If your hard drive says QWA-zing... you hate it when computers sing

[kinzel]

Sigh,

the plan was good. After a glitch a couple weeks ago we arrived at (as time and cost permitted) at an external hard drive for Rolanni; who dutifully began moving files, as time, energy, and concentration permitted.

The computer -- one Zander by name -- began refusing to reboot when shut down because of lightning storms, so despite the budget, yesterday we picked up a new computer with the plan of moving all the program files as soon as possible. We started moving the program files and the computer shut down. By itself. Without warning. Poot...

I rebooted it and the hard drive said, quite clearly, Qwa-zing.

I tried again. This time we got qwaznnnnnnnnnnggggggg.

I hate it when computers sing.

If you're expecting email from Rolanni -- contact her (or me) and her new email program will put you in her new address book. The old one, and backed email, never made it off the old machine, a 1.2 GHZ AMD with many electrons through the circuits and many cooling revolutions about the fan. I'll be pulling parts from it, I guess.

Comments

[jiffysquid.livejournal.com]

Check out Knoppix. Its a free OS that can be put on a CD and run off the CD. I've managed to pull files off of a foobarred hard-drive by running Knoppix before. Some people also have luck getting files off a foobarred old hard drive by setting up the old harddrive as a slave to the new one and pulling off files like that. Technical details on how to do either are probably available on the Liaden list :)

Try freezing it

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

Not kidding -- I got a bunch of stuff off a hard drive I thought was completely dead. Put it in a ziplock bag and evacuate all the air and freeze for 24 hours or more. Then get what you can. May be repeatable.

Re: Try freezing it

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

And I had one I had to run for six hours before it would read data.

You remember the noise 5.25 floppies made? I had a hard drive do that...and would still boot!

The one that went "ka...ka...kakakakakakakaka" followed by the sound and vibration of scrap metal in a washing machine before it did the "clank"-silence thing...that one, I'm glad to say had noting that wasn't already backed up on it.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I'll second the recommendation that freezing can help with "dead" drives under some circumstances.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

That ferret is moving at warp speed...hope you're not feeling swamped!

Computer sympathies--I've been having so many problems, I got an 80 gb Iomega backup, just to be sure.

Off to send Rolanni an email bounce...