Re: Replace Hard Drive After 3.5 Years?

From: Elle (elle_navorski_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 03/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:32:39 GMT

Thanks Matt, Isaac, and Gary for posting your thoughts on this so quickly. I
have an update (already) below. Dunno if I'll be able to keep posting much
longer, since I can't say how serious this problem is, or whether it's
getting worse. Regardless, I feel like I have a better grasp on the problem,
due to your posts, some googling, and a guzillion hours working on this now.

"Isaac Wingfield" <isw@witzend.com> wrote
> I have several computers around the house, and have had for well over
> fifteen years (not the same ones, of course). In all that time, I have
> had exactly *one* verified hard drive failure -- on a Linux system, BTW;
> the drive actually just stopped spinning.
>
> Could it be that you are having *software* problems?

Yes. I just experienced another, identical looking crash a few minutes ago.
This time, I found a quick temporary fix. Namely, I "messed up" last night
and most of today by not just putting in the 2nd (of 3) "Gateway System
Restoration Kit" CDs. There are no darn directions that say to put the 2nd
one in first, for criminy's sake.

Re the hard drive:
The Scandisk command yesterday from Dos alleged it was doing all sort of
repairs. It took hours. Gateway's tech support person said the Scandisk
feature would ultimately indicate whether the hard drive was fried or not.
Dunno whether that's so, but it said yesterday it had fixed everything on
the drive. Still, I had this second crash a little while ago.

Better news: An hour ago I simply did a search for some keywords and found
the last of the personal files I was missing. They seem to be all there. I'm
feeling a lot better. Some of these were very important documents, and I'd
been kicking myself since last night about being so casual about them.

Of course, due to my first incompetent recovery attempt, many of the
personal files are in Outlook Express's .dbx format. Which means I so far
can't just slip them back into the Outlook Express directory I re-installed
earlier today and have them come up as usual. I am experimenting now with
recovering them in a "clean" way. I googled and see one can purchase
software to do so, or it seems there may be some freeware about to do the
trick.

There's some file that, on some startups, is said to be missing on the quick
display that flies past. I'll try to get that file name and post it here.

> Seriously, I think that Windows does things to disks that makes them
> *appear* to be bad -- clogged up with old files or something. Several of
> the disks I have used successfully came for free, removed from Windows
> systems because they were "dying". I reformatted them, installed them,
> and used them for years without problems.
>
> I should mention that my "non-failing" disks are all installed on Macs,
> some of which are still working just fine nearly ten years after they
> were manufactured.

Huh.

I don't think this is a virus, as I have always used a modem. I do scan
weekly for viruses, too.

I reckon I'll backup like mad in the next few days or so and then come up
with a plan. Sure seems like a lot of folks on Usenet over the years report
that failure at 3-5 years is pretty usual. Are many of us being fooled?

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