Hardware failures!

[CdocZ]

So the below story just happened to me, but here is the thread: tell your hardware failure stories! What happened and why? How did you fix it the problem, or did you deal with the issue another way? And so on. I know people have asked for computer related help/told stories of such, but as far as I can tell/get from search results, there has never been a generic hardware failure thread.

And now I will jump-start this thread:

What happened: I just had a 1-2 hour scare where my 1 year old external terabyte hard drive (a Trekstor device) decided to be totally unresponsive to my computer. Didn't show up on Linux or Windows. Even more, my other external (Another Trekstor, a 320gig, 2-3 years old) decided to, for the same exact amount of time as far as I can tell, decided to scramble all input/output in such a way as songs would play 2-3 seconds of one section, then skip to another section of a different song on the same album, back to a completely random section of the actual song, and repeat randomly.

Basically, I nearly lost about 600+ gigs of music (I have only about 10 movies on these devices).....you can guess what sort of reactions I was having.

What I am looking for: Any input on good hard drives from anyone? I am now looking for either 1 or 2 external 1tb hard drives or 1 external 2tb hard drive. Any one have particularly bad/good experience with any brands/models? All I really know is that Trekstor has so far proven good, and that another good brand is Western Digital and Seagate. Budget is not an issue (but keep it reasonable for the results); cost is third, after look-up/retrieval speed and reliability.

The set up I am probably going to use:
A) If I only get a single 1 or 2tb hard drive, it will simply be used for back-up duties and not much else until one of my current devices die.

B) If I get two 1tb hard drives, one will be used for back-up only, and the other for more regular use as time goes on.

C) This one is a little insane, but a 1tb and a 2tb drive; the 2tb drive to be designated as back-up only, and the 1tb for a little extra-failsafe so if one or both of my current drives die, I can still have a designated back up drive + still plenty of room to expand.

D) Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anything that involves a designated back up drive is acceptable.

Now your turn /

[whiteballz]

Today My maxtor 1touch 250Gb has decided to foul my entire system.

Not sure what the issue is - As I am currently trying to work it out. So I think tomorrow at work I'll be grabbing a 1.5 TB hdd to replace all my existing external HDD's (1 250GB and 1 640 GB). To free the 640Gb up for backup duties.

[Rockefella]

I have a 750 gb Seagate that I haven't had any problems with

[pimento]

As much as I hate to suggest Acer, my bossman got himself an Acer NAS box and stuck 4 x 1TB drives in it and set up a pair of mirrors. Essentially he has two 1TB drives that can both suffer the failure of one of the drives with no problems. Something like that is what you want if you like to rest easy.

My PC failed after I had it in the back of the car on the cross country drive.. I put a new PSU in it and forgot to plug the CPU fan into the power. That was the final straw.. I replaced the mobo and CPU with an old Intel set (it was an Athlon) I had and repair installed XP over the top. Worked well for a while longer..

[G35COUPE]

I backup most important items on a 4 GB stick or flash drive.

[whiteballz]

You only have a 4Gb backup?

[pimento]

I have an old PC plugged into my TV with a couple of Seagate 1.5TBs for backup and DVD/movie watching porpoises..

[whiteballz]

I recently installed a TV card into my pc.

yet to use it. or even figure it out. haha.

[Dary]

Nothing happened to me, so far. I only backups the important files on external hard drive (120GB).

I'm thinking to get a home server but.. hmm.. still not sure. It is HP MediaSmart Server EX490 and they just refreshed it! Some general features i like about this thing: 4 bays, automatic backup for Windows and Mac (thats would be very useful for my home, with 3 PCs and 2 Macs), multimedia streaming and since its a Windows Home Server you can install a lot of add-ons, something like uTorrent

[acfsambo]

My friends Laptop (with Vista) downloaded and installed an update with an XP file in it. Screwed up his laptop and he lost everything on the hard drive, but had everything important backed up.

[clutch-monkey]

my old computer failed pretty dramatically putting an axe through it, you'd be suprised what will and won't keep working

[Spastik_Roach]

Answer to everyones problems: Get an Apple.

<apple vs pc arguement>

[LeonOfTheDead]

CdocZ, did you try to connect the actual HD with a SATA cable to your computer, without using the USB or firewire cable?
There are some professional stuff that can help you.
My story (already wrote) here:

I had an old Asus, inherited from my father.
Basically the laptop couldn't be used a a portable computer as a year before the laptop fell from the bag and had to receive a new screen (700 €), but a major problem was still there: an internal contact would have cut the power instantaneously once you would try to move it. Knowing this, I tried to not move it when turned on.
It happened that I moved it 8already happened, I just lost the data I was working on), but that time the problem the HD, which wasn't readable anymore.

Oh, the suffering.

The computer guy, trying to fix the problem of the computer, broke the monitor once again, and I got a low-end HP for about 100 € off the price.
I bought some external HD usb devices to try to recover the data from the old HD, but it wasn't working.
After I think 5 months, the HD in the HP refused to start. PANIC.

HP was kind enough to ship me a new one without any sort of problems, but I had to ship the damaged one back in 7 days, and I couldn't find a way to recover the data once again.

We are taking about 40 Gb in the fist HD, and about 100 Gb in the second one.
I tried with various USB devices, HDD enclosures and other stuff, but both Windows (XP and Vista) and Linux (Ubuntu 8.2 iirc) couldn't read it.
XP just ignored it, Vista crashed, Ubuntu gave me an error saying "not readable", basically.

I went to a shop which generally sells computers and assistance to offices and small companies, and they offered me this:

DIGITUS: Accessories



for I think 40 €, looking at it I thought it was the worst device I ever saw.

Connected to previously used laptops it wasn't really working.
I connected it to my father's iMac, even if it isn't Mac-compatible.
Damn, it was working!!!

All the HDs, all the data, recovered at the speed of light!.

Since then, I hate Maxtors (all the faulty HDs were from Maxtor, including another very old one), and bought a 750 Gb Seagate, with now something like 250/300 Gb still free.

[S.O.S]

I lost my psu last year or before, big flash big bang scared shit out of me.

Back up's!, i liver dangerously i don't back up.

[CdocZ]

To all the stories, damn people, that sucks.

Didn't try the SATA; someone suggested trying something that didn't involve my USB ports, but didn't have many options available at the time of day/week. I will still look into that though as soon as I can