external hard drive problem!!

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 02:21 PM

hello there guys!!well i have a problem with a WD Elements external hard drive,the problem is when i try to put some files into the hard drive the hard drive start doing some noise like a click click click and i have to unplug the hard drive from my pc to stop the noise,i can delete,move,play files but i can`t put files into the external hard drive,hope someone from this forum can help me to fix this problem.

**FirtY** · 02-22-11 at 02:42 PM

First download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics from the WD website.
Run windlg.exe select your drive and double click it, run full suite of tests..
If your drive does not pass all tests you should get as much data off it as possible and return it (if still under warranty)
State that you have done all of this in your RMA...

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 03:27 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by FirtY

First download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics from the WD website.
Run windlg.exe select your drive and double click it, run full suite of tests..
If your drive does not pass all tests you should get as much data off it as possible and return it (if still under warranty)
State that you have done all of this in your RMA...

thank you for reply,im doing right now the test on my HD.let`s see what happen.

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 03:53 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by sotiri2

Try to Put the HDD in a refrigerator let it in for 3 hours! then take it out and let it rest on a table or desk for 2 hours! This can help to noise making HDD's or even restore the disk.

Or try the first comment above you first.

if i do that i won`t lose my data?

already did the test on my HD

all green arrows mean that the hard dirve is working fine but i get this message when i run the quick test with the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics

Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!
Test Time: 17:36:16, February 22, 2011

**FirtY** · 02-22-11 at 04:17 PM

Interesting, SMART is not the most reliable technology.. The fact that the drive is making scary sounds is enough to make me worry.
To be on the safe side, get all you important stuff of the drive.
You can download HD Tune here
Install it and run the error scan and extra tests..
I really didn't expect it to pass, but even so hard disks shouldn't make those sort of sounds so something mechanical is wrong.
Keep note of what you have done and the results

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 04:28 PM

thank you sotiri2 and FirtY im going right now to best buy to get another external hd,can any of you recommend me a good external hard drive?

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 04:31 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by FirtY

The fact that the drive is making scary sounds is enough to make me worry.

the drive only make noises when i try to put some files into the HD.

**2Caras** · 02-22-11 at 04:55 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by sotiri2

Kingston is good! Seagate is good to as well! WD is between the mid classes. But Kingstons ar the best.

thank you man.

**SSRCharlieB** · 02-23-11 at 06:37 PM

When a hard drive starts clicking it is over or soon will be. If you can still access your data then you should back it up somewhere else at once.

If you have tried every other option and you still can not access the drive, then you will want to try the "cold" method, but what was suggested is NOT the way to do it.

If ALL else fails, seal the drive in plastic with the cables sticking out and put the drive in the freezer for at least several hours (over night is better), and while the drive is still cold plug it up and attempt to access the data. I have seen this work for others and it has worked for me before and if you have tried everything else, then you have nothing to lose by giving this a shot. Be SURE that the drive is completely sealed before freezing it as condensation will start to form immediately upon removing it from the freezer and the moisture will damage the electronics if you have not sealed the drive properly. You can repeat the "freeze" method several times and regain data access before it fails completely.

As for using solid state drives for mass storage, unless you can use 100 dollar bills to light your cigars it is not a viable option. The available 256 GB SSD's, for instance retail in the $5oo-plus (that's five hundred dollars - US) neighborhood, with the Kingston going for over 600 dollars. Maybe you can afford that kind of money for storage, but I certainly can't. A 500 gig drive is around two thousand bucks!!!

If you are going to go with a Seagate, then do not buy one of their low or mid range quality drives, and if you want reliability then this is more or less true about all of the brands out there.

If you want to buy a cheap drive, you are going to get what you pay for. My advice is to buy a separate enclosure and a QUALITY hard drive and put them together yourself, as I know of nothing in the quality external field that doesn't cost a lot more than it should (unless it is on sale). Also, almost all of the pre-cased externals have a smaller cache, which is very important in data transfer.

As I said, you get what you pay for. Especially if you are going to store your data on only one drive, without backup, then you better go for the best that you can afford.

