I just saved about $3000

[westytoploader]

I read Eric's above post (I had a feeling those Zip drives were no good, LOL), and wish to add something. Not all USB flash drives are reliable, either...stay away from Lexar drives. They're one of the worst and can go kaput at any minute. When I had to use one for a summer course, I used a Memorex flash drive and it worked fine.

The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to not only do a full backup of your data, but do frequent differential backups as well. Simply trusting the hard drive to hold the data on its own is not good enough...something could go wrong at any minute.

 

[chad_hauris]

I do not recommend floppies at all. I have some that are about 20 yrs old and it is very difficult to read the data from them...even ones about 10 yrs old seem to show signs of disintegration.

 

[jasonl]

Austin, I LOVED the sound of the old hdd's. Very whiny and some sounded like jet engines (but not as loud).

I had a 3.5" Seagate 40mb SCSI drive in my Amiga 2000. Made the classic ooowhheeeEEEEE when starting.

But there's nothing like an almost silent Western Digital drive with fluid bearings. It sounds more like a faint hum than a whine.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I've got tons of stuff on this old HP from 1999.
This thread makes me nervous.
I think the drive makes more noise than it used to.
Eeek!

Ken

 

[jasonl]

Ken, if the drive it's over 5 years old and making noise, time to replace it. Most new drives come with a program that will copy your old one to new without having to reinstall your apps.

 

[sudsmaster]

Cool fix, Jason. I worked in the hard drive industry for eight years (IT) but hadn't heard of that trick. Back in the early 90's another tech used to "revive" dead hard drives by rotating them by hand back and forth to help get the platters moving. He said it worked about half the time. In general, though, the less you move a drive when it's in operation, the better.

 

[sheerlookhomes]

Jason, how did you do it?

Hi again Jason, I told my friend about your success with the 'freezing method' and he wants to give it a try. Now, so that I get this right, does one put the entire pc into the freezer, or did you remove your component for this operation?
thanks, Denis

 

[jasonl]

Suds, in the olden days you could try to start the hd and snap it clockwise to try to make the platter spin. This didn't work with mine.

Denis. I took the hard drive component out of the computer, put it in a sealed freezer bag and let it sit for an hour. When I took it out, I plugged it back in and it worked.

I'm not going to guarantee your HD will start but it's worth a try if all else fails.

 

[sheerlookhomes]

Thanks

Hi Jason, thanks for that..I'd give it a go but I doubt if my friend would let me at it with a screwdriver!
Thanks all the same,
Denis.