Any1 has a hard drive laying around? Computer hardware (PC) question part 2.
 

Howcome hard drive made so bad nowaday? Since this year, I went through 3 HD already. Every time installing a new one, I keep my fingers crossed but no luck. The first one went bad around 6 or 7 months ago.

The first one, Western Digital IDE, made some clicking noise for a while before it's completely dead. I bought a Maxtor SATA and an external enclosure. It last me around a week used before it click. I called and get a seagate baracuda for replacement. This one last 3 or 4 used (3 or 4 times I turn it on) before it click. Also, when it clicks, it disconnect and unreadable from the computer and the USB error message comes up.

What did I do wrong? Most of them happend when I copy couple DVDs from one HD to another. This is my back up drive. Before I replace the drive, I copy only about 4 or 5 DVDs from it to my C: drive. Then after I installed it and made sure it works, I copied the DVDs back from C: drive to the new drive. Usually copying for several mins, clicking and turned itself off and turned back on and off and on... it keep continue doing that until I physcially turn the power off.

Anyone see anything I do wrong or it's just my bad luck? Now I need to send it in again. Does anyone in SCal have an old IDE drive laying around and have no use of it, so I can buy it off for cheap?

Thanks.

Did you use the same external enclosure for all 3 drives?

I've owned hundreds of hard drives over the years and can count on one had the number of failures. How hot are the drives getting?

get Samsung drives , they run a lot cooler then Seagates or Maxtors do
modern day disks (7200 rpm +) are like toaster ovens if they are enclosed, or in a pc case with inadequate airflow, the samsungs somehow manage the speed with less heat


also, you say USB
does it have seperate power supply , or does it feed off USB?

it might not have enough juice at times... do you share that usb port with other devices?

Same enclosure on 2 drive. The WD was the internal drive. I added more internal fans to the computer case. The enclosure has it own power supply and I always use it. The USB was plugged into a USB hub and recently I change it to a stand alone USB port from the motherboard. Yes, the HDs get very hot no matter it's in the external enclosure or in the computer case.

Art,
really? I had only one fail long time ago, one in more than 10 years before this year.

It sounds like a heat issue to me.
Heat and vibration are the most common causes of hard drive failure.

adding fans doesn't always do much if the airflow ain't properly guided


gotta make the air enter the case where there is the least heat, sucking in
then exit where there is the most, blowing out

all other openings, gotta seal em so they don't leak air in or out, and as such take away from the suck in > blow out air flow
like a 911 engine shroud does

Cables need to be properly organized , so they don't interrupt the airflow
in the old days of IDE, those 2 device cables, i'de cut them up into one device cable ( i never shared cables for 2 devices, that slows stuff down)


point is, you don't need much fans, you just need the 2 properly sized ones, in the right places
a fan on the inside does nothing but circulate the heat

i actually hate how they design components these days, it's all running scorching hot, and all rely on fan's.. i hate fans , and the noise they make... yet i'm to lazy to bother with friggin water cooling... liquid and electronics just don't mix

my enclosure doean't have any fan. I was thinking of adding a small fan on the case when I touch it and it was so hot, but I thought they designed it without a fan so it should at least works without a fan.
This is killing me. Every HD I touched this year went bad with the same problem.

Gotta be heat, or a spiking Power supply... I'm voting for #2...

Water and electronics don't mix but vegetable oil and electronics do!

A fully submerged oil cooled computer system.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1224903849.jpg

from: http://www.markusleonhardt.de/en/oelbilder.html

this should be easy. Does it work better? I'll try it tonight, maybe just my hard drive.
Thanks.

yeh i know, but it's such a mess after some time

I think your joking about putting your hard drive in oil, but just in case your not, don't. It will not work.

Make sure you cut out the front pan to vent the oil cooler. Airflow is key.

My mom saids the vegetable oil costs more than my bad HD.
:) I was joking