[gadster]

I think I fried my HD. I was putzing around seeing how many movies I could run. Some were minimised in the dock, transparent terminal on top of some, Backlight running on my desktop, iTunes visualiser running. Just thinking 'wow, how cool' when I clicked on iPhoto to bring it to the front. 'Poof' instant shut down.

I tried to restart, and it got up to the grey startup screen and started making a horrible crunching noise over and over.

I booted from the Install CD and ran Disk Utility, which said 'invalid sibling link', which it didn't seem to repair.

I did a 'com/opt v l' restart and the noise starts at 'checking disk'. The wierd thing is that in the start up log, it identified my HD by the original name I gave it when I first installed the System software.

I left it to run, it was trying to repair the disk, and eventually I got to my usual login screen, logged in and tried to get into my files to back them up, but the machine would just hang.

Reboot again, I got a login screen that just said "Other". I tried the usual passwords but could get no access.

"Reset Password" from the install disk does not recognise the HD (nor does the actual installer)

I haven't backed up in 3 months

Any ideas what to do?

[skyman]

Originally posted by gadster:
I think I fried my HD. I was putzing around seeing how many movies I could run. Some were minimised in the dock, transparent terminal on top of some, Backlight running on my desktop, iTunes visualiser running. Just thinking 'wow, how cool' when I clicked on iPhoto to bring it to the front. 'Poof' instant shut down.

I tried to restart, and it got up to the grey startup screen and started making a horrible crunching noise over and over.

I booted from the Install CD and ran Disk Utility, which said 'invalid sibling link', which it didn't seem to repair.

I did a 'com/opt v l' restart and the noise starts at 'checking disk'. The wierd thing is that in the start up log, it identified my HD by the original name I gave it when I first installed the System software.

I left it to run, it was trying to repair the disk, and eventually I got to my usual login screen, logged in and tried to get into my files to back them up, but the machine would just hang.

Reboot again, I got a login screen that just said "Other". I tried the usual passwords but could get no access.

"Reset Password" from the install disk does not recognise the HD (nor does the actual installer)

I haven't backed up in 3 months

Any ideas what to do?

All I can say is:

I made that mistake many many years ago and now I backup at least once or more per week.

[BKuchta]

uh oh... my HD used to do that sometimes. A restart always fixed it, but maybe I should look into getting another drive. I have a 60GB IBM drive, what's yours?

[gadster]

Originally posted by BKuchta:
uh oh... my HD used to do that sometimes. A restart always fixed it, but maybe I should look into getting another drive. I have a 60GB IBM drive, what's yours?

40gig IBM Deskstar, Deathstar, more like.

[Millennium]

Try a DiskWarrior run; you might be able to salvage something. Your drive is probably not physically hosed, but don't get your hopes too high.

When DiskWarrior finishes (if it can do anything at all), back up everything you can and then low-level format the drive. You may want to consider a completely new drive, but that's your call.

If you do decide to keep the drive, turn on journalling, at least for a few months until you know the drive is stable.

[godzookie2k]

if its making a clicking sound, your platter has crashed and you should get as much data off of it as you can as soon as possible, by whatever means necessary, given enough time no data will be recoverable. (data recovery pro solution aside)

[CarpetFluff]

Apparently if you try connecting just the power lead to the drive you can tell if the drive is mechanically damaged or if it's just data corruption.

If it makes the clicking noise with only the power connected you have mechanical drive damage.

If it only makes the noise with both the data cable and power cable plugged in it is because the computer is trying to make sense of the corrupt data or boot sector, this means you should be able to fix the problem using a repair tool and I'm told that the best one is Disk Warrior although it's OS 9 only right now.

At least you then know if the drive is totally hosed or if you can reformat it and live with losing the data.

[macmike42]

If you are going to be purchasing a new drive, may I recommend going with Maxtor? I've heard so many horror stories about dead drives, and they usually have the same thing in common: IBM. Too bad they make such good CPUs, since their drives are obviously crap. I've killed 3 Quantums, 1 Seagate, and 1 IBM, and since I started buying nothing but Maxtor, I've been totally impressed.

I have two 66 GB cheap-o DiamondMax 5200RPM drives in my Beige G4 (w00t!), and they almost always max out the 15 MB/sec ATA/66 controller, are incredibly quiet, and I pretty much beat the living tar out of them 10 hours per day every day. I think they ran me $230 apiece about 3 or 4 years ago, but nowadays you can get 160 GB drives for $150 apiece.

[Detrius]

This is an IBM hard drive problem. I've killed two IBM hard drives. I also agree with the Maxtor recommendation.

About the IBM thing... there are class action lawsuits out there about IBM's drives failing too much.

[step]

Originally posted by Detrius:
I also agree with the Maxtor recommendation.

...big yes for maxtor internal drives, big hmmmm, for their history (and my experiences ) with external firewire drives

-ste

[CharlesS]

Data Rescue X has a reputation for being able to recover files from hosed disks. If DiskWarrior can't even save you, it might.

[MasterBeta]

I've never had a drive go bad, but then again, I'm a particularly good driver.

I would mention though that if you do regular backups, you'll probably never have a drive go bad.