frozen HD

Post by **hubird** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 9:54 pm

I had a frozen IBM harddisk today, that was scary.
I put in in the freezer for 9 hours, don't know if that did help, but after I put it in, it worked again!
I did a fast backup of the most important and recent stuff on 3 cd's, mostly my work of the last 3 weeks.
I'm backing up now all system files and progran/documents files to the second disk, which is 120 Gig.
I'm not sure if everything will start up as normal from that disk, maar I'm happy already with what I have now

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 10:12 pm

? why d'you have to freeze it in the first place? over heating?

Post by **hubird** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 10:41 pm

no no, there's a big thread here on planetz about frozen harddisks, and I remembered that every citated expert was seriously recommending it!
I guess the shrinking of the metal parts makes it possible for the drive to start turning again, if it's not the laser.

Thanks planetz!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 10:46 pm

probably the head loading mechanism got stuck, and that's one of the tricks to convince it to work again

The drive made some strange click sounds when booting, didn't it ?

congrats, Hubird - great that you could capture all your data

we've recently had a recovery of such a thing in the company I work for.
2000 € per 20 G in case someone is interested in follow-up costs

cheers, Tom

Post by **hubird** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 11:23 pm

thanks, and yes, some hard clicks and then rattling noise, then the mac searched for another system folder and found it on my second harddisk (always having this, for backup and HD maintenance).
Then I saw indeed just the second harddisk on the screen, so I knew what was wrong.
2000€?? I earned a lot mony today

BTW, I switched the startup HD to the second one, it seems now that I can open most programs from the second disk, but not Cubase.
Minor problems compared to what happened, I'm very happy

go to zzzzzz now...

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 3:46 am

Hubird,

buy yourself a dvd burner (I suggest you a Pioneer DVR-106D which is very cheap yet quiet and quality made - mine was about 120Euro). I did a backup of all my important files with it and now feel comfortable (knock, knock). Replace your internal cd/dvd with it. The MacOS will partialy recognize it (AFAIK iTunes sees it but DiscBurner doesn't) but I can send you a modified system file to make your machine fooled (100% guaranteed). Toast 5 sees it natively. It's x4 dvd writer.

Why I suggest this way of backup? Hard disks are cheaper but a potential damage is more predictable than a dvd disc.

If you plan on OSX then from 10.2.8 it is seen as an apple branded

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-01-28 03:48 ]

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:38 am

That's amazing! Glad to hear you got your data back.

Hmmm...(ponders)...do you think if I put the staff of my insurance company in a freezer for nine hours they'd start working?

It's gotta be worth a try..!

Royston

Post by **hubird** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:07 am

Samplaire, I know a dvd burner in my mac would be nice, but I'm waiting for OS-X in a new G5 indeed.
It'll take some time now, not sure about CW and mac.
I'll see, thanks for the idea and tip, I'll come to you when it's time, thanks again

Counterparts, 9 hours is too long but after just an hour I'm sure they love to work again!

you could also try to put the whole computer in a freezer when having problems

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 9:08 am

hubird wrote:
Counterparts, 9 hours is too long but after just an hour I'm sure they love to work again!

It's now exactly 3 months to the day that my (motor)bike was stolen. It was recovered a week after that, since when..! What, I don't know

I shall be writing them a nice letter fully exercising my PHD in biting sarcasm

(Should be getting it back by the end of this week, touch wood).

Royston

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 10:36 am

Nice to see, the unfreezing by freezing trick worked for you.

I just got a thought - when doing this manouvre (probably spelled realy bad), It might be wice to have the frozen hard drive in th ebuttom postition, so possible condensation doesn't destroy other parts?

Post by **hubird** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 12:45 pm

yes, that's why I removed the second disk before putting back the freesed one, and I left the case open.
Then I saved the most important things as fast as possible to a few cd's.
Also I put the freesed disk back in the case upside down, just laying aside, to enlarge the chance for the restart.
But the disk is still working now, after several boots!
Tonight I will order a new one, Western Digital offers a 120 gig disk for 89,- €.

_________________
Let There Be Music!

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-01-28 12:46 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 4:19 pm

As far as I remember, WD makes some of the fastest hard drives - but also some of the more noisy ones.

Post by **hubird** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:18 pm

ai...thanks for warning!
does anybody knows a site with the results of a noise test of the brands?
Noise is already a minus point of the G4.
It also could be that the differences between the harddisks are leveled out by the noise of the G4, a test doesn't mean it's relevant by it's own.
Just a high flute tone I never would like to get

Post by **hubird** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:44 pm

I can get an ATA HD 120 gig of Western Digital for 89,- € including tax, it offers a 2 year garantee.
It says it's ATA5, where you have 1 to 6.

The same disk of IBM costs 139,-€, offers a 1 year garantee, but it is an ATA6 disk.
And it was an IBM that got stuck...

What does mean the ATA number, is it important for the speed, besides it's rpm?
Or could it also be important when switching to the next generation macs and you wanne ferry over the disk?

My System Profile says the WD disk which I have now is an ATA2 disk, this means it's not so important coz it works perfectly?
A lot of questions, I really don't know much about these things

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-01-28 17:46 ]

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:01 am

ATA-6 is the specification for drives with max. 100 MB/s transfer rates. You need a 80 pin IDE cable to operate and benefit. The ATA-2 you have has max. 33 MB/s and a 40 pin cable is sufficient. Since ATA-4 the disks control themselves with a technology called S.M.A.R.T. Ok - don't think because of that they've forgotten how to breakdown whenever you absolutely don't want it!

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:12 am

Huub,
I belive you know it - but it's better to be safe than sorry... Don't buy a HD larger than 120GB for your OS9 based Mac. Larger disks are not supported (you can use them but can format 120GB). I've experienced this so why you have to go in the same sh*t? OK you benefit extra 16GB by installing, say a 200GB disk - reason: a 120GB disk is in fact 111GB (1GB=1024MB and so on) and an OS9 formatted 200GB disk is 127GB (1GB=1024MB).

My suggestion is to buy an 8MB cache equipped HD - no matter the capacity.

Post by **hubird** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:41 am

Thanks Micha, so ATA5 will be fine I guess

thanks Wojtek, didn't know about that limitation

And about the cache: good idea, I'll check disks with 8MB, the ones I saw only have 2 MB.

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-01-29 04:44 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:42 am

http://www.storagereview.com <- a link I once got from Subhuman. They have noise tests, and seam to be testing the stuff quite heavily.

There is also a userdatabase with statistics of drive reliability.

By the way - those ATA ranks are for short term bursts - the drive can not keep that speed for a longer period of time.

Post by **hubird** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:45 am

even better, thanks Immanuel, I'll check this!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 7:18 am

Hubird, I'm not shure if the limit (132 GB)is in the MacOS itself - it's probably a controller issue due to adressing lines.
Macs with 'mirrowing' front panels are said not to be affected by this.

I just read a table about performance, noise and price of current drives in german CT mag.

Samsung SP 1614N (150 G, 104 €) was a very quiet one and good bang for the buck, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 (I hava a couple of them) makes a solid impression and is rather quiet too.
I've just returned some WDs because one made a sound like having played for years, though originally sealed.

As suggested, don't give a sh*t on those performance values. The highest scorers in the have 8MB caches and they do 'Office-like' tests, pretty senseless for recording large amounts of data.

I wouldn't bother about 40 spare Gigs on a drive for a 100 € if it's a quiet one. Samsung makes some of the best TFTs in the world (Apple's) and maybe they also proceed with other gear

cheers, Tom