A first for me

[LouP]

Not a good thing.. I have had my first HD die on me. It's a Seagate 1 tb external drive and I got some kind of i /o error message. Thing is, it has all of my downloads (including payware) and associated back-up product keys. Luckily everything is installed but the source files seem to be gone bye bye for good. So what do you do in a case like this if it ever happened to you? How do you get files replaced. Do you even bother since most is all installed? I don't know where to start there was so much stuff there.

LouP

[spotlope]

That sucks, Lou. I've had drives die before (many times, actually) but somehow have never lost a drive full of installers - knock on wood.

One thought: many sellers will send an email with download instructions and your serial number after the purchase is complete. If you've still got your old emails, that might be a good place to start. Some vendors also offer extended download services where you can go and grab your add-ons again if something like this happens.

Good luck sorting it out!

[OBIO]

I have experienced a number of HD failures for one reason or another....and I have learned the hard way to NEVER rely on one storage device to store my files on. I now have 2 external HDs that I archive my files to...AND I burn files that I 100% do not want to lose to DVD as well.

Before you write off your external, and all the files on it, shut down your system. Unplug the external and totally unplug it (unplug it from the outlet as well...no juice). Fire your system back up. Shut it down again. Hook the external back up and fire up the system to see if it will read then. I have had instances where a drive would fail to read/respond whatever, and by unhooking the drive, firing up the system without the drive, then plugging the HD back in got the drive to respond.....at which point I copied all files off of it, burnt them to DVDs, and trashed the HD.

OBIO

[FAC257]

I had an external Seagate go bad on me. It turned out to be just the external casing and connections that had failed. Appearantly that is not all that uncommon.

I opened up the case and took out the HD itself which was actually an internal Seagate Barracuda SATA drive.

I've had it installed as an internal back-up HD ever since without a single problem.

FAC

[Naismith]

I've been PCing since '92 and the only drives I ever had fail are Seagates. That is why I choose WD, they have never let me down.

[stansdds]

I've been PCing since '92 and the only drives I ever had fail are Seagates. That is why I choose WD, they have never let me down.

Never owned a Seagate, I was warned about them back when I had a Commodore Amiga 2000. I've always relied on WD and never had a problem. That being said, I agree with Obio. The safest backup is to a CD or DVD, but even with those you can have problems. I backed up a bunch of stuff onto Memorex CD-RW's, few of them could actually be read, even by the computer and drive that burned them. I rely on TDK gold CD-RW's, Sony CD-R, Sony and Verbatim DVD-R and Fuji DVD-RW's, so far no problems, but they are expensive discs compared to Memorex.

When I bought my laptop from Best Buy, the Geek Squad made the OS backup discs. After waiting nearly two days for them to finish, I asked them why the long wait. They were having trouble getting the discs to burn properly. I asked them what discs they were using and was told it was Memorex DVD-R. I picked up the laptop and did my own backup using Sony DVD-R discs and they burned perfectly. You get what you pay for.

[LouP]

Well, I got it to a point where it sees the drive but says that I need to format the drive before I can use it. I tried putting it in the freezer and that did not work so of to the disassembly line. I'll never get an external drive again especially where my new rig can hold up to six internal SATA III drives.

LouP

[JoeW]

I have a little external WD Essential 500gig HD that I use to do weekly backups on Sunday.
I have had several WD HD's to die. Thats why I do a backup now weekly.

[ZEUS67]

Not a good thing.. I have had my first HD die on me. It's a Seagate 1 tb external drive and I got some kind of i /o error message. Thing is, it has all of my downloads (including payware) and associated back-up product keys. Luckily everything is installed but the source files seem to be gone bye bye for good. So what do you do in a case like this if it ever happened to you? How do you get files replaced. Do you even bother since most is all installed? I don't know where to start there was so much stuff there.

LouP

Can you still see the drive?
Can you access it?

[LouP]

Well I got it out of the case and a little tab on the interface card where tha usb and power cables plug in is preventing me from fitting it into one of the drive bays on my Alienware Area 51. I have it hooked up again with the usb and power cables and while the PC "sees" the drive, it can not read it. I recieved a message asking if I wanted to reformat the drive at one point and I said yes to see what would happen but then got a message that said the drive was not accessable. Next step is to find a set of SATA cables so I can make a connection that way to see if the drive can be read in that manner. Feel free to throw out any ideas and thanks for all of your help.

I feel like I am living on the edge without all of my installation files. If I should loose my FSX install, I am not even sure if I could remember everything that I have purchased for it.

LouP

[Pepere]

Does anyone use on line storage?

I've been thinking about it. I have a 500gb HP external that I store all my payware and freeware so if it goes belly up I'm up the creek also.

David

[mal998]

did the drive come with installation software? if so, it sounds like that startup software has been corrupted. if there is software for the drive try reinstalling it to see if the drive will now be read and active.

whatever you do, don't say yes to format. if for some reason the drive becomes readable it will wipe everything on the drive. Are there any tools available from Seagate that can be used to diagnose a problem drive?

as for storage backup, as someone already said, always burn all your payware and license keys to one or several discs or gig flash drives.

[LouP]

Downloaded and installed software from Seagate but the Seagate software is not "seeing" the drive to run any diagnostics on it. The driive is now literally in the freezer.

LouP