (but needs minimum 6 drives).