My hard drive just crashed
 

Don't ever buy an IBM deathstar... er, deskstar.

Out of nowhere it just quit working. When I try to reboot it just clicks and hangs the system.

NOrmally I wouldn't care because it's not my the HDD with my operating system on it (I lost one of those recently too) but this hard drive has a job on it that I've been working on for over a week now.

If it doesn't miraculously work in the morning I need to start crying and just start the job over in hopes it will get done before the weekend.

western digital and segate
 

western digital and segate have been good for my computing years, still is.

Re: western digital and segate
 

WD has always been good for me. I recently also had a maxtor die on me. it's sad that hard drives only last 3 or 4 years. Maybe I should just buy all new hard drives each year and transfer them all over.

'
 

Been building computers since 95 and I've found that having more RAM than you need in your system greatly enhances drive longevity. More than stock cooling helps too...

I've been using a Deskstar 22GB daily since I bought it new MAY - 99 and only last year could I tell it was on its way out. lol, my main drive is a Maxtor and yeah its faster and quieter(fdb) but I won't put anything important on it as I've seen lots of them fail out of the blue. My deskstar was made in hungary and they've had several assembly plants over the years which may affect quality too.

Depending on how much that job data is worth Matt, if you can't get anything off the drive, I got a company in Florida I trust to do data extraction...

I bought a Western Digital,
 

I bought a Western Digital, I kinda regret I bought a 120gb because in a year or so I'll run out.

I went crazy on the RAM, 2GB.
Of course every computer has it's problem. Before my moniter would freeze and I had to reboot, it drove me nuts. I formatted my hard drive and installed windows again. Solved the problem. Of course there will be always other problems.

I'll be building my first
 

I'll be building my first computer in about a year. I plan to overbuild like hell on everything. Haha, how much will a TB of memory cost me by then? }:)

Used to build PCs and Networks
 

I used to build PCs and Networks as a home-business, and I agree, the IBM "DeathStar" is very unreliable. Back in the 2GB days, I would replace all kinds of WD HDDs that intermittently failed, but the newer ones are pretty good. Maxtor is hit-or-miss. I've found Toshiba to be the most reliable for me so far (but I don't build my own PCs much anymore, just clones from spare parts to run the Stanford Gene Folding Project if I can get all the necessary parts together -- then I run it on Fedora Linux with auto re-boot/login with no KB/Mouse/Monitor so when the power goes out, I don't have to do anything but check on it every month or so) -- but the folding runs the CPU at 100% and generates a LOT of heat. These days, I have 3 working laptops with small, high density drives of varying brand -- the laptop actually wears out before the HDD in most cases, so it hasn't been a problem; except, one Dell base-model from about 2-3 years ago recently toasted, but the HDD is perfect -- board fried twice - one in warranty, one out so it sits making an excellent doorstop. I also have a desktop which rarely gets used (just for Folding), and the Linux Clone (plus a basement full of spare parts).

All I can recommend with HDDs is cooling, cooling, cooling. A few years back, I can recall a high-output fan unit that installed in a free CD-ROM bay, and forced cool air in the case. That may extend the life of the replacement. I hope things were backed up -- I've been there and I "feel your pain".

Honestly, I should have
 

Honestly, I should have backed up a while ago. This drive has been beeping at me (the occassional skip-beep-skip sound) for months.

Maybe part of the problem is that I have 512megs of ram on this machine.

Ugh. I should have switched to my other computer months ago when I got it. My other computer is top of the line, 2 gigs of ram, etc. Looks like this PC is on it's way out, and soon.

I've built a number of PCs in my day, and hard drives have always been hit-or-miss with me. I just can't predict which one is going to go.

The positive side of this is that now I'm more motivated to switch to the new computer. I'll finally be getting rid of IDE hard drives, AGP video cards, and slow ram.

The down side is that I have to start this project over and work all through the night until it's finished.

toshiba hard drives
 

Yeah before I forget, toshiba laptop hard drives are what all laptop users NEED to stay away from. They are by far the cheapest made hard drives and are extremely prone to failure. They use sleeve bearings while everyone else uses ball bearings.

The best quality laptop and desktop hard drives right now are the new IBM/Hitachi Travelstar and Deskstar drives, respectively.

IBM merged with Hitachi in 2003 and now thier quality is absolutely top of the line.

But beware of toshiba laptop drives....

Re: toshiba hard drives
 

Uh oh... all Ipods use Toshiba laptop hard drives. :O

lol pwned, ipods are such a
 

lol pwned, ipods are such a fashion statement, i'm happy with my rca refurbished mp3 player! Even if it takes a second to input commands.

i've had this maxtor 20 gig hard drive for 5 years now and yes i'm aggressive when installing computer parts! I move things a lot back then and its still strong!!!!

the WD (120 gig) over a year and a half? and the 200 gig segate a year.

i am the hardrive king i
 

i am the hardrive king :P

i got 3 160 gigs in a RAID or 320G :P
and the following in my computer:
160g, 120g, 80g, 30g, 15g, 12g :P

and others i have just clolecting dust
7g, 3.4g, 2.1g, 1g, .5g .2g :P

thats 15 8) and thats not counting the obsolite one is have from other older machines. i got one it holds a waping 5 MEG! lol

i'm also going to make a hdd mp3 player for my helga :D


and to top it off i got a external WD 400g :jawdrop:

that i use for my 110g multimedia colecton including 70g of music vidieos, tv ads, and complte colectons of southpark, famaly guy, rockos modern life, and ren & stimpy not to menton the 25 some full legnth movies i have. music inludes 40g of all kinds of ****. uname it i proably got it :P

ALL YOUR HARDDRIVE ARE BELONG TO ME! }:) :P 8) ;)

Re: toshiba hard drives
 

I've seen the MTBF times on those iPod toshibas and I must say they advertise a number that is impressive. BUT, if I had one I'd make it a habit of this check to see if the drive was okay:

1. If the battery is not fully charged, plug it in as doing this takes battery power.
2. Press the Menu + Pause/Play buttons until the Apple logo comes up.
3. At the Apple logo, press the REW, FF, Menu and “Action” (the center) buttons.

A little "scanning disc" type icon will come on the screen. Just leave the iPod alone to run the utility.

At the end you will be presented with a Disk icon with a check mark or a sad iPod icon. If you get a sad iPod icon you need to send your iPod in for repair.

Hey Matt, if you can wait
 

Hey Matt, if you can wait awhile, Seagate is coming out with a 750gb drive. :jawdrop: 1tb drives aren't very far off either.

Re: Hey Matt, if you can wait
 

I remember when my family got our first PC. 386 DX with 33mhz of pure power. 20 meg hard drive powered windows 3.1.

Of course, people said that they would never be able to fill 20 megs, EVER.

Now I'm sitting here thinking that we'll never be able to fill a terabyte, but just give ita few years and I'm sure I'll be proven wrong.

1 Terabyte HDD
 

I'm waiting for the 1 Terabyte drive. Not that I need it, just because it's cool. Maybe if I put all of mine together...nope not even close. Actually my percentage of HDD space required vs. available has gone down over time...

Last summer I downloaded
 

Last summer I downloaded about 2 TBs worth of stuff, wish I coulda stored it all. I'm just going to wait until summer and then I'm building a box to work as NAS and I'll try and keep it organized.

Re: Last summer I downloaded
 

shoulda burned it all to dvds. :P then made me copys :D

hard drives sure make a dent
 

hard drives sure make a dent in our media industry oh wells.

hard drives sure make a dent
 

hard drives sure make a dent in our media industry oh wells.

more patience is required,
 

more patience is required, you guys must have fast speeds to download the insane amounts of data.

WD
 

You guys are really pushing your luck with WD drives - I have seen a lot of them fail and not be able to recover anything on them once they do fail. They also have some short factory warrentees - Seagate also had some failures but have 3 and 5 year warrentees now and the bigger drives are very cheep - I get 300gigs for about $110 so you really can't beat that. Have seen a lot of Toshiba laptop drives fail after a couple of years of daily use and a few OLD 100meg Maxstor drives that just don't die but who needs 100megs of drive space nowadays. Samsung has some nice quiet cool running drives but I can't seem to get them from my Vendor anymore.

Re: WD
 

Can you get me a 300GB for $110? :)

Try putting it in the
 

Try putting it in the refridrator overnight then see it will boot if it will but you don't have time to pull data off while running OS setup OS on another drive and put failed drive on secondary again put in cooler and try again. most hard drives fail when they get the hottest and cooling them down will allow you to get your data off till it warms up again or you can simply rig it up and leave the drive hooked up in the refrigerator till you get your data off. Also if arm is stuck you can try tapping or dropping it ever so softly. I had so many drives fail a few months ago. One of my users and while I was working on hers my own failed in my workstation both of them I was able to cool them off and get the data off but was unable to do a ghost on either one but that was ok. My grandfathers failed a few weeks later but he had a drive that put the firmware on the disk and it became corrupt and the computer could not even recognize it as a drive anymore. I have had really good luck with western digital but its heat that kills them. These dells they fail in are not built for air circulation and the drives get horribly hot.

Drives
 

They also mount them vertically which is not recommended by the manufacturer and never has been recommended.

That price of $110 is wholesale before shipping charges and varys from day to day sometimes. Unfortunately some but not this product can be sold rite 2 U via my on line store provided to me by D&H.

400gigs is about $210.00

www.System-One.rite2u.com

200GB Maxtor Internal $49
 

Re: 200GB Maxtor Internal $49
 

Maybe I should have specified that I need an external hard drive...my computer is a laptop.

USB 2.0
 

USB 2.0 inclosure for about $40 (prices vary) that will take any size drive - you should consider if you need fan cooling in the external enclosure or not because some run hot with heavy continuous use.

I don't think i need all
 

I don't think i need all that space. My 60gig seems like more then enough. It's not like am a professional video editor or anything.

Re: I don't think i need all
 

I've actually made a few videos for a class project. you can easily do it with a 60 gig drive.

Quote:I don't think i need
 

Unfortunately I like anime, so that means constant bittorrenting of thousands of 170-350 MB episodes.

Re: I don't think i need all
 

My friend is really into video. He is going to start taping/editing in hi-def and the file sizes are way bigger then standard video.

Re: Quote:I don't think i need
 

I used to be a big anime fan...I bought (at the time) all the episodes for Inu Yahsa on DVD. I also really liked Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. Which ones do you like, or which ones are hot right now?

I like too much to list,
 

I like too much to list, what you mentioned are good.

The hotness is Naruto and Bleach, I guess. Naruto is out in english for white people so it's gaining popularity, but Bleach is still a sub-only (I only watch subs).

Top 4 though:

Elfen Lied
GTO
Beck
FMA

Over the summer of past (and this to come) I just count down the animenfo.com top 200 list.

Re: I like too much to list,
 

Ditto. I'll have to check out some on your top list.