Scary sounds from my hard drive

[pjalne]

The last couple of days, I've heard a faint scratching sound from my hard drive. It's kinda like what those antennae with electriciy running between them from old sci-fi movies sound like, combined with the sound of a needle tip running over a table. This doesn't seem to happen more often when there's a lot of activity going on. Is it dying or what?

[MetalMilitia]

Is it an IBM desk(death?)Star?

[pjalne]

Nope, it's Western Digital.

[El Blanco]

Have you noticed a change in performance? How old is it? How much space do you remaining?

[pjalne]

Can't say I've noticed any lack of performance. The disk is about a year old, and has about 4 gigs of free space on the primary partition.

If this thing should break down, is there a way to access its contents by hooking it up to another computer? Of course, if sectors get all fucked up there's not much to do about that, but could the information stored in the healthy bits be extracted? I'm gonna update the safety copies on my portable drive just in case, but I don't have enough lifeboats for everything I need to hang on to.

[executioneer]

there are places which specialize in recovering data from damaged hard drives, but they are not cheap and not recommended unless it's absolutely vital to get said information :(

[El Blanco]

If this thing should break down, is there a way to access its contents by hooking it up to another computer?

Get yourself some swap cable and link it another computer. It looks just like RJ 45 cable.

Of course, if sectors get all fucked up there's not much to do about that,

Back up the vital stuff and run scan disk

but could the information stored in the healthy bits be extracted? I'm gonna update the safety copies on my portable drive just in case, but I don't have enough lifeboats for everything I need to hang on to.

I've been experimenting with ghost images, so that can save your settings, but I don't think thats applicable here.

[pjalne]

Haha, upon closer inspection it appears the sound is coming from the exhaust fan or whatever it's called in English. Maybe something is stuck in there. It would suck a bit if the whole power box thing goes kablooey, but if that happens I can just drop by work and have one of the dudes in the back fix it.

Thanks, guys.

[El Blanco]

If its the fan in your power supply, they won't fix it. At least, not if they have a functioning brain between their ears.

Just get yourself a new power supply.

[MetalMilitia]

If the fan in the PSU (power supply) dies, chances are it will either:
- Explode and take some of your other components with it.
- Explode and everything else will be fine.

Its kind of dangerous to take apart a PSU because there are some fairly large capacitors inside which can store alot of current, but if you just take the top off and give the fan a closer inspection it should be fine.
Replacing the fan might not be *easy* as it may be soldered directly onto a circuit board, but somtimes they have a 2 pin fan connector which you can take off and put onto a new fan.

[pjalne]

If its the fan in your power supply, they won't fix it. At least, not if they have a functioning brain between their ears.

Just get yourself a new power supply.

Yeah, that's what I meant. They've got some spare parts around, so they can have the thing up and running again in no time. I'm a bit nervous these days because I need all the time I can get on my bachelor's assignment, and losing the hard drive would be a disaster. Anything else can be fixed in hours.

[El Blanco]

I've recently discovered the beauty of thumb drives. Tiger Direct and other sites have great deals on them where you can buy them in gigs.

Of course, if you have a dvd burner, thats even better.