External hard drive woes?!
 

I bought a LaCie Big Disc Extreme 1TB external hard drive about six months ago.

Yesterday it started making funny whirring sounds and today will not mount on my computer's desktop and I cannot, therefore, access the data. The blue power light is no, but not flashing quite as enthusiastically as usual!

Anybody got any ideas whether the disc is simply having a 'moment' and can be re-mounted, or is it likely to be something more serious?

KR

FOK :)

In my experience, funny sounds from a HDD usually indicates a hardware problem which doesn't get any better....and usually deteriorates if if isn't completely u/s already.

Even if the OS won't mount the drive, does the system management see the physical drive? Maybe it will give more info about the problem.

This has happened to me countless times with my WD Elements drive!

I usually power it up and down a few times, and then it just comes back to life and mounts again.

I also have issues where it mounts as a drive, but you cant get on it.

Sometimes it mounts and asks me for format it too?

Turning it off and on, well pulling the plug, seems to do the trick.

Heat is often a factor in drive failures, so I suggest letting it cool down, before trying to back up the data from it. Some say that cooling a drive in the fridge or freezer gives you more uptime, though I haven't tried that myself.

I had a situation early last year where I thought an internal 250GB SATA drive was failing. It was making clunking noises and dropping offline under load. As a last-ditch attempt to see if I could salvage it, I wiped it with a low-level utility (from the manufacturer) and reformatted it. That was a year ago, and it's still going strong, with no weirdness. I think that it was able to map out bad sectors when I reformatted it, and therefore didn't try to access them ever again.

My external HDD started making worn bearing sounds at the instant the warranty (1 year) expired. If I light the computer before the central heating has taken the room temperature above about 15 deg C, the bearing repeatedly chatters to a near stop until friction warms it. It sounds dreadful in that state; imagine a U-Boot at diving stations!

Accordingly, I think I will keep it away from the fridge. I must also transfer the data while I can still access it.

Thanks for your replies.

I've had no joy with the device and have contacted the manufacturer direct.

I don't hold out much hope, but you never know.

KR

FOK :)