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#1
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been
using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. It doesn't get used that much. Anyone have experience with these drives? Any chance there's a power supply inside the case that's causing the problem and can be swapped with another from an identical drive? Would be a huge Aaaaargggghhhhh!!!!!! to lose the hundreds of gigs of files. Any chance WD would do such a repair? I don't want another drive, I need THIS drive to work. Thanks for all assistance. |
#2
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"muzician21" wrote in message ... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. It doesn't get used that much. Anyone have experience with these drives? Any chance there's a power supply inside the case that's causing the problem and can be swapped with another from an identical drive? Would be a huge Aaaaargggghhhhh!!!!!! to lose the hundreds of gigs of files. Any chance WD would do such a repair? I don't want another drive, I need THIS drive to work. Thanks for all assistance. Q1. Can you connect it to another comp............I ask this because the Firewire port on my laptop is iffy and only sees the drive when it wants to. |
#3
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
Tom E wrote:
"muzician21" wrote in message ... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. Unless a drive has a decent volume of air moved across the PCB, it's doomed to a short life. USB caddies are death for any drive. Unless the PCB has a fan on it, even a tower spells death - unless maybe the drive sits on the floor of the tower rather than the confines of a 3.5" bay .... and even then it'll struggle. Best thing anyone can do for a caddied HDD, is give it it's freedom by cutting the PCB side off the caddy box and attaching an 80mm fan (and grille) - that or remove it from the caddy completely. It doesn't get used that much. Anyone have experience with these drives? Any chance there's a power supply inside the case that's causing the problem and can be swapped with another from an identical drive? Would be a huge Aaaaargggghhhhh!!!!!! to lose the hundreds of gigs of files. Any chance WD would do such a repair? I don't want another drive, I need THIS drive to work. Thanks for all assistance. Q1. Can you connect it to another comp............I ask this because the Firewire port on my laptop is iffy and only sees the drive when it wants to. |
#4
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"muzician21" wrote in message
... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. It doesn't get used that much. Anyone have experience with these drives? Any chance there's a power supply inside the case that's causing the problem and can be swapped with another from an identical drive? Would be a huge Aaaaargggghhhhh!!!!!! to lose the hundreds of gigs of files. Any chance WD would do such a repair? I don't want another drive, I need THIS drive to work. Thanks for all assistance. Is it this one? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=351 3 possibilities 1 The AC adaptor has died, check with a voltmeter or subsitute adaptor. 2 The Firewire electronics have died in the MyBook or your PC. Try the unit on another PC and if possible another firewire unit on your PC. (check the cable too) 3 The drive itself has died. Check this by opening the case and mounting the drive inside your PC as a slave drive. You may have to add a PCI adaptor if it's SATA and you don't have SATA inside your PC. If this last one doesn't work then it's off to the data recovery specialists. If the drive does show up as a slave drive then you can make the backups you should have made in the first place!!!!!!!!!!! Best Paul. |
#5
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"PeeCee" wrote in message ... "muzician21" wrote in message ... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. It doesn't get used that much. Anyone have experience with these drives? Any chance there's a power supply inside the case that's causing the problem and can be swapped with another from an identical drive? Would be a huge Aaaaargggghhhhh!!!!!! to lose the hundreds of gigs of files. Any chance WD would do such a repair? I don't want another drive, I need THIS drive to work. Thanks for all assistance. Is it this one? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=351 No, the OP stated it is a firewire drive, the link you posted is to a USB drive... |
#6
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"muzician21" wrote in message ... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, Yes it does, the switch is on the rear panel, but..... it powers up when power is first applied, goes dormant after a period of inactivity and restarts when you try to access it. It's worked flawlessly until today. If as implied, you are powering it from the firewire connection then you are very lucky it ever powered up. Clarify: The WD 500gb firewire drive would have been supplied with it's own dedicated AC power unit, do you use that or is it drawing(draining) it's power supply via firewire? Normally the blue light in front dances up and down during boot up as well as whenever there's data transfer but now I notice the light flashes briefly when power is first applied, the drive makes some noise like it's starting to spool up but then shuts down. The couple of h/d's I've had die in the past gave me some warning, made weird clicking noises for a while before crapping out. This one was working perfectly normally until now. I wouldn't think overheating would be an issue with this drive, the case is extensively vented unlike most external drives I've seen. It doesn't get used that much. Plenty of recent threads on externally connected HDD's, did you read any of them? The simple steps first: Have you checked Device Manager to see if the drive is flagged as problematic - exclaimation or questionmarks? There is nothing in your post to indicate operating system, but your google groups post indicates XP in headers, so... Do you have the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on display in the notification area or taskbar? If not: RIGHT click in the area A dialog appears "Customize Notifications" Scroll and locate "Safely Remove Hardware" Use the drop down to select "Always Show" Click the OK buttons and close that dialog The icon is now available and use it to remove the Firewire drive. Then goto Device Manager and UNInstall the firewire drive. Do NOT uninstall any associated software that came bundled with the drive - leave all that installed. Shut down your computer. Disconnect the firewire drive. Find, purchase, steal a dedicated power supply for your firewire drive. Restart your PC without the firewire drive DISconnected Download and install WD diagnostic tool (firwire version): http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...gnostics.shtml Fully shut down your computer Reconnect the WD 500gb firewire HDD with it powered from a dedicated power supply. Restart your PC. Windows "Found new hardware" wizard will detect the connected firewire HDD and will correctly reinstall it. Check in "MyComputer" that it has beed assigned a drive letter. Check in Device Manager that it is not flagged with an Exclaimation or Questionmark. Now run WD's diagnostic tool which will check it's health and try to repair any problems found. |
#7
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"Band" wrote in message ... Whoops, please re-read for correction - Plenty of recent threads on externally connected HDD's, did you read any of them? The simple steps first: Have you checked Device Manager to see if the drive is flagged as problematic - exclaimation or questionmarks? There is nothing in your post to indicate operating system, but your google groups post indicates XP in headers, so... Do you have the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on display in the notification area or taskbar? If not: RIGHT click in the area A dