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so I got a hard drive that needs to be smacked to start it up

Kyle Nerder

Kyle Nerder

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 14, 2005
189
0
Toronto
I have have this Western Digital HD that has been running in my external case. This thing runs almost non-stop. The fan ran all the time, until I install a kill switch on it. I just turn the fan on when I am doing intensive work.

BUT lately the drive won't boot unless I give it a good bump/smack. it will spin once but jam. A good smack usually gets it going.

I'm thinking it is a toasted bearing. Any suggestions? I know it's not a loose connection and the enclosure works fine with other drives.

Help will be greatly appreciated
 
Kyle Nerder said:
A good smack usually gets it going.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my kids are like that too*

But if you need to beat on your HD to get it going, it sounds like a Bad Thing™. I'd consider backing up and replacing the drive sooner rather than later.





*I am just kidding. I don't smack my children around. :rolleyes:
 
Does anyone else think of the Prodigy song "Smack My Bitch Up" when you read the topic?

I'm not sure how expensive hard drive repair is so its its cheaper to get a new one I'd say go for it, sounds like its bound to fail at any tim, hope you have your data backed up...
 
I grabbed the esentials off it as soon as it did it the first time.

Too bad I can't just give it some wd-40 and get another 3 years out of it.LOL Damn electronics.

I guess it reminds me of the Prodigy song too. Did anyone else know you could have a thread title soooo long?
 
How old is the drive? Maybe you have some warranty remaining. 3 years seems to be the norm in the hard drive industry.

It will be nice will solid state drives become more feasible.
 
KT's suggestion was much better, it's Seagate :p Supposedly seagate are a really good brand of hard drive and Western Digital are crap.
 
yeah I think I am going to buy a SATA drive. I just got a Power Mac G5 and 160GB drive is filling up fast. I could always use my iPod 20GB for transporting data. I can get a 250GB SATA for $140CAN at Tigerdiect.ca
 
epepper9 said:
KT's suggestion was much better, it's Seagate :p Supposedly seagate are a really good brand of hard drive and Western Digital are crap.
Click to expand...
Aah, I like Seagate, and their 5 year warranties are nice, but really these days it's pretty much hit-or-miss regardless of the brand. The only statistical survey I've ever seen, over at Storagereview.com, shows Seagates as generally being reliable, but the recent 7200.8 series has been having an abnormally high failure rate. Maxtors used to generally fall at the bottom of the survey, but most newer ones rate ok.

Oh, and if you like WD and don't mind rebates, a 320GB can be had for around $110, or about $125 without rebates--have a peek at Dealmac.com, they've run several good ones recently.
 
vniow said:
Does anyone else think of the Prodigy song "Smack My Bitch Up" when you read the topic?

I'm not sure how expensive hard drive repair is so its its cheaper to get a new one I'd say go for it, sounds like its bound to fail at any tim, hope you have your data backed up...
Click to expand...
I did...I just couldn't think of a smart-ass comment that makes sense. "smack my hard-drive up" just doesn't sound as cool as "smack my bitch up"...
 
wait wait wait! dont throw away that hard drive. This looks like an electric problem.

Is it a hard drive enclosure?

If yes:

-Look at the power plug (inside (from casing to hard-drive) to see if it aint just loose
-Same for IDE cable but i Doubt

If not hard drive enclosure:

-Open it up and do the same as above.

If thats your problem, you just saved big bucks!
 
Reminds me of when I had to smack up my PB to get her going after several beachball freezes. Her hard drive was experiencing deferred success running. I must've smacked her up too hard and too often cuz she died 2 months later. Stupid bitch.
 
Lacero said:
I must've smacked her up too hard and too often cuz she died 2 months later. Stupid bitch.
Click to expand...

Don't you hate it when that happens?

/oh, you were talking about a PB..
//Walks away slowly
 
There's no excuse for domestic violence.

Sorry, I just felt the need to say that. :eek: ;) :D

Anyway, I ditto that a cabling sort of problem, whether inside the enclosure or outside, is the most likely culprit. That's usually the culprit when other electronics, like TVs, work because you smack them, too. A hard drive is very delicate... much like me. :eek:

If it were really an internal issue with the hard drive, and you were performing a sort of chiropractic adjustment by putting the smack down, there's no way the thing would continue working after that... once that kind of physical alignment issue creeps up, you're pretty much done.
 
mkrishnan said:
There's no excuse for domestic violence.
Click to expand...


luckily you didn't overhear the conversations of my friends at university today.

*ahem* a little misguided, they be.... :rolleyes:
 
epepper9 said:
KT's suggestion was much better, it's Seagate :p Supposedly seagate are a really good brand of hard drive and Western Digital are crap.
Click to expand...

Not always. What makes Seagate a better value is their 5 year warrenty. Of course, if your drive craps out, and you loose all your data, what good is a warrenty (that dosen't cover the data on the drive)? I have always used seagate, but I have a couple Raptor drives, and I gotta say, the rock. It all depends on what kind of drive you get. I remember when DeskStar's were the hot item, then quality went down, lots of data loss, then IBM sells it's HDD div. to Hitachi, now they are trying make a comeback..
If you don't need the lightning-fast Raptor drive, I'd go with Seagate too.
 
Ah, the old VSA is alive and well. Reminds me of a tech I worked with in the early days as a reseller (late 80s). Would have customers bring in PCs not working. I'd ask him what was wrong and he'd reply, I don't know, I just gave it the old VSA and it worked.



VSA- Vertical Slam Adjustment.
 
strydr said:
Not always. What makes Seagate a better value is their 5 year warrenty. Of course, if your drive craps out, and you loose all your data, what good is a warrenty (that dosen't cover the data on the drive)? I have always used seagate, but I have a couple Raptor drives, and I gotta say, the rock. It all depends on what kind of drive you get. I remember when DeskStar's were the hot item, then quality went down, lots of data loss, then IBM sells it's HDD div. to Hitachi, now they are trying make a comeback..
If you don't need the lightning-fast Raptor drive, I'd go with Seagate too.
Click to expand...

Actually the 5 years warranty is a bit misleading, because beyond the third year they will no longer service or replace your drive. Instead they will offer you a current drive for a prorated upgrade fee.

So in essense it is really a way for them to tie your next hdd purchase back to seagate.
 
vniow said:
Does anyone else think of the Prodigy song "Smack My Bitch Up" when you read the topic?

I'm not sure how expensive hard drive repair is so its its cheaper to get a new one I'd say go for it, sounds like its bound to fail at any tim, hope you have your data backed up...
Click to expand...


oh my god what i co-insidence, i was jst listening to that song and i just read this thread,

and i thought of it, well great minds think alike ;)
 
Whatever you replace, don't lose the receipt. Sometimes when a drive needs to be kick started, it's really the enclosure power supply that is going bad.
 
With Black Friday just around the corner, you should be able to snag a real low $$ IDE hard drive to replace the soon to be dead drive.

Look around and you can probably find a 160 GB Seagate for $30-40 after rebate on Friday.
 
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