Just my "two cents"

Charlie

**tongks** · 02-23-11 at 11:50 PM

After several time fail on huge file transfer over USB2 on diff encloser, I read, study, survey, then bought:
WD 2.5" 320GB Black 7200 rpm, 5 years warranty.
NexStar3 eSATA+USB2 encloser

Partition as 1 NTFS logical drive, paired with mobo native eSATA & XP AHCI, huge file transfer (sometimes >100GiB one shot) so far 100% successful, practical transfer speed varies between 30-60MB+/sec. HD Tune can get 80MB+/sec. It is now 1 year old.

**tongks** · 02-23-11 at 11:56 PM

Another way to check if your hard drive develop weak sector is to use HDDScan tool.

Code: Select All

http://hddguru.com/

**SSRCharlieB** · 02-24-11 at 12:20 AM

You can check all you want. It will not matter what software or firmware you run, when a drive starts "clicking" it is as bad as it gets. PERIOD. There is no saving it, unless you have factory conditions in which to disassemble the drive and replace or repair the tracking mechanism, and the know-how and tools/parts/precision machinery required to do so.

As for drive suggestions, I also highly recommend the Western Digital Caviar Black. The one terrabyte drives sell for around $90 US, and they have performed very well for me in the past. Much better than the Seagate Baracuda 7200 Series drives, which I have also had quite a few of, all of which have failed or are failing (except for two of them).

These WD drives have dual processors and a 64-meg cache, which makes them faster than anything else in their class or price range at 6 GB/sec.!!!

Awesome performance for the money.

Check it out here...

Code: Select All

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Also, I didn't see where you stated how old the drive was. Some of the WD's have three-year warranties so you may be able to get the drive replaced for free. Western Digital has excellent customer service, in my experience.

Charlie

**tongks** · 02-24-11 at 06:52 AM

Me too, WD is my preference as well, I have 6 of them, from 250GB to 2TB (EARS), green, blue, and black, 3.5" and 2.5", all still tip-top.

**2Caras** · 02-24-11 at 10:06 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by SSRCharlieB

When a hard drive starts clicking it is over or soon will be. If you can still access your data then you should back it up somewhere else at once.

If you have tried every other option and you still can not access the drive, then you will want to try the "cold" method, but what was suggested is NOT the way to do it.

If ALL else fails, seal the drive in plastic with the cables sticking out and put the drive in the freezer for at least several hours (over night is better), and while the drive is still cold plug it up and attempt to access the data. I have seen this work for others and it has worked for me before and if you have tried everything else, then you have nothing to lose by giving this a shot. Be SURE that the drive is completely sealed before freezing it as condensation will start to form immediately upon removing it from the freezer and the moisture will damage the electronics if you have not sealed the drive properly. You can repeat the "freeze" method several times and regain data access before it fails completely.

As for using solid state drives for mass storage, unless you can use 100 dollar bills to light your cigars it is not a viable option. The available 256 GB SSD's, for instance retail in the $5oo-plus (that's five hundred dollars - US) neighborhood, with the Kingston going for over 600 dollars. Maybe you can afford that kind of money for storage, but I certainly can't. A 500 gig drive is around two thousand bucks!!!

If you are going to go with a Seagate, then do not buy one of their low or mid range quality drives, and if you want reliability then this is more or less true about all of the brands out there.

If you want to buy a cheap drive, you are going to get what you pay for. My advice is to buy a separate enclosure and a QUALITY hard drive and put them together yourself, as I know of nothing in the quality external field that doesn't cost a lot more than it should (unless it is on sale). Also, almost all of the pre-cased externals have a smaller cache, which is very important in data transfer.

As I said, you get what you pay for. Especially if you are going to store your data on only one drive, without backup, then you better go for the best that you can afford.

