Computer Help - Hard Drive Clicking

[mgoddess]

Ok guys and gals, I need help...

My server, with five hard drives, is clicking, and I don't know which one is clicking... the clicking is very similar (if not exactly like) to that of what it does when the computer boots up.

Does anyone happen to know if this is caused by bad sectors, or something else? Can it be fixed? I know GRC's Spinrite (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) can be pretty damn good with hard drives, but I want to know if it will work first before I spend $90 on it.

[Celephais]

It's A BOMB! RUN!

[Bobmuhthol]

1. Hard drives don't click when they boot, unless they're in the process of breaking.
2. If a hard drive is clicking, listen to Celephais. It's seriously going to break.

[Celephais]

I'd suggest running a defrag of each disk, in order, not actually to solve the problem, but just a good way to highlight it.

[BigWorm]

Your are getting the click of death. A hard drive failure is imminent. You need to back up your file on all the drives before you do anything else, especially something like a defrag which will put a lot of strain on your hardware for no benefit. Defragging has nothing to do with data integrity.

After you have backed up your files, then you can figure out which drive is clicking and what to do next.

[Drew]

I've had one of my hard drives clicking for over a year. YMMV.

[Gan]

Every hard drive I've had that starts clicking has lost its armiture (ie: read arm) within a few weeks.

Back up your data now.

[AnticorRifling]

Every hard drive I've had that starts clicking has lost its armiture (ie: read arm) within a few weeks.

Back up your data now.


QFT.

[Sean of the Thread]

I've had a bad hard drive year I'm not going to comment any further on this subject.


Back up your shit that you want now (GS nudie pics...yes all you girls are safe I've lost them all) Civ IV saved games etc. Soon you're gonnna turn it on and it's going to be like GIVE ME BOOT DEVICE BITCH YOUR HD IS IN MY TUMMMY.

[mgoddess]

Argh.

The computer's been off since I posted...

We back up consistently, and have our important things on mirror arrays, so we're covered. I seriously hope it's the old (12gb) hard drive that's clicking, but I'm not holding my breath.

Bad timing, damnit, bad timing.

(Thanks for answering everyone. Appreciate it.)

[Sean of the Thread]

Generally a bad idea but tapping on the clicking drive or shaking it prior to booting up may gave you another chance at retrieving/backing up the data.


however make sure it's the bad drive... and two be gentle but trust me it works enough times with things are to the critical point to work.

[Bobmuhthol]

I've had a crashed hard drive in my freezer for over a year. I'm going to get it professionally recovered... some day...

[Numbers]

I have an aunt that once kept her dead cat in the freezer until she could get it buried. Totally unrelated, I know, but Bob's post made me think of it.

[Kuyuk]

Must have a lot of porn on that HD bob ;p


K.

[AnticorRifling]

I've had a crashed hard drive in my freezer for over a year. I'm going to get it professionally recovered... some day...

Oddly enough that works. I've saved some cancer research data via ziplock bag and freezer time.

[BigWorm]

Oddly enough that works. I've saved some cancer research data via ziplock bag and freezer time.

The best theory I've heard for this is that the components shrink when put in a cold environment and are just enough smaller that the distanced between parts are large enough that nothing bad happens.

Of course, the obvious question is what happens when it warms back up?

[Bobmuhthol]

That's the correct theory. The problem with a crashed hard drive (after clicking) is that the platters have actually made contact where they should be just barely apart. By reducing the temperature enough, they "unstick." You have a very small window of opportunity when you take the hard drive out of a freezer to recover the data conventionally -- ie., plugging it in and backing up as much as you can. However, you really only have one shot at it. I never got it to work because BIOS would not recognize the drive. What I need to get done now is have the memory-bearing parts of the drive transferred into a new shell.

[BigWorm]

That's the correct theory. The problem with a crashed hard drive (after clicking) is that the platters have actually made contact where they should be just barely apart. By reducing the temperature enough, they "unstick." You have a very small window of opportunity when you take the hard drive out of a freezer to recover the data conventionally -- ie., plugging it in and backing up as much as you can. However, you really only have one shot at it. I never got it to work because BIOS would not recognize the drive. What I need to get done now is have the memory-bearing parts of the drive transferred into a new shell.

What do you have on there, nuclear launch codes? Professional data recovery is expensive (though oftentimes worth it is the information is valuable) and difficult. I've copied drives at the bit level (using dd in linux), but if your BIOS won't recognize the drive, you're right about needing a new casing. And while it would be a fun project, if you care enough about the hd to keep it in your freezer for however long, that's something that a pro will have to do in psuedo clean room.

[Bobmuhthol]

It's nothing crucial, but I just h8 that I don't have it anymore. Some of it was programs, etc., and I pretty much quit programming forever when it crashed so that's kind of :(. But yeah, I have to get some clean room shit going on. It'll probably take me years before I get the initiative to throw away that kind of money, but I promised myself I'd do it just because it was fucking annoying for my drive to die like that.

[kheldarin]

If you can't access that hard drive's data, just run Spinrite (which you can get from Hiren's Boot CD which has a "free" version of Spinrite wink wink), then backup that data.

I've had a customer's 8GB old HDD that was clicking like crazy, but within an hour or so of Spinrite, it booted into Windows 98 just fine. I can't guarantee how long it's gonna last, but it's gonna last long enough for you to back up data.