Dead WD 120GB se?

[el Gato]

Last night we had a pretty vicious storm brew out of nowhere. As I was shutting windows we had a power blip, short enough that the clocks didn’t even reset, but the lights did flicker. My PC was then locked up and I could not get it to shutdown appropriately, so I tried the power button, which also failed. Last option was to hit the power button on the surge protector.

Rig specs are AthlonXP 2500+ Barton (OC’d to 3200+), Shuttle AN35_Ultra, WunXP Pro, 512MB Crucial DR400, WD 120GB se HD (IDE, Master), Radeon 9600 128MB, Allied 450w PS.

After the storm, I attempted to reboot. I stress attempted. It took about 45 seconds for the boot error to show. I restarted it and noticed it hung up as it searched for the IDE devices and displayed another boot error. I then shut down, removed the WD drive, and installed XP on a spare 10GB IBM Deskstar set to Master. Installation went fine and was confirmed to be good.

Added the faulty WD drive as a Salve to the system. Start up was slow again, but both drives were recognized by the BIOS (Phoenix btw). But the faulty WD drive began making a loud clicking sound, one I never heard before. ‘Taps’ started to play in my head. Went to MyComputer and the WD drive was not shown. Reboot, now the drive is not recognized in the Bios upon startup. Start-up still takes 30-45 seconds, much longer than usual.

Any tips? My wife is looking to roll my head as she just uploaded a ton of pics and I didn’t back up the drive.

I fear the drive is completely dead. I’ve heard of a few ‘old wives tails’ on getting the drive to work after a physical failure, but I’m not sure if they are worfh trying. The drive is out of warranty, and if it is dead, it really doesn’t matter what I do to it, I guess. Anyone ever put on in a watertight freezer bag and freeze it overnight? The theory is the cold will contract the metal and may free any potentially jammed parts, it that is the cause of the failure.

Any insight/confirmation/tips/prayers would be helpful.

Many thanks!

[flanzig1]

If the drive took a electrical spike, it's probably beyond the cold trick. Also, you may want to consider replacing the surg suppressor since they are considered a one time device.

[Panama Red]

Sounds painful! Just a little something to double check. You mentioned the 10Gb Deathstar being jumpered to Master and the 120 as Slave. If they are on an 80 wire cable, set them both to Cable Select (cs) instead. It's a grasp in the dark but at this point anything to help, eh?

[glc]

This is a disturbing trend - looks like WD is having long term reliability problems again.

Customer called me last week telling me his system was taking forever to boot and for programs to open, etc. He had it lock up 1/3 of the way through a Norton virus scan, and the drive was CLICKING. He tried to run Diskeeper to defrag it and it told him he had to run chkdsk first. He quickly backed up his important stuff on Zip disks then called me. First thing I told him to do was to issue chkdsk/r at a command prompt and reboot. Part way into the chkdsk it bluescreened and bios hasn't seen the hard drive since. Drive? 2.5 year old WD 80gb SE (JB). I went over to try to do some data recovery - nothing I could do to get the drive recognized, in fact the system won't even get past POST with the drive connected, can't boot with either floppy or CD (Intel mobo with Phoenix bios - it stops at "hard drive configuration error, press F4 to enter setup", which accomplishes nothing). Put it in a USB housing and connected it to his kid's computer, XP sees it as a WD USB hard drive but disk management hasn't got a clue that it's there.

Unfortunately, the only data recovery option you probably have involves Ontrack and a couple grand.

If you are going to order a replacement drive, I recommend Seagate, and while you are at it, I'd replace that Allied power supply on general principle, that's a Deer-made unit.

[Panama Red]

Might as well add another one to the list. My son had a just-out-of-warranty failure on a WD 80Gb JB also. Same clicking failure as yours, g. That was about 6 weeks ago. I've switched my new builds to Seagate SATA.

[el Gato]

Thanks for the replys.

I have been doing some digging, and it does seem that there is an unusual number WD 120GB se failing as I have described. Same goes for the 80GB variety. Gets me thinking the storm was just coincidental.

The data on the drive isn't worth paying a recovery company a grand or two, so I'll try the freezing it, and maybe roughing it up a bit.

Originally Posted by glc ...and while you are at it, I'd replace that Allied power supply on general principle, that's a Deer-made unit.

Yeah, I know it's not a grade A #1 PS. Can you explain what you mean by Deer-made? (Unless it's a company...

Thanks, el G

[Markoman01027]

When your HD starts clicking, then you know you have a problem. I speak from experience. My former HD, a 80GB IBM "Deathstar" would click.

[glc]

Deer is a company that has a reputation for building substandard (read CHEAP) power supplies that have a tendency to go up in smoke taking motherboards and other components with them. They are the PC Chips of power supplies. Allied is their "premium" brand but I still don't trust them.

At least WD still has good customer service - we applied online for a warranty advance replacement RMA on Wednesday night and the replacement arrived today. They ship 2nd day air and it takes less than 48 hours to get it out.

[el Gato]

Originally Posted by glc We applied online for a warranty advance replacement RMA on Wednesday night and the replacement arrived today. They ship 2nd day air and it takes less than 48 hours to get it out.

The 2.5 year old WD 80gb SE (JB) was still under warranty? Nice. Mine was only 1 year.

[glc]

The OEM JB's have a 3 year, the retail box JB's are 1 year. Just one more reason not to buy hard drives in retail box. I bet you got it dirt cheap after a big rebate - need I say more?

[Cricket]

These are some of the same problems I came across late last year/early this year with Western Digital SE HDDs. Seems like things are more pronounced now. I've been installing Seagate HDDs in the computers I've been building since late last year and so far haven't had any problems with any of them. And some people didn't want to believe that WD was having problems.

Cricket

[thefultonhow]

When my friend was researching what drive to get about a year ago, he found a bunch of stuff that said the WD drives were very unreliable, especially the smaller-capacity ones (10-120 GB). I have seen this in spades -- I've seen a WD1800JB, a WD1200JB, three WD400BBs, and a WD100BB all bite the dust in the past year -- most of them with the clicking sound. I would strongly recommend staying away from WDs.

[el Gato]

Points taken.

I was able to get the bios to recognize it last night, and the clicking stopped. But Windows will not boot when it is attached.

(I know it's dead, but I gotta try )

I'm looking at the Seagate drives as a replacement, especially with their 5 year warranty.

[not important]

Add one more WDJB 80G to the list. I was using my comp in the evening and all as good. Ateempted to boot the next morning and it was a no go. I had just purchased a 120G Seagate the weekend before to use for a backup but I got to use it sooner than expected.

[jollyjohn]

G'day
I installed a WD 80GB a couple of weeks ago. From the begining I noticed vibration when I touch it. You can even feel it on the case, as if the platters were out of balance. It has also frozen a few times for no reason. only the mouse pointer moves but does nothing nor the keyboard. I won't be buying them again. Thankyou very much.
John

[Markoman01027]

I experienced the "clicking" sound with my IBM DeskStar(A.K.A DeathStar), and a member of the boards, RJ, who had the same HD as me, would click aswell, and then his died. So once you start hearing strange mechanical noises with your hard drive, after such like a T-Storm or something, then I would definitely consider replacing the hard drive like some users suggested.

Sounds like you were powering down at the wrong place and at the wrong time; but then again, this probably could of occured even if you were not powering down the system.