RSS Feeds: My External USB Hard Drive Died
My external USB hard drive died. I don't know why, but I suspect the huge power fluctuations (dirty power) in Olongapo City has a lot to do with it.
No Warnings
I always had the hard drive plugged in. I didn't have any reason to unplug the power supply or the USB cable since the hard drive was off most of the time. The last time I decided to use it, it had been on a couple of hours.
I heard the sound you hear when a USB device is unplugged and couldn't figure out the cause until I tried to access the USB hard drive again. I hadn't used it in over an hour, but was getting ready to move some backups onto it.
Try as I may, I could no longer get the computer to recognize the external hard drive. I did a cold reboot of the computer after unplugging everything and plugging everything back in. I could feel the hard drive spinning, but it didn't respond to anything. I put my ear up next to the case and heard a familiar clicking sound. I'm pretty sure the controller died and the hard drive itself is still good. It's the same clicking sound my old USB hard drive made after it failed a drop test at the airport.
External USB Hard Drive Repair
Believe it or not, in most cases, the enclosures fail long before the hard drives do. Moving a hard drive from a dead enclosure to a new one isn't as hard as most people think. The one I have now only requires me to remove the front panel (prying with a screwdriver) and slide the innards out. The only tools that are usually ever needed are screwdrivers of various sizes.
The difficulty I face is not repairing the USB hard drive. The difficulty I face is finding an enclosure in Olongapo that's suitable and not inflated in price — if I can even find one. Most of the computer places sell new computers and assorted peripherals, but specialty items like hard drive enclosures can probably only be found in a couple of stores.
Luckily, I don't have anything the on the hard drive that I need to operate from day to day. All of my blog backups are on a 2 gigabyte thumb drive, as well as my financial records. As I told my wife earlier via Skype, I refuse to drive to the SM mall in Pampanga to search for something like this. It's not that far away since the Subic Expressway is done, but it's still a royal pain in the ass to take the trip with the multiple stops, toll booths and charges.
Two USB Hard Drive Enclosures
I'm going to be buying two hard drive enclosures instead of just one. I want to test/replace the Western Digital external hard drive that failed the airport drop test as well. If both hard drives end up working, I have that much more space to work with. If neither works, then I'll just have to get some more hard drives.
I've been doing this kind of stuff since before Windows existed, so I'm pretty confident in my assessments. All I can say at this point is: Shiitake happens.
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You are very lucky you did not have anything important on your hdd, this happened to me and unfortunately i lost a lot of my photographs from my travelling days!
it seems typically, external enclosures are made with sub part components. I've had a few fail on me.
Sounds just like an item I should have included in my latest post on Bob's blog about living as a promdi in the Philippines, RT. You really want to make a trip to SM North on EDSA, there's a "Power Zone" area in the ground floor of the parking garage with dozens of real computer shops
I really hate going to Manila. I'll check out the SM at Clark before taking any trip to Manila.
That's actually very comforting to learn that the actual data portion of the hard-drive is not likely to die. None-the-less, I was still nervous enough about the 2 1/2 year old Western Digital that holds all my pictures, that I treated myself to a new 350gb Maxtor during the recent black Friday sales.
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I've never heard of 'dirty power', is it something that we don't suffer from in the UK? Does your surge protector on your house not protect against that sort of thing?
"Dirty Power" refers to an electrical source (or power company) where surges and sags are commonplace. Surge protectors help until they start wearing out. A voltage regulator is a better solution.