Community Newsletter: Q&A: Help! My external hard drive isn't responding
- 1/31/08 9:51 PM
Freezer Trick
by nicklinn - 2/2/08 10:35 AM In reply to: Addendum to John's excellent answer by macnetIf you decide to try the freezer trick above remember to seal the drive in a plastic bag to prevent the formation of ice and freeze for 24 hours or so. You will get about 20 minutes out of the drive.
The freezer trick DOES work
by stbernard1973 - 2/3/08 6:06 AM In reply to: Freezer Trick by nicklinnPutting a hard drive in the freezer does work.
I had a 250 GB Western Digital external drive go bad on me about a year or so ago. The drive would click three times then silence. I tried accessing the drive on several different computers and nothing. All I'd get were the three ominious clicks then nothing. I tried getting this drive to work on several different occasions with the same results. I had googled for info on saving the drive and I had even posted about it in the forums here. After a lot of reading on the net and a lot of trying to get the drive to work I gave it up for dead and had resigned myself to the fact I'd lost all the data on the drive.
A good friend (bless his heart!) sent me the link to a site that described the process of putting a failing/failed hard drive in the freezer and I decided to give it a shot to get back my data. What else did I have to lose at that point, right?
Well, I put the drive in a ziplock bag to protect it from frost and put it in my freezer and left it there for 24 hours. After taking it out of the freezer I immediately put it in a Playmate cooler filled with ice (the drive was still in the bag) then immediately hooked the drive up to the computer.
At first, it didn't do anything. I got nothing. Not even the three clicks. I again tried hooking the drive to several different computers and still got nothing.
Discouraged, I removed the drive from the cooler and the ziplock bag and set it aside on a shelf. The drive warmed up and I could even see condensation on the inside of the drive through the air slots in the case. At this point I was ready to give the drive up as a total loss.
A couple of weeks later I was getting ready to pack the drive away in its original packaging and something told me to try the drive on my computer again.
The second I put the USB cable into the port the drive fired up. No clicks, no delays in powering up. When it fired up I was expecting to get only 10-20 minutes of time out of the drive so I went for my most important files first. I was able to take all 250GB of data off the drive safely.
The real nice thing: I am STILL using this drive. I do not keep it hooked to the computer all the time like I used to do and I do not, under any circumstances trust this drive with any important data that I do not already have at least 4-5 backups of but this drive is still working just as good, if not better, than it did when I first bought it.
I don't know what happened to the drive while it was in the freezer or what happened to the drive once it got out, thawed, condensated and dried off but it's working like a dream. I've actually replaced one 500GB WD drive that I bought AFTER freezing this drive.
I won't guarantee that freezing will work in every circumstance or that every drive will still be usable for a long period of time after freezing but I owe this drive working to freezing it. If I ever have another hard drive crash of any kind, I'm going to use the freezer trick again and hope lightening will strike twice and I'll have as much luck the second time around as the first. 
Western Digital
by rdeuel - 2/1/08 8:48 PM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
I bought a Western Digital, too, because the hype was declaring it to be a good one. I transferred 1600 songs onto it and three weeks later, it flat quit working. Something was rattling in it when it tried to run. I took it back to Circuit City to have their techs check it out. They said it was toast and that they couldn't recover the music that was lost. THEN... they 'graciously' offered to SELL me a NEW external hard drive. Well... I bought one, but it wasn't a Western Digital and it wasn't from Circuit City. I wouldn't buy a wire nut from Circuit City, anymore. If you bought yours from Circuit City, I hope you had better luck than I did.
hello
by kaleem sabir - 2/3/08 11:52 PM In reply to: Western Digital by rdeuelthankx
Hard drive external
by Tom1M - 2/2/08 9:24 AM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
I hope the people in the community will find this response to your email, at least interesting and something to consider when they are voting in the future. Since the product should have been removed from the seller’s inventory obviously something went wrong, probably inadvertently. However, it seems to me that people that are buying hardware and software are being ripped off by the vendor’s lack of responsibility to the consumers of their products.
Although it may not be intentional it’s certainly an aggravation that we would all like to avoid.
If we the people in the community were better informed we could be a much happier group leading happier lives and using more appropriate more trouble free hardware and software. To this end, I would like to make these suggestions.
1. All software and hardware for all products, not just computer products, should be required
to have printed on the exterior of the packaging or on the point of sale web sites, in a easily readable
type of print (at least 12 point black text on white background, Arial Bold, print)
a group of statements that inform us of the following:
A, State when the specific product was originally made and released for sale.
B. If the product warranty or guarantee will expire after a time even if the product has not been sold and the date when this would happen.
C. Whether new or updated products are intended to be released yearly.
2. A law should be passed that makes the seller of the product responsible for the product guarantee or
warranty or refund all of the money spent on the product if purchased after the date stated in 2 above.
3. Such refund must be provided in cash.
Please note I am obviously not a lawyer or intelligent enough to do the wording of laws or the statements that I am proposing to be included on the packaging of the products, nor do I think all vendors have an
entirely bad intent. I do believe though that vendors and manufacturers must be made more responsible
for the products sold and made available to us.
We as consumers should not be thrown to the wolves by saying it should all be "let the buyer beware" by our politicians and law makers and then the subject dropped. The woman in the article who did not receive an immediate response to her inquiry from the manufacturer should have a simple and immediate recourse provided to her by local and federal government access that would intervene and provide her with service by experts to fix the problem without going to other people to find fixes, even though I find your help for her interesting and useful for her. She should be provided with legal recourse by a government agency that can fine the manufacturer or vendor for whatever expense required to fix or replace the product or provide her with a cash refund that is reasonably chosen by the government agency and without recourse by vendors or manufacturers.
Although some people would say that the government interferes too much in business already, I believe that the business community are bringing these necessities to fruition by irresponsible behavior and slow response to product problems. Please keep this in mind while you are voting. What does the rest of the community think?
New laws required... Already there in the UK
by darrenforster99 - 2/3/08 12:33 AM In reply to: Hard drive external by Tom1M"A, State when the specific product was originally made and released for sale.
B. If the product warranty or guarantee will expire after a time even if the product has not been sold and the date when this would happen.
C. Whether new or updated products are intended to be released yearly.
2. A law should be passed that makes the seller of the product responsible for the product guarantee or
warranty or refund all of the money spent on the product if purchased after the date stated in 2 above.
3. Such refund must be provided in cash."
Does the US not have the same laws then I take it as the UK? Most of these laws are standard Trading Standards rules in the UK.
Anything you purchase within the UK has to continue working for a set time defined by the courts from the date of purchase, this even covers you if the warranty is void in any way.
In 1998 I purchased a CD writer from a computer fair with a damaged Warranty Seal (the seals that state "Warranty Void if Damaged"), as it was in a box I didn't notice this until I got home. When I plugged it in I found out the drive totally malfunctioned, so much that it was refusing to eject most of the time. I took it back to the guy who's answer was the fact the warranty is void as the labels scratched, but he did test it for me in his shop and when he tried to eject the disc it wouldn't come out, he then told me it's normal you just have to hit the button loads of times to get it to eject (yeah right!). I got a second opinion from a guy at MTS computers in Preston who confirmed it to be faulty (they were really great MTS, unfortunatly they ceased trading or else I would have gone back there numerous times).
In the end I took the guy to a small claims court and I have never known anything like this. I really couldn't believe it (and I don't think the judge could either). The guy turns up with a technician (not the same one that had tested the drive, to start with the guy who tested it was English and this techie was Asian, you'ld think if your going to fraud someone like this you'ld turn up with either the same techie or someone who looks a lot like him!). At first the defendant tries to claim this person is the same techie, I point this out to the judge, the answer the defendant came out with was that this techie has tested the other drives he sells and they all work fine, so he didn't know why mine didn't work (hmmm... I see a major flaw in his plans opening up here - maybe it didn't work 'cos it was the bad one in the batch). I can tell pretty much now I've won my case (wow I was dreading it and then this guy trips up at the first hurdle, what an idiot). Next thing he tries to claim is that when he tested it I paid on my switch card for the test (this was before the days of chip & pin) and that my signature for the switch card was my confirmation that the drive worked fine, and then finally to finish it all off (once he knew he was loosing) he requested that the judge delay the hearing so that he could come back in a few weeks time and bring a PC in to demonstrate the CD drive working. The judge didn't buy this at all and wanted to know why after us sat around talking about this for nearly an hour did he want to postpone the hearing, and why he didn't bring this up at the start of the hearing. The judge clearly stated that is would be a waste of both my time and the judges time and so ruled in my favour.
This guy did also bring up the fact about the warranty seal being broken, the judge brought up about the fact that whether or not the warranty seal is broken the product should still work as described for so long under trading standards rules and therefore the problem with the warranty seal was ignored.
New laws required ... maybe, maybe not US
by Tom1M - 2/3/08 5:16 AM In reply to: New laws required... Already there in the UK by darrenforster99I am not sure what the law hear in the US is, however I have heard of small clams court hear. I have never had the opportunity to use them though. What I am proposing is a little different I think. What I would like to see is more in the form of a phone number people can call provided by local government who will assign a agent to the case that will do the investigation and make a legally binding declaration with out us consumers running back and forth to court. I am not versed in legal terms I think its referred to under the product liability laws hear in the US and may state some length of time that the product must work as a minimum, I don’t know what that would be or how to find out but what I want is the product to work for as long as the guaranteed or warrantee is supposed to cover the product as a minimum. If the product is soled as a new object It should be a new object not an old object soled as a new object, what I mean by this is that if a product has been replaced by a new or “improved” object by the same manufacture ( I put that in quotes because of Vista but that is a horse of a different color entirely) we should be made aware of this by the vendors of the products and older models should only be soled with a label that states its an older model not just a date or model no., even though it has not come out of the box or is unused. I was glad to hear of a victory form you over a wayward vendor! Grate work and congratulations on your victory Darrenf…99.
Are there any product liability law types out there that can respond as to what and how the law works and what our rights are in the US or the UK ? Yah I know I am asking for freebee legal stuff but you’re the only people out there with the knowledge to properly respond. By the way thanks Darrenf…99 for the response, I also sent a short note to Lee Koo I hope he can find the time to respond to my questions not just to me but for the community at large hear!
External Hard Drive Troubles
by pquacker - 2/3/08 5:11 AM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
Helene, After reading the well stated answer as to what to do to recover the data by setting up the drive in a new enclosure, I went back and noticed that basic "check that the power supply has not failed" before proceeding statment was not mentioned. Good Luck!
PeterQ
external hard drive problems.
by hwkeene - 2/5/08 4:24 AM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
Helen, I had problems as well and realised after many hours trying to get it to work, that it clashes with broadband!!!
Now, whenever I want to back up the complete system, I just diconnect from the net, and it works just fine.
Hope this works for you.
best regards, Harry W Keene
for Helene
by nicosm - 2/9/08 12:04 AM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
It is simple. Use Partition magic to do so.
Boot Disk for fdisk and formatting new hard drive
by myshlgrl - 2/28/08 6:22 PM In reply to: RE: Answer for Helene S. -- External hard drive troubles... by John.Wilkinson
I am running XP Professional SP2 operating system and woould like to add a 500G external hard drive to my system that had 80G. I need to know if needed how did I make a boot disk. Thank you for your time and concern.
Sincerely,
myshlgrl@yahoo.com
Just copy your XP SP2 CD. It's a boot disk and...
by R. Proffitt - 2/28/08 6:23 PM
In reply to: Boot Disk for fdisk and formatting new hard drive by myshlgrl
Is not copy protected.
Western Digital Support Pages
by theanimaster - 2/1/08 4:50 PM In reply to: Help! My external hard drive isn't responding by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A bit off topic, but I just bought a Western Digital 1TB MyBook Studio drive. Comes formatted with Mac OS HFS+. That's cool, coz I have a mac. What's NOT cool is the fact that the white LEDs on the front don't function as a capacity guage at all. I'm running OS X Leopard 10.5.1, and it's plugged into my Firewire 400 port on my iMac G5.
While this isn't such a big deal (as the drive functions properly as a harddrive with no problems), the kick in the stomach is that Western Digital's Support Page looks extremely cluttered, and I couldn't find any support regarding software for the MyBook Studio series, which, if I'm correct, is their latest series.
I just emailed them yesterday and am hoping for a reply. If I don't get one, maybe I can call up a local Western Digital engineer, as I just happened to bump into one personally :P !
My (WD) External Hard Drive Isn't Responding
by acfalk - 2/1/08 5:13 PM In reply to: Help! My external hard drive isn't responding by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear Helen:
Western Digital isn't the most helpful outfit in the world, but here is who I contact when I have problems with my 500 GB unit. Constanze is Dutch, and she's just wonderful to work with.
AC Falk
Stans, Switzerland
constanze.christensen@wdc.com
Drive not recognized.
by Doreen_Baer - 2/5/08 9:22 AM In reply to: Help! My external hard drive isn't responding by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Recently, having a similiar problem which seemed to be intermitant, I found out that the simple solution was to shut off both your external hard drive and your computer. Check the connections and put on the external drive, let it get up to speed before you turn on the computer, then turn on the computer. If the computer is turned on first, it may not recognize a drive that was turned on afterwards. This recognition may have been out of sync because of a power interruption. I would be interested in knowing if this helped.
Message was edited by: admin to remove email address to prevent spam harvesters from picking it up
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