Just my "two cents"

Charlie

thanks god i get all my data back from that external hard drive,this external hard drive i used it for music files and personal stuff,i bought a 2 terabytes seagate flex but this seagate hd is gonna be only for movies,i have a WD portable HD in this HD im gonna keep my music and my personal stuff,thank you for your kindness help

02-23-11 at 06:37 PM	#9
SSRCharlieB Geezer Power Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: North Carolina, Small town, USA Posts: 2,446	When a hard drive starts clicking it is over or soon will be. If you can still access your data then you should back it up somewhere else at once. If you have tried every other option and you still can not access the drive, then you will want to try the "cold" method, but what was suggested is NOT the way to do it. If ALL else fails, seal the drive in plastic with the cables sticking out and put the drive in the freezer for at least several hours (over night is better), and while the drive is still cold plug it up and attempt to access the data. I have seen this work for others and it has worked for me before and if you have tried everything else, then you have nothing to lose by giving this a shot. Be SURE that the drive is completely sealed before freezing it as condensation will start to form immediately upon removing it from the freezer and the moisture will damage the electronics if you have not sealed the drive properly. You can repeat the "freeze" method several times and regain data access before it fails completely. As for using solid state drives for mass storage, unless you can use 100 dollar bills to light your cigars it is not a viable option. The available 256 GB SSD's, for instance retail in the $5oo-plus (that's five hundred dollars - US) neighborhood, with the Kingston going for over 600 dollars. Maybe you can afford that kind of money for storage, but I certainly can't. A 500 gig drive is around two thousand bucks!!! If you are going to go with a Seagate, then do not buy one of their low or mid range quality drives, and if you want reliability then this is more or less true about all of the brands out there. If you want to buy a cheap drive, you are going to get what you pay for. My advice is to buy a separate enclosure and a QUALITY hard drive and put them together yourself, as I know of nothing in the quality external field that doesn't cost a lot more than it should (unless it is on sale). Also, almost all of the pre-cased externals have a smaller cache, which is very important in data transfer. As I said, you get what you pay for. Especially if you are going to store your data on only one drive, without backup, then you better go for the best that you can afford. Just my "two cents" Charlie Last edited by SSRCharlieB; 02-24-11 at 12:53 AM. Reason: syntax

02-23-11 at 11:56 PM	#11
tongks Novice Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 140	Another way to check if your hard drive develop weak sector is to use HDDScan tool. Code: Select All http://hddguru.com/

02-24-11 at 12:20 AM	#12
SSRCharlieB Geezer Power Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: North Carolina, Small town, USA Posts: 2,446	You can check all you want. It will not matter what software or firmware you run, when a drive starts "clicking" it is as bad as it gets. PERIOD. There is no saving it, unless you have factory conditions in which to disassemble the drive and replace or repair the tracking mechanism, and the know-how and tools/parts/precision machinery required to do so. As for drive suggestions, I also highly recommend the Western Digital Caviar Black. The one terrabyte drives sell for around $90 US, and they have performed very well for me in the past. Much better than the Seagate Baracuda 7200 Series drives, which I have also had quite a few of, all of which have failed or are failing (except for two of them). These WD drives have dual processors and a 64-meg cache, which makes them faster than anything else in their class or price range at 6 GB/sec.!!! Awesome performance for the money. Check it out here... Code: Select All http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533 Also, I didn't see where you stated how old the drive was. Some of the WD's have three-year warranties so you may be able to get the drive replaced for free. Western Digital has excellent customer service, in my experience. Charlie Last edited by SSRCharlieB; 02-24-11 at 12:56 AM. Reason: More

02-22-11 at 02:42 PM	#2
FirtY Elder Join Date: May 2009 Location: Eire Posts: 2,948	First download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics from the WD website. Run windlg.exe select your drive and double click it, run full suite of tests.. If your drive does not pass all tests you should get as much data off it as possible and return it (if still under warranty) State that you have done all of this in your RMA...

02-22-11 at 03:27 PM	#3
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	Quote: Originally Posted by FirtY First download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics from the WD website. Run windlg.exe select your drive and double click it, run full suite of tests.. If your drive does not pass all tests you should get as much data off it as possible and return it (if still under warranty) State that you have done all of this in your RMA... thank you for reply,im doing right now the test on my HD.let`s see what happen.

