Weird Hard Drive Issue

[kgdrum]

Lacie and Maxtor are 2 brands I would tell you to avoid! These 2 drive brands are the worst I have encountered.
I prefer Hitachi,WD or Seagate(Seagate seems to have cleared up the issues they had last year w/ 1 tb drives).
I am glad you are recovering the data.

[Movies]

Well, nothing is recovered yet -- things are still crunching along; I'm in hour eleven or so here. No error messages so far, though, and my hard drives are still chatting, so I'm still feeling good about it for the moment.

I only mentioned the LaCie drives because a lot of people I know use this dealie for recording: http://tinyurl.com/6xa3jh

I've only heard COMPLETELY miserable things about Western Digital and, at the time I was looking to buy, was unable to find a Seagate Firewire drive ANYWHERE (all of the Best Buys in town, MicroCenter -- you name it).

I'll definitely do some more research, though. I'll look into Hitachi and see what the current SeaGate situation is. This is Boston; people are crazy. For all I know, some disgruntled faction rounded up all of the Seagate Firewire drives and through them into the ocean!

[HCMarkus]

Remember to distinguish between drive Manufacturers and Resellers as you search for the best drive.

Manufacturers are few: Seagate (which bought Maxtor a while back), Western Digital, Hitachi, and Samsung are the only four of which I am aware. Some new entries exist in the Solid State Drive (SSD) arena. Check out StorageReview.com and you can learn a lot.

Resellers are many. They use different power supplies and enclosures, and these can impact reliability. But Resellers all use drives built by one of the above Manufacturers.

I'll assure you of one thing: ALL DRIVES FAIL. Back up! "Clone before you Moan"

[kgdrum]

Remember to distinguish between drive Manufacturers and Resellers as you search for the best drive.

Manufacturers are few: Seagate (which bought Maxtor a while back), Western Digital, Hitachi, and Samsung are the only four of which I am aware. Some new entries exist in the Solid State Drive (SSD) arena. Check out StorageReview.com and you can learn a lot.

Resellers are many. They use different power supplies and enclosures, and these can impact reliability. But Resellers all use drives built by one of the above Manufacturers.

I'll assure you of one thing: ALL DRIVES FAIL. Back up! "Clone before you Moan"

+1 agree on all points

[Movies]

Thanks, HC!

That's good to know. I'll definitely be doing some research.

Sadly, I did have everything backed up and both external drives crashed at the same time -- I'm totally "that guy!"

[Frodo]

I'll assure you of one thing: ALL DRIVES FAIL. Back up! "Clone before you Moan"

That is the quote of the year-- and the next, and the next, and the next....

FWIW-- if we're really being honest here, then I should say that LaCie is not an option for me. I've just heard and seen too many horror stories.

[HCMarkus]

Backing up in triplicate as I write this... so easy to become complacent., even only a few months post-horrific drive failure of my own.

I am loving my OWC Enclosures now that they are hot-rodded with a beefy power supply. I wrote about my strategy here a while ago... replaced multiple aging external power supplies with one 400w PC supply. $40. Unbeatable value!

[Frodo]

I've only heard COMPLETELY miserable things about Western Digital and, at the time I was looking to buy, was unable to find a Seagate Firewire drive ANYWHERE (all of the Best Buys in town, MicroCenter -- you name it).

I'll definitely do some more research, though. I'll look into Hitachi and see what the current SeaGate situation is. This is Boston; people are crazy. For all I know, some disgruntled faction rounded up all of the Seagate Firewire drives and through them into the ocean!

Interesting. I've got three WD 10k Raptors, 9 WD 7200s, plus one Seagate 7200--- and went that direction because of reports of drive failure of LaCie both online and from a few colleagues. As has been said, no drive lives forever but mine have been 100% reliable *so far*. With backups currently in tow, I'll start replacing those drives gradually starting in January as the oldest drive I'm using is now almost 4 years old. I just got the Seagate Barracuda in October.

You may want to order your replacement drive online now, whichever model you choose. It will save you some footwork-- and by the time you get past the data recovery phase your drive will have been delivered (hopefully).

[Movies]

UPDATE: Last night, at approximately 11pm, I recovered ALL of my data, thanks to Disk Warrior, my super-elite-server-back-end-computer-ninja friend, and the kind, kind assistance of you nice people (who directed me to Disk Warrior in the first place).

I have everything backed up [again] in three different places. The original drive that failed is out of the loop and torturously smoldering in the fires of Mount Doom where it belongs. I replaced it with a LaCie D2 Quadra 1TB drive.

Before anyone flips out about the Lacie and sicks the riders of Rohan on me, let me walk you through my choice:

1. My friend that was helping me out was going over the hard drive arguments and said that, if there is a difference between any of the major brands, it's, at most, a 2% gap and not worth freaking about and that it's best to just keep everything backed up and up to date and if a drive fails, try another one. He also said the D2 Quadra is a good piece of hardware.

2. This is the drive that, pretty much, all of my musician friends (not necessarily professional engineers -- but definitely successful, professional musicians with home studios) use. Granted, they all live by the sword of Apple and this is the expensive drive at the Apple store, so, you know -- I'm just putting that out there for full disclosure.

3. When I was at Micro Center looking at drives, I bumped into a friend who IS a professional recording engineer at what I'll call "a popular area recording studio" here in Boston who was holding this very drive in his hand. When I asked him about it, he said, "This is the drive. It's true that LaCie drives fail sometimes, but generally, if you get a bad one, you know immediately and can take it back and get a good one. Other than that, they're rock solid."

So, that's where I'm at. Thank you all very much for the help and advice! I weigh everything everyone on this board says very heavily!

[HCMarkus]

Great news! You clearly got the most important part of the whole thing down pat: back up in more than one place!

PS: I would disourage you from roasting marshmellows over the smoldering remains of your deceased drive, as the vapors may be hazardous to your health.

[Frodo]

UPDATE: Last night, at approximately 11pm, I recovered ALL of my data, thanks to Disk Warrior, my super-elite-server-back-end-computer-ninja friend, and the kind, kind assistance of you nice people (who directed me to Disk Warrior in the first place).

That you got your data back is enough cause to celebrate. That DiskWarrior was involved is cause for ME to celebrate!

Before anyone flips out about the Lacie and sicks the riders of Rohan on me...

When "before anyone" and "riders of Rohan" appear in he same sentence, it could only mean me. Let me just say that the most important part of making a decision is to make an INFORMED decision.

You have done just that and you're back up and running. Bravo without exception.

I am positive that Eomer and Eowyn would be proud of you. (They told me as much and extend their congrats!! )

[bongo_x]

I'll agree that most all hard drive brands work pretty great nowadays, and that they will all fail.

Not all cases are equal though. The resellers mentioned will use different cases and the quality of those is all over the place. You should check that your drive is actually dead and not just the case. You can get a new case. I know a lot of people don't make a distinction between drive and the enclosure. The drive is no different than the one inside your computer.

bb

[Movies]

That's a great idea, Bongo. I think an operation of that sort, while interesting and something I'm excited to investigate, requires the supervision of a more technically-minded friend. I'll definitely add it to the schedule!

Thanks!

[kgdrum]

That's a great idea, Bongo. I think an operation of that sort, while interesting and something I'm excited to investigate, requires the supervision of a more technically-minded friend. I'll definitely add it to the schedule!

Thanks!

putting the drive into an external hd enclosure could not be easier,you can do it in about 1 minute!
I doubt you would need supervision or assistance for this.