I love computers

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

No need to make it external. I only use it for the desktop.
Any harm on just keeping it in my computer tower?

None at all. Did you have a Master-Slave IDE cable hooked up to your original Harddrive?

Like this:

If not, and you want to access that HD regularly, you should go buy one. They're probably dirt cheap at this point. I have one that has a sleeve around the ribbon so it takes up less room for better air flow. But... odds are your computer doesn't run as hard as mine.

EDIT:: If you do this, take out your HD and on the back, next to the Molex male, there should be a few rows of small pins.

It should look like this:

Some HD's have more rows... but it's about that size. It should have a small piece that extends vertically if the HD is flat. On the top of the HD, it should have a diagram...

There are three ways I've seen them displayed...

Here are some pics I snapped of some spare HDs I have laying around with the three ways I've seen:

The easiest (and I think most common way...

A visual diagram that tells you where to put the "jumper" in order to achieve what you want.

I always put the drive on "Cable select". I.E., if it's on the "Master" cable, then it will act as a master drive, if it's on the Slave cable, it will act as a slave.

If the jumper is on Master and the cable is on Slave, then your computer will flip and won't boot.

Another way... this is on the under side, on the board, clearly labeling which is which. (Again, always use Cable Select)

This is the least common I've seen. It basically says which number of the prongs to put it on...

 

[tommyk90 5,000+ posts]

Yes, i had a master-slave cable already so both drives are accesible.

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

So today my lovely external harddrive decided to stop working.
Fantastic, I know.

And, of course, it's out of warranty range so not only did I lose all the stuff I had on there, but now I have to buy another external harddrive. Lovely.

I talked with some company about data recovery, and he quoted me $1700 on a successful recovery. I laughed hysterically.

Sorry, but no amount of **** or free music is worth $1700. Thanks chief.

Anyways, I was wondering if there was any backwoods solutions to fixing this or am I just completely screwed?

Luckily I have 95% of my music on the laptop and my mp3 player, so that can be replaced, but I did lose all my **** and some programs. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

Probably nothing that can't be replaced, but it's just frustrating to lose all that stuff.

Maybe I'll buy 2 drives, leave one attached and just fill up the other one with the same stuff and stash it away somewhere.

/rant.

On a side note, I need some recommendations for external harddrive brands. The one that crapped out on me was a maxtor, so other brands would be appreciated. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

What is it not doing? Not powering up? Or is the PC not recognizing the drive? Could just be the enclosure itself. In that case you need to crack it open and hook it to another pc or buy an enclosure. Usually they are like 25-30 bucks or so. I'd try that before dropping money on a new external.

But then again the price of drives have come down a lot. You can get a 1TB external for under 200. All of your **** would be safe on there.

EDIT: looks like suggestions are already being addressed.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

And this goes to anyone:

If you want to get an external drive and you want reliability, get a SSD (Solid State Drive). Basically, a flash drive on crack. However, larger ones tend to be a LOT more costly than standard disk drives.

Flash Drives are hardy... One of mine fell out of my pocket in my front yard during a rain storm... two days later I recognized it, half-way buried in the dirt. I dug it out, picked all of the grass and dirt out of the USB slot, and it worked. Even had all of my data on it.

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

Western digital and seagate are 2 of the best. And yes you should be able to get the case apart and get to the drive. You may have to tear the case up but fuck it the things broken anyway lol.
edit: Did it ever click? humming isn't necessarily a bad thing, clicking is tho.

I've had WD's Seagates, Maxtors all fail. It's what they do.

Humming could have been the fan on the drive case if there was one Clicking usually means you got issues.

 

[tommyk90 5,000+ posts]

None at all. Did you have a Master-Slave IDE cable hooked up to your original Harddrive?
Like this:

If not, and you want to access that HD regularly, you should go buy one. They're probably dirt cheap at this point. I have one that has a sleeve around the ribbon so it takes up less room for better air flow. But... odds are your computer doesn't run as hard as mine.

EDIT:: If you do this, take out your HD and on the back, next to the Molex male, there should be a few rows of small pins.

It should look like this:

Some HD's have more rows... but it's about that size. It should have a small piece that extends vertically if the HD is flat. On the top of the HD, it should have a diagram...

There are three ways I've seen them displayed...

Here are some pics I snapped of some spare HDs I have laying around with the three ways I've seen:

The easiest (and I think most common way...

A visual diagram that tells you where to put the "jumper" in order to achieve what you want.

I always put the drive on "Cable select". I.E., if it's on the "Master" cable, then it will act as a master drive, if it's on the Slave cable, it will act as a slave.

If the jumper is on Master and the cable is on Slave, then your computer will flip and won't boot.

Another way... this is on the under side, on the board, clearly labeling which is which. (Again, always use Cable Select)

This is the least common I've seen. It basically says which number of the prongs to put it on...

Also, with all this, would I only need to do this if both drives didn't show up?

