External Hard Drive Problem

[dunn]

Hello All,

I have an external buslink USB firewire 160GB HD for 2 years. And it's has been making this knocking sound at times it would render the drive inaccessible. I would then have to unplug it for an hour or two then it would start working again.

I have some very important files that i would like to transfer back to my computer HD which is only 80G. But i may need to purchase a larger harddrive but i'm having second thoughts about external harddrives as an option if this is the way they operate. The harddrive was well taken care of never dropped my office is in the basement where it's always cool. The max space i ever used on this drive was 30 Gigs i just do not understand why the drive would function the way it is with less than half of it capacity load.

Can someone advise??

Thanks

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, that happens.
What you may wish to do is next time buy a external drive from a company that offers a Long life warranty.

But the warranty does not protect your data. Only you can do that.

Make duplicates of very important files on DVD-R  and put them in a safe place.
On-line storage is practical only if your Internet speed is above 10Mbps.

[Salmon Trout]

i just do not understand why the drive would function the way it is with less than half of it capacity load.

The "load" on a disk is the same whether its is full or empty. You were just unlucky. I have an external hard drive which has been used every day for 6 years.

[dunn]

I had this problem before but i thought it went away as i was saving my work directly to the external which i know would increase the load on the write needles. I usually would save to my comp HD then transfer it to the external HD but i sometimes try the shortcut method and save direct to the external. Yes i overlooked the use of my CDR-disk guess i had it in the wrong order. Hopefully it should work with some rest probably a week or two. Just so i can extract the files i need...

Another thing when i try to eject it from the USB port electronically i get the following message 'Device cannot be stopped right now, try again later' with a problem ejecting icon so i manually have to unplug it.

I'll try fixing the drive for errors maybe that should help temporarily

[Geek-9pm]

Another thing when i try to eject it from the USB port electronically i get the following message 'Device cannot be stopped right now, try again later' with a problem ejecting icon so i manually have to unplug it.

That is a normal warning and does NOT indicate a failure.

To determine if the drive is failing, you must run a suitable diagnostic program.
Hard Disc Drives have Read/Write cycle life of more that 500,000 operations. Each operation reads or writes 4096 bytes at a time, typically.

After I wrote that, I realized it is a gross understatement. but it illustrates the idea. In commercial work large hard drives had last many  years in constant day and night use for companies like Google.

There has been a shortage of parts needed for the current demand of HDD in the industry. Perhaps this has contributed to lower quality control in some places.

[Salmon Trout]

saving my work directly to the external which i know would increase the load on the write needles

There aren't any "needles" that have "loads" when you write to the disk.

[Geek-9pm]

There aren't any "needles" that have "loads" when you write to the disk.

He never said what brand of hard disk he had. Maybe it was made by Edison.

[BC_Programmer]

i was saving my work directly to the external which i know would increase the load on the write needles.

Well something is definitely spinning at the wrong RPM...

[carlo]

data storage is always a big issue for me, not for me i think its a huge issue for all of the world, first i remember it was floppy drives, than it came cd disks, dvd disks, zip disks, usb disk, external hard disks, so many technologies but all are like you can't say my data is now safe for always, i think storing your data on these drives is useless if you really want to protect your data than you must consider keeping your data on internet buy a space from some great servers online and keep your data over there its quite safe rather than keeping your data on media... that is what i think

for more details please visit:


Link Removed...

[Salmon Trout]

I think carlo's reply is kind of oddly worded in a way that has become familiar (spammy?) - and also his link doesn't relate either to the cloud storage he talks about, or the topic of this thread. Also I don't agree that storing your data on "some great servers online" necessarily makes it "quite safe". I think he's just spamming for that site he linked to.

[Geek-9pm]

I agree with Salmon Trout,
Cloud storage is pointless for most home users. The free ones give you 2GB of free storage. You have more than that in your iPod.
You can buy a router and plug in a cheap 160 GB USB hard drive.
Google
Router with USB storage
Or look at this:
http://www.cnet.com/topic-reviews/router/usb-port.html
The OP has many options.

Why do I think a router with storage would be better?
Well,...  you have it in another place in your house so ...
1. ... safe from fire when you computer goes in smoke...
2. ...  would not get knocked off the table....
3. ... it is hidden from intruders.

[Computer_Commando]

This might be the drive the OP has: http://www.buslink.com/product.php?prod_id=74