02-22-11 at 03:53 PM	#4
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	Quote: Originally Posted by sotiri2 Try to Put the HDD in a refrigerator let it in for 3 hours! then take it out and let it rest on a table or desk for 2 hours! This can help to noise making HDD's or even restore the disk. Or try the first comment above you first. if i do that i won`t lose my data? already did the test on my HD all green arrows mean that the hard dirve is working fine but i get this message when i run the quick test with the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics Test Result: FAIL Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2! Test Time: 17:36:16, February 22, 2011

02-22-11 at 04:17 PM	#5
FirtY Elder Join Date: May 2009 Location: Eire Posts: 2,948	Interesting, SMART is not the most reliable technology.. The fact that the drive is making scary sounds is enough to make me worry. To be on the safe side, get all you important stuff of the drive. You can download HD Tune here Install it and run the error scan and extra tests.. I really didn't expect it to pass, but even so hard disks shouldn't make those sort of sounds so something mechanical is wrong. Keep note of what you have done and the results

02-22-11 at 04:28 PM	#6
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	thank you sotiri2 and FirtY im going right now to best buy to get another external hd,can any of you recommend me a good external hard drive?

02-22-11 at 04:31 PM	#7
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	Quote: Originally Posted by FirtY The fact that the drive is making scary sounds is enough to make me worry. the drive only make noises when i try to put some files into the HD.

02-22-11 at 04:55 PM	#8
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	Quote: Originally Posted by sotiri2 Kingston is good! Seagate is good to as well! WD is between the mid classes. But Kingstons ar the best. thank you man.

02-23-11 at 11:50 PM	#10
tongks Novice Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 140	After several time fail on huge file transfer over USB2 on diff encloser, I read, study, survey, then bought: WD 2.5" 320GB Black 7200 rpm, 5 years warranty. NexStar3 eSATA+USB2 encloser Partition as 1 NTFS logical drive, paired with mobo native eSATA & XP AHCI, huge file transfer (sometimes >100GiB one shot) so far 100% successful, practical transfer speed varies between 30-60MB+/sec. HD Tune can get 80MB+/sec. It is now 1 year old.

02-24-11 at 06:52 AM	#13
tongks Novice Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 140	Me too, WD is my preference as well, I have 6 of them, from 250GB to 2TB (EARS), green, blue, and black, 3.5" and 2.5", all still tip-top.

02-24-11 at 10:06 AM	#14
2Caras Expert Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 625	Quote: Originally Posted by SSRCharlieB When a hard drive starts clicking it is over or soon will be. If you can still access your data then you should back it up somewhere else at once. If you have tried every other option and you still can not access the drive, then you will want to try the "cold" method, but what was suggested is NOT the way to do it. If ALL else fails, seal the drive in plastic with the cables sticking out and put the drive in the freezer for at least several hours (over night is better), and while the drive is still cold plug it up and attempt to access the data. I have seen this work for others and it has worked for me before and if you have tried everything else, then you have nothing to lose by giving this a shot. Be SURE that the drive is completely sealed before freezing it as condensation will start to form immediately upon removing it from the freezer and the moisture will damage the electronics if you have not sealed the drive properly. You can repeat the "freeze" method several times and regain data access before it fails completely. As for using solid state drives for mass storage, unless you can use 100 dollar bills to light your cigars it is not a viable option. The available 256 GB SSD's, for instance retail in the $5oo-plus (that's five hundred dollars - US) neighborhood, with the Kingston going for over 600 dollars. Maybe you can afford that kind of money for storage, but I certainly can't. A 500 gig drive is around two thousand bucks!!! If you are going to go with a Seagate, then do not buy one of their low or mid range quality drives, and if you want reliability then this is more or less true about all of the brands out there. If you want to buy a cheap drive, you are going to get what you pay for. My advice is to buy a separate enclosure and a QUALITY hard drive and put them together yourself, as I know of nothing in the quality external field that doesn't cost a lot more than it should (unless it is on sale). Also, almost all of the pre-cased externals have a smaller cache, which is very important in data transfer. As I said, you get what you pay for. Especially if you are going to store your data on only one drive, without backup, then you better go for the best that you can afford. Just my "two cents" Charlie thanks god i get all my data back from that external hard drive,this external hard drive i used it for music files and personal stuff,i bought a 2 terabytes seagate flex but this seagate hd is gonna be only for movies,i have a WD portable HD in this HD im gonna keep my music and my personal stuff,thank you for your kindness help