Faulty external hard drive.

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Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Retired »

Hi,

Years ago I used floppy discs for backing up then later used CD's. As time passed by my CD's started to misbehave ending up not being able to read some of them at all. I mentioned this to a chum and he suggested the best method of backing up was to use an external hard drive; I bought a 1tb Iomega hard drive and sure enough it was much better; massive capacity and no playing around with floppies or CD's so I was well pleased. My Iomega is model; LDHD-UP

A couple of weeks ago the Iomega threw a tantrum displaying images which were breaking up however after switching it off then back on again it now was fine. Last weekend the Iomega couldn't be recognized by the computer; it's power was on and the LED was flashing but it wasn't emitting its usual sound? Everything I tried to get it working failed; I browsed the web and could spend money on "drivers" but I'm a bit more streetwise than to do that; all my computer drivers were up to date. I removed the unit from its case but all appeared to be in order from a visual inspection.

Yesterday morning the fun started. I asked Bron if she would like a trip out to the computer shop in Fartown and we arrived at 10 o'clock when the shop was to open; I stood on the pavement outside the shop holding the Iomega in my hand whilst masses of traffic passed me. Becoming fed up of being on stage I went back to the car and we then parked on the pavement directly outside the shop. Something sounded to land on the car but we thought it must be leaves with the passing traffic kicking up a strong breeze; 15 minutes later we drove a few yards to a second computer shop thinking if the first computer shop couldn't open on time then they don't want out business?

Aztech Computers was open and I was the only customer; I explained the problem and the guy asked if I had brought along the power lead because it was a special? No I hadn't but he could just test the hard drive for me so I agreed to this. I watched as he removed the hard drive from the case as I had done then new to me he removed the actual hard drive unit; taking it into the back of the shop he then returned to declare the hard drive was working OK. I hadn't realized this external hard drive was just a standard hard drive but with its own power supply and some extra electronics; I asked if the electronics could be repaired and he said he had in stock direct replacement cases with the required electronics at £20 each. I was happy to buy one of these so he opened the box and set about installing my hard drive into the new case and all went well it being a very easy job; he then hooked the hard drive up to a computer but once again the hard drive wasn't recognized; he then spent the best part of an hour trying assorted cables and hooking up to different computers; he opened a second box and tried yet another new case but I should have told him my name adding that my guardian angel passed away many years ago? He simply couldn't get it to work but during his attempts I was quietly watching and listening; he had told me that the hard drive could be directly installed into my computer tower no longer requiring the case and extra electronics. I said I would be more than happy to install it into my tower but for once the little light lit up between my ears "will I need extra cables" yes I would need two extra cables and this saved another trip to the computer shop. I asked how much I owed him and he replied just £5 for the two cables which I thought very decent indeed of him considering the amount of effort he had put in on my behalf so I gladly handed over the £5 and told him he had a new customer in future.

Walking back to the car I found out what had caused the noise we heard; a Pterodactyl passing overhead had deposited a huge amount of gifts all over the rear of the car; back home first job was to wash the car.

This morning I pulled the computer desk clear of the wall then removed the tower unit after disconnecting the leads. Removing four knurled screws I soon had the side panels removed but had to disconnect the fan lead in case it became damaged. Installing the Iomega hard drive was easy enough but care is needed to ensure the leads are correctly positioned in their slots; The guy in the store had correctly added the two new leads into the hard drive so all I needed to do was hook up to a spare power supply lead and I looked at where the original hard drive was hooked up to the motherboard then connected alongside. The fan was reconnected and the two side panels secured. With all the leads connected at last the Iomega hard drive was instantly recognized and is now fully installed and working much to my relief. I'm not bothered about the Iomega no longer being external in fact I'm pleased to get it off the desk top.

I'm no computer whiz kid and all you computer experts could well be laughing at this story but when the Iomega failed it worried me because I have hundreds of images stored on it which I cannot replace; this has been a warning to me so now I need to back up my back up and will look into what my choices are? I hope my long winded story is of use to others should a similar fault occur on their external hard drive.

Looking back I could have been silly enough to spend money on drivers which would not have cured this fault; for £5 and a car wash I'm now delighted to have full access to my backed up images and data. :thumbleft:

Kind regards, Col.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Someone-Else »

Perhaps its time to buy a new external hard drive and copy what is on the "old one" to your new one, then destroy the old one? since as a moving part it can not go on for ever.

I believe the newer external hard drives don't have any moving parts (like your one has) and so should last considerably longer

If it helps I use "my passport" made by western digital, last one I got I picked it up from Tesco although I got a 500gb one.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Bob225 »

Its a standard drive so you can stick it in a standard usb enclosure

You need a backup of your backup if you don't want to loose any data
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Retired »

Hi,

Many thanks s-e. I've just had a look at the link you kindly added and the Tesco "My passport" is 1TB at £55 which is good value; as I read its spec though I note this too is mechanical disc?

