Re: [tlug] Hard Drive Failure (Was: Help! Total hardware failure)

[Jason Hall <jason@example.com>]

Coincidentally, I too experienced a drive failure the other day. It
started clicking and became inaccessible. Rebooting just brought up
errors when the drive was accessed. The manufacturer's diagnostic tool
confirmed "device failure."

First, I replaced the drive with a hardware mirrored pair (2x500G for
14,700 yen) and reinstalled a newer version of the OS.

Putting the drive in the freezer for a few hours worked for me.
(Actually, it didn't work for a couple minutes afterwords. I suspect
some parts were frozen into place.)

Plugging it in though one of the USB/SATA gadgets that's been mentioned
worked best for me. The computer still wouldn't access it properly from
a direct connection.

I wrapped the drive in a small towel to protect against moisture and put
a bag of frozen peas on it to keep it cold. Surprisingly it ran for
hours. I copied 75Gs of data from it, then wiped it.

I had backups that were a couple days old. The 75Gs was mostly
unimportant stuff I had chosen to not back up because I didn't have
space for it - inconvenient to replace, but not impossible.

Finally, I sent the old one back to the store for warranty replacement
as it was just 2 days short of a year old.

Now, since the original drive wasn't mirrored, I have lots of setup and
reorganization to do - as well as a reassessment of my backup system.

- Jason