C drive failure

[v12v8]

An engineer has diagnosed the problem with my computer - the C drive has collapsed!

Can anyone suggest how this happened and what I can do to prevent it happening again when I get my computer back? I tend to leave my computer on all the time, in case that has anything to do with it...

The computer is about 14 months old and is made by a well known manufacturer, but is out of warranty....

[Plotloss]

Harsh.

Little you can do to predict and avoid a HDD failure.

There is a product called activeSMART that will monitor the SMART headers on the HDD and attempt to alert you if anything looks suspect but thats about the best you can do short of a RAID setup mirroring the data onto a physically seperate HDD.

[Podie]

Quite unusual to have a HDD failure these days… but as Plotty says, either backup on a regular basis, or run a RAID setup….

[v12v8]

I am ashamed to admit that I rarely back-up. In this case, we were able to extricate all essential documents and information from the C drive onto another PC (thank god).

Part of the reason for not backing-up was that the computer would allow me to load programmes from a CD in the drive, but would not allow me to send anything to the CD drive!

Hopefully this problem will be fixed and I can then back-up my files on a regular basis!

[pdV6]

v12v8 said:

Part of the reason for not backing-up was that the computer would allow me to load programmes from a CD in the drive, but would not allow me to send anything to the CD drive!

You sure its a CD writer, and not a CD_ROM drive?

[GregE240]

Leaving a computer on all the time is about the BEST thing you can do. It means the hard drive doesn't totally lose power and spin down, lessening the chance of a failure.

I'd chalk it up as experience, at least you managed to get your stuff off it okay.

[gopher]

v12v8 said:

The computer is about 14 months old and is made by a well known manufacturer, but is out of warranty....

Check who the drive manufacturer is, some have warranties beyond the standard 1 year, IBM (Hitachi) for e.g. have a 3 year warranty. You may be able to get a new disk at the cost of sending them the broken one. Won’t get your data back but lessens the pain a bit.

[Jnr]

There are only 2 types of HardDrive in this world.

Broken ones, and those that are gonna break!

Always back up your important stuff cause you never know when you're gonna get bitten on the ass/arse!!!

Guaranteed to happen according to Murpheys Law.


Jnr

[piccy mate]

I can vouch for that - just had to send off a 2 yr old IBM HDD for replacement.
Bit annoyed that Maxtor won't repair a drive for me even though I admitted responsibility and offered full payment - all it needed was a tuppeny-halfpenny cct board. HDD is only 6 months old
Piccy

gopher said:

Check who the drive manufacturer is, some have warranties beyond the standard 1 year, IBM (Hitachi) for e.g. have a 3 year warranty. You may be able to get a new disk at the cost of sending them the broken one. Won’t get your data back but lessens the pain a bit.

>> Edited by piccy mate on Thursday 25th November 13:48

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Podie said:

Quite unusual to have a HDD failure these days…

I think it's getting more common. Ok, I've got quite a few drives but 2 gone in 2 months? Different machines as well. (and not hot, I don't kick them, good mains, not constantly thrashed etc etc before you ask).

[trooper1212]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

Podie said: Quite unusual to have a HDD failure these days… I think it's getting more common. Ok, I've got quite a few drives but 2 gone in 2 months? Different machines as well. (and not hot, I don't kick them, good mains, not constantly thrashed etc etc before you ask).

I was reading about a 1000 machine cluster the other day. They replace a couple of hard disks a week!