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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC )
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To: SIer formerly known as Joe B. who wrote (13560)7/27/2002 3:04:10 AM
From: Robert Graham  Read Replies (1) of 14778
 
I found out that the partition was not the problem. I repaired the boot block and chkdsk found some errors it fixed. But this still did not solve the problem. The mechanics of the relatively new Western Digital drive were failing. I started to get "clacking" noises with the disk spinning up and down. I checked the cabling and power hookup to find no problems. A bootup would end up in a blus screen of death (BSOD).

Then I remembered something. When this drive was with my original 6G drive, I started to hear ball bearing problems. I assumed it was the old 6G drive of several years old. But to be sure, I kept backups of key files on both drives until the noise went away. At a later time I started to feel allot of heat between the drives. This ended up permanently changing the operating characteristics of the circuitry of the drive. And when I handled the drive to check cabling, the problem would go away for a short time. When the clacking happened the system would temporarily hang.

So I remembered I had a cold compress in the freezer. I unbolted the drive for access, but kept it plugged in and operating. I next held the cold compress to the drive. I was now able to boot from the drive. While I was doing some quick file transfers, I continued to keep down the temp of the drive in this way. This experiement helped. My only worry was getting this done before permanent failure of the drive, and water condensation could also turn into a problem. In this way, I copied 3G of the most critical files from the 40G malfunctioning drive.

I now have the most important files copied to the new 80G drive. I will tomorrow put the drive in the freezer in a air tight zip lock bag for one hour. Then I will quickly retrieve the rest of the files I need. Then I will locate the sales slip and return it to CompUSA, or at least get a replacement.

Do I get to hang my own shingle now? Have I been though enough? ;-)

Bob Graham

PS: That 80G drive by WDC with the 8M built in RAM is very nice indeed!
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