UH OH! This is urgent!

[Star Lion]

My hard drive is acting up!
A crash is emanent on my windows 2000 computer.

The one with Windows XP is just fine, so I am franticly copying all of my celestia files to CD's, and on to my Windows XP computer!

Is there anything I can do to keep it from crashing, its starting to make loud cunking , and grinding noises!?

PLEAS HELP!!!!!!!!!!

[AdamOfTheTable]

What part of the computer's innards are the noises coming from? That could explain what's wrong. Maybe your power supply or a fan is messing up. Is it a CD drive grinding, or the floppy drive? There's not too much else could make noises, but if its the hard drive breaking that's really bad. I'd open the comp's case and watch where the noise comes from. If it's not the hard drive you could always take it out and put it into another computer and access it.

[Verteiron]

A loud, continuous grinding or buzzing noise is probably a fan going bad rather than your hard drive. A failing hard drive usually makes sporadic popping or clanking noises, or a repetitive sequence of clicks when accessing certain data. Sometimes it can sound like a ping-pong ball bouncing on a hard surface. But if the noise you are hearing is continual, it is probably NOT your hard drive.

If you're certain it IS the hard drive, though (the sound is coming from the drive itself) then there isn't much more you can do than what you're currently doing; a clanking drive is on its way out, so check the warranty info on it.

[Don. Edwards]

I work on these things every day as my job as a computer technitian and I can tell you that if it is the hard drive going out you need to hurry as fast as posible to get every piece of data you want to keep off that drive ASAP. AS soon as you have the data of the drive power your system down and disconect it from the ide channel and power.
The next thing to do is to check what kind of waranty it has. If its one of the better drives it might have a three year waranty. If that is the case you may be able to do a "RMA" that is send it back to the manufacturer and they should replace the drive with an equal of slightly larger drive. If the drive is out of waranty you will just have to go shopping. There is a slight posibility the drive could be restored to working order with the right software. Maxtor has a utilities CD that comes with there drives and can also be downloaded. This utility can recertify a drive that has developed bad sectors due to power outages and the like. I have used it several times on non Maxtor drives and most of them have then worked fine for some time. A few have continued to fail after the recertifying but a greeat many can give you many many months more use to even a year before more sector start to go out. But if its the heads going out than all bets are off and you can just use that drive as a nice paperwight. If you can find a good computer shop that you trust and they are willing to try and recertify the drive it may be worth saving.
Good luck and I hope you get everything backed up before it goes all the way.

Don. Edwards

[ElPelado]

Some time ago i had a problem on teh disk: it started to make the sounds Verteiron told about. solution: i had to replace it...

[Star Lion]

To quote Buz Lightyear:"Its gone! its all gone, by by, hoo hoo see'ya"

I got all of the data backed up to cd's (My Windows XP Computer is better anyway ) today I tryed to start my windows 2000 computer, and this loud grinding nois started, then loud scratchin, then one final KLUNK, and it died

R.I.P. my old "Maxtor 60 GB 5200 rpm" hard drive

[Star Lion]

Puled the drive out, and found out that the 1 year warenty ran out last year , so I craked open the drive, and it wasent pretty, the read hed had hit the disck, causing it to shatter !

[bh]

This may sound a bit silly...CDs are pretty cheap at the moment...make periodic backups of your data...at least then you've got something to start over with!

I remember I textured all the 'extrasolar' systems with textures, moons, asteriods and other stuff...and lost it all in the blink of an eye! It was my own stupid fault...six months work down the pan!

Not only that...It cost me a job at one of the university departments doing visual art of the cosmos!!

A lesson to all I think!

A bit grumpy bh telling this one!

Regards...bh.

[Star Lion]

I said I got moast of it.

but I get what you'r saying, and your right, I think everyone should backup there data more oftain

[Don. Edwards]

I can atest to that. I still have 67gigs of Celestia stuff that I need to go through and start to back up. I just hope I can cut it way down. I do not want to have to burn 67gig worth of CDs.

Don Edwards

[Star Lion]

then buy blank DVD's

[Don. Edwards]

I don't have a DVD burnner. And before I buy a DVD burnner I think I would buy another 2gigs of RAM for my system so I can work on those big textures faster. Think I have my priorities in the right order?

[AdamOfTheTable]

67 GBs?! *choke* Wow. Was a lot of that stuff you made, or just all the existing Celestia downloads out there plus some stuff you made?

And, ah it was the hard drive I see. That sucks.

[Jugalator]

Bah... It's sad to hear what quality some hard drives are of now... The 1 year warranty just ran out? They should keep working for more than a single year!

And I who also have a Maxtor, hoping it would be a bit better than all those IBM/Hitachi drives I hearing crashing reports on every once in a while. I hope it and its 160 GB holds together a bit better than yours.

[Star Lion]

I am going to buy a Wester Digital hard drive this time
Thats what my windows XP machine has.

[Harry]

I am going to buy a Wester Digital hard drive this time
Thats what my windows XP machine has.

Many years ago (so doesn't apply to current drives), I killed two WD drives (bought one, killed it, had it replaced, killed it, got a quantum), luckily not my fault. Both times the drive had a headcrash after the second power-on - the cause was the BIOS asking too soon for some information, and the faulty drive firmware happily moving the heads without waiting for the platters spinning at full speed). Morale of this story: There are NO totally reliable HDs. Every manufacturer can get it wrong, and you should never trust your drive (not even speaking of trusting your own actions )

In other words: Always have a recent and tested backup (at least of important data).
(though I probably would choose WD again today)