I agree flash22 I do need to back up my back up but as yet I'm undecided as to best choice. I could use Virgin Media cloud for a small monthly fee but then I'd wonder about personal security; at the moment I'm considering a new external solid state hard drive such as this as an example;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/47680-Verbati ... 3cf4d14ce7

I need to spend time looking at my options because I thought I was pretty safe with the Iomega; perhaps a solid state hard drive is the best solution for me; at the moment I've got 30GB backed up which isn't a great deal?

Kind regards, Col.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Bob225 »

tbh its luck of the draw be it a hdd or ssd, a slight drop or shock can make a hdd useless and recovery can be ££££
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Argyll »

Like all drives they can and do eventually go wrong so as Flash suggested you're best backing up your back up. Have you considered on-line storage? One drive offers up to 1TB of storage for about a fiver a month (includes office 365). Google drive offers 15gb free. Or you can buy a second portable hard drive, zip it up and store away.

What size of data do you want to back up?
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Retired »

Hi,

Thanks flash22; very good point; electronic kit in general doesn't like rough handling. :cb

Thanks Argyll; yes I mentioned Virgin media for a small monthly fee but I've just obtained the Google free 15GB of storage although as yet I haven't sussed out how to use it. At the moment I have around 30GB backed up and could easily reduce this to fit the free Google however to be absolutely sure I've just bought the following it being the last one and on Amazon it gets good reviews so I'm looking forward to receiving it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Verbatim-4768 ... 58c5de930e

I hadn't realized just how vulnerable my backed up images and data was on the Iomega drive until it packed in so now I'll back up my back up and with both the Iomega and the new solid state drive when it arrives I think I'm pretty well covered for back up; I'll duplicate back up on both the Iomega and new drives so if one fails I can quickly back up again to another drive better to double back everything up than back up once with the chance of losing the lot? As I say its been a warning to me.

Kind regards, Col.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Someone-Else »

Another thing you may want to consider is a flash drive (or to be more precise, several flash drives) I just got some on ebay for less than a fiver for 32gb, yes you can't put everything on one drive, but in theory they will never go wrong........(famous last words) I also have one for my new laptop (it only has 32gb hd, any way, and most of that is used for the OS.

And perhaps in your case, you could have one for your website.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Dave54 »

I have 2 X 2Tb external drives, and I back both the whole drives on the main computer up onto those in turn. I keep them in different physical places as well. Not connected to the computer all the time.
I also back up important stuff, financial stuff and so on, onto an encrypted usb flash drive I keep with me.
Then just to be doubly paranoid, :shock: I also zip up that info, Axcrypt it, and store it on Dropbox.
As already said, if the info is important to you, it needs to be in at least three places, preferably physically separated.

Another point is that while I don't really trust CDRs or DVDRs for long term storage there are "archive quality" discs available. Some digging online will also tell you which discs last and which don't. It's all down to the dye used. It's not always the branded "quality" ones that you would think are good that actually are any good. Don't use rewriteable discs for anything long term.
I've got a number of discs that are over ten years old and still read OK.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by BillyGoat »

A few questions I'd always ask before suggesting a solution that suits your needs:

How many computers/tablets/devices do you have in the house
How fast is your internet connection
How much data are you backing up in GB (roughly)
How often did you back up your data - was it a chore or something you done religiously?
If you lost your data and needed to recovery it from location X, is speed of importance?

Cheers,

BG
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Argyll »

£77 is a bit pricey for a 128gb drive, SSD or not. If it's just for storage then SSD wouldn't really be required. Saying that Verbatim is about the best out there.

If you're going to zip up files your best using a program called Winrar. It's about the best out there for compressing files.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by BillyGoat »

Argyll wrote:Saying that Verbatim is about the best out there.
Really????????????????????????????????
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Retired »

Hi,

Thanks Dave54; you should get a top job in government on world security given how well you look after your data then perhaps sensitive government data would stop appearing in our park waste bins? :thumbleft: Thanks also for the disc advice regarding "Archive quality" which I've never previously heard of.

Thanks BG;
Just one computer my desktop.
Internet connection rapid 50mB.
Already stated at 30GB at the moment.
Back up whenever I add anything I don't wish to lose.
Recovery speed unimportant but don't want to lose data in the first instance? :salute:

I never store sensitive material on my computer or as back up and it wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost what I do back up but I do like to keep on record the many projects I tackle both in images and text especially the many radio restorations I've carried out over the years.

I agree £77 is a bit pricey Argyll but fortunately I only paid £58.86 including free delivery for my SSD; the seller has been quick to cash in because the one I bought was shown as the last one so if he now has more for sale massive inflation has hit them? At £58.86 mine I believe is good value and hopefully should last many years given the little use it will receive from me? Good job I was sitting down when I saw you mention £77 it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Kind regards, Col.
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by kellys_eye »

I suspect most 'secure' stoarge is done on the RAID principle (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) which means adding another HDD (or multiples, depends on the type of RAID you require).

Personally I'd review the data and try to get rid of unwanted or unnecessary data before both compressing and archiving across a couple of USB thumb drives and lock them away securely!
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Re: Faulty external hard drive.

Post by Argyll »

BillyGoat wrote:
Argyll wrote:Saying that Verbatim is about the best out there.
Really????????????????????????????????
Why do you disagree?
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