I made sure to use the same plug on the stock harddrive and I added the new harddrive to the previously unused IDE plug.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

Also, with all this, would I only need to do this if both drives didn't show up?
I made sure to use the same plug on the stock harddrive and I added the new harddrive to the previously unused IDE plug.

Yeah. Odds are your harddrive came with the jumper on "Cable Select".

It was a just incase your PC wasn't booting up / general information.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

I've had WD's Seagates, Maxtors all fail. It's what they do.
Humming could have been the fan on the drive case if there was one Clicking usually means you got issues.

Not always. Clicking could be the result of the reader arm going back and forth, like older HDs.

Actually, my SATA HD does that. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

I need a new one //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

And make sure you go into the bios and make sure the boot sequence is set up right. When my parents bought a new computer this spring, I installed the HDD from the old one as a backup drive. Even though I had the master-slave thing right, I still needed to rearrange the boot sequence to make sure it booted from the main drive first.

 

[Pop da Hatch 10+ year member]

And this goes to anyone:If you want to get an external drive and you want reliability, get a SSD (Solid State Drive). Basically, a flash drive on crack. However, larger ones tend to be a LOT more costly than standard disk drives.

Flash Drives are hardy... One of mine fell out of my pocket in my front yard during a rain storm... two days later I recognized it, half-way buried in the dirt. I dug it out, picked all of the grass and dirt out of the USB slot, and it worked. Even had all of my data on it.

my 2gb flash drive was run over by a car, been using it for 1 - 1/2 years since. hahahaha

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

And make sure you go into the bios and make sure the boot sequence is set up right. When my parents bought a new computer this spring, I installed the HDD from the old one as a backup drive. Even though I had the master-slave thing right, I still needed to rearrange the boot sequence to make sure it booted from the main drive first.

x2.

To do this, it's pretty simple.

Right when you turn your computer on, press F8. (It depends on your board, most common is F8. Some is F12, some F2, and some are Delete) A blue screen will come up, you go to "boot Sequence" and make sure HDD0 or HDD1 (whichever is the least) is first.

However, I think you already installed it and you're back up with the HDD in your PC. So, you should be fine.

my 2gb flash drive was run over by a car, been using it for 1 - 1/2 years since. hahahaha

HAHA! Yeah, man. Those things are NUTS. My Flash Drive was literally in the rain for at least 12 hours (it was a hardcore downpour), and even when I picked it up, it was soaked. I let it dry, and it runs like a charm.

The only problem is, Solid State Drives begin to fail much sooner than standard hard disk drives. After some ridiculously high number, the internal chips won't store anymore memory. but the average person will never EVER use it that much.

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

Not always. Clicking could be the result of the reader arm going back and forth, like older HDs.Actually, my SATA HD does that. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

I need a new one //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

Yeah, I've had more SATA's fail than anything.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, I've had more SATA's fail than anything.

TBH, this is my first SATA HD. I've had a huge array of IDE's, and I haven't had one fail. Ever.

I have so many IDE HD's, I gutted an old fried Xbox, turned the controller ports into USB slots, put 4 HDs inside with a shorted PSU, so it ran when I pushed the original power button, and it acted like a huge external drive.

I should do an EDU on how to do that. Haha. It's actually pretty cool.

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

And this goes to anyone:If you want to get an external drive and you want reliability, get a SSD (Solid State Drive). Basically, a flash drive on crack. However, larger ones tend to be a LOT more costly than standard disk drives.

Flash Drives are hardy... One of mine fell out of my pocket in my front yard during a rain storm... two days later I recognized it, half-way buried in the dirt. I dug it out, picked all of the grass and dirt out of the USB slot, and it worked. Even had all of my data on it.

A decent sized SSD is going to run about $500 right now. For that price, you could get 4 cheap 1TB drives and have plenty of redundancy. Plus, SSDs don't have much of a life to them as far as read/write. Much more durable in terms of physical abuse, but longevity issues haven't been worked out enough for me to trust a bunch of data to them.

If any of you guys are in school, you may get free online storage. I do, and I keep important files there as well. That way I have a copy on my internal hdd, external hdd, online storage, and usb drive(as long as the file doesn't contain personal information)

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

A decent sized SSD is going to run about $500 right now. For that price, you could get 4 cheap 1TB drives and have plenty of redundancy. Plus, SSDs don't have much of a life to them as far as read/write. Much more durable in terms of physical abuse, but longevity issues haven't been worked out enough for me to trust a bunch of data to them.
If any of you guys are in school, you may get free online storage. I do, and I keep important files there as well. That way I have a copy on my internal hdd, external hdd, online storage, and usb drive(as long as the file doesn't contain personal information)

Yeah, definitely. SSD technology (in terms of a HD big enough for every day use) isn't really that advanced yet. Give it a few years and it'll surpass SATA. However, I would trust an SSD as an external HD. But for everyday use, files are constantly being saved, deleted, moved, shared, etc. SSDs just aren't cut out for that... yet.

And Online file sharing is a great idea I never thought about. Kudos //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif