Hard Drive died no warning.
 

This computer has a SSD and a 1TB storage drive. Most ot the time I remember to pick the D drive for downloads of .pdf's, pics and videos. I work from it when making a YT video. It's not even recognized now. I've been shutting down the computer every night. Boot up a couple days ago and the shortcut was there but it had the question mark. Sure enough, AWOL.

So I removed the cover of my desktop tower and unplugged and replugged the cable while shut down. Did nothing. Next I guess I pull it and try my stand alone external docking device. If it can't be read from there, IDT it's worth sending out for recovery.

Unless someone knows something.

I backed up, just not that recently. Most of what is on there is either on FB or YT anyway. It was maybe 30% full with all the video files. All my old history and pics are a; backed up. I lost a year or so. No biggy.

What you say?

Sorry to hear this.
So the 1TB isn't responding or seen by the computer?
What happens in the stand alone device?
Brand of HD?

I was thinking you were talking about a Harley Davidson and that shouldn't be a surprise, they die without warning regularly. 😀

Still in the tower. The printing on the label is upside down to read but I can see BarraCuda so a Seagate?

Didn't think about that! :D

Would like to know if you can hear it spin up when in the stand alone.

Looks like you can get a 2TB seagate barracuda for @$65 at best buy so I wouldn't sweat fixing yours if you can afford to replace it and don't need the data on it.

I repurposed two of these drives the other day from our old set top boxes (DVR's). I don't know how long they'll last but I'm going to use them anyways. No one really gives a rat's a$$ about my pictures so if I loose some when they die, oh well.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1715119152.JPG
I can use the space now so that's what's important to me now.

If your 1 TB storage drive is not recognized, try a long shot external USB drive connector for it. Sometimes that will see some of the data.

New drives are just silly cheap. Multiple terabytes for less than a $100. If you have space in the computer, put in two identical drives and set them up as a mirrored RAID. If one fails the data remains on the other.

I could stack five in there but this machine is nearing 5 years old and while the HD gave not warning. I've seen some unusual things going on with Win11. And the SSD has hardly any space left which I don't understand. I took a chance and deleted a bunch of stuff on the SSD and got back to about 75% full, but it's all back. I did no harm. I haven't added any apps. Not many personal files on the SSD either. Maybe a dozen .pdf's of radio schematics that while copied to the D drive remained. There are 4 pics.

I'm about ready to start over with a Mac. Pretty much done with videos anyway although I know a Mac is a great platform for that.

Sticktion, give it a slap before booting ;)

Funny, I was going to suggest that too, Bob, but I don't like slapping electronics around.

It's dead anyway :)

Think of it as slapping your newborns' feet to get it to cry Lol

My kids didn't need any help with crying when they were born. They knew how to do it right out of the box.

HAHAHAHA. I see what you did there; classic!

Nope, nope and nope. Just as a test I put a 2.5 drive in the dock and it spun. No recognition though.
The 3.5 is dead silent. I tapped it, a little more, then a lot more.

I don't need any more than what I had so I think I'll spend as little as possible in case there was a problem with the motherboard. My guess is no, but me working on a computer is limited to installing cards in slots. Or in this case, installing an HD.

I still have a seriously full C drive, so unless I can understand why, I should be thinking about starting over. Funny, I got used to 2 screens but only use them when editing video. I've completely forgotten how to split the screen, but a really big screen would be better for me. I watch a lot of video.

Anything to stay away from in buying a drive?

Have you ever used something like CCleaner to get rid of all the 'crap' files that seem to accumulate on an HD just from going on the net?

Seagate Barracuda drive's get good reviews from what I've seen on a simple googling of the subject.

Maybe I missed this, but what version of Windows are we talking about?

Have you looked at the builtin DISK MANAGEMENT utility?

I have tried the cleaner many times. When I first got the computer I could not get a mic to work. I had the warrantee and was on the phone with a guy in India for 2 hours while he shadowed. he installed driver after driver and I noticed that my SSD was more than half full the next day and the puter was less than a week old. I have never found those files. I did find some update files that did not appear to be genuine like my machine was being used as a slave. I deleted about a thousand of them and got back 10 %. I has since filled back up but not with those type of files.

I took a chance deleting all that, I know. But they were very suspicious. I'll never know. I should do a reset to factory. IDC anymore now that I know all my Porsche stuff is gone. All I need is an email machine. I hate phone keypads. If I could attach an ergonomic keyboard to a phone (that's all I will ever use) then all I need is a phone. I will not use an onscreen KB unless I text. I won't do it on my pad, I talk to it just as I do my phone most of the time.

I will not use a laptop. Worst invention of the information age. Small screen and a horrible keypad. If I use one, I dock it with screen, keyboard and mouse and then lay it off to the side. I hate them. My wife used them and we have about 6. Most are antiques.

Milt it sounds like an Android based tablet might be the way to go . For web surfing and email and streaming they are hard to beat . My wife surprised me at Christmas with one and I use it all the time . At least it is an option to consider .