Hard Drive Problems BETA Discussion

Welcome to the land of expectations. Now get the hell out.

This post brobably will NOT solve your problems completely. Use it as a jumping off point.

that said....

Lately I've seen all kinds of problems with hard drives (hard disks-same thing); especially PATA\IDE\EIDE drives. Where's the problem? Depends on the behavior. I have some terms for you to use:

Mount- this means that the drive is not only visible to your system, but it shows up with a formatted volume

format- denotes the filesystem used and how data is written to or read from the drive, also how the drive is mounted or booted

Bootable- this format feature is the sole feature responsible for determining whether or not a drive can start up a computer or system. If this isn't enabled, the hard drive cannot be used to start an operating system (OS), even if that OS has been installed on it.

unformatted- a drive that shows up on the system, but has no formatting or operating system info; brand new drives usually are formatted, and erased drives are unformatted; damaged format info can also show a drive as unformatted

readable- this means that the drive is formatted, and that you have access to any data on it, and for some security styles, that you have permission to read the data

writeable- this means a drive can be written to (any drive can be written to if undamaged)

Cylinder- a physical space on a cylindrical plate in a hard drive that stores information magnetically; see wikipedia.com for details (use hard disk cylinders as the search term)

block- can be a physical or logical chunk of space on a hard disk. see wikipedia for more info

Head- a physical arm that reads or writes data to a drive magnetically

Partition- a logical or software divided storage space; once formatted, a hard drive has a formatted, logical storage space called a partition, and a physical drive can hold more than one partition, but cannot have partitions that take up (collectively or singularly) more space than the drive can hold. Many systems have one physical drive that is split into several partitions, one possibly being invisible to all but the BIOS, in case there is any failure of the main partition (factory default setup). See the documentation on your system to find out how to access this, and for more info, go to wikipedia.com and look up factory default partition, or hidden partition followed by your OS.

I'm a mac user, so permissions are important (also to unix). Windows only needs to be logged in as the owner or administrator of the machine. Unix needs a password when performing any action that requires this type of access unless this eventuality is properly handled by a programmer.

I also dabble in XP and lower versions of Windows. Many utilities exist for these OS'es.

One utility that will enable you to solve a few data loss problems is called Testdisk (search in wikipedia). It will work across platforms, and will at least see most partition types. If you lose data or accidentally reformat or delete a file, this program is quite adept at helping you recover it. However, it is not a catch all. I recommend you use a third party service for sensitive data recovery, so you don't damage the drive or data any further. This is expensive, but can be more effective when physical wear and tear leaves a drive lacking in function. Buying utilities that track deletion and changes in files is also a great way to protect yourself.

If you have an older PATA\IDE\EIDE (PIE) drive, you are probably not taking advantage of SMART programming. SMART is:

Self Monitoring And Reporting Technology, and is built into most ATA or SATA, or eSATA hard disks, and has been included in BIOS chips for a long time. PIE drives, while widely available, cheap, and very compatible, are of an older access design. Newer PIE drives don't often fail, but when they do, the fix can be costly. If more of them came with SMART built into them, that would be an offset cost. Alas, those of us on a budget at the front end sometimes have to bend over and take it in the rear end when it comes to our computers and data.

While there are a multitude of devices for purchase that allow you to forego such extraneous costs, the devices are so expensive that they are only a good buy if you have a lot of drives to worry about. Most people have only one or two.

In the 1.0 I will make note of a device or two, and possibly some software that will allow you to be the hero once in a while. For now, I suggest you start by checking some of the above information.

Typical problems:

Hard drive clicking sound -- possible mechanical wear, backup data and replace drive is recommended

Wont mount, show as available, or boot -- the main file table or record may be damaged or the partition data may be damaged. You will need a utility to recover data and a drive with at least the same amount of space as the damaged drive (1.5x the space is usually the minimum for some utilities that also dredge up deleted files; 2x is recommended, and your OS needs to be able to handle it properly)

Won't whir, show, spin, or mount at all -- the mechanical parts of the drive have failed, use a data recovery lab to get your files, bend over and take it like a real hero. Of course you could have dust in between plates, or even in the motor, but you're better off assuming them dead unless you open the drive to find out (like the vietnam war vet says: "I've seen some things, man, and some stuff!... ...I wouldn't recommend it!" I don't recommend opening the drive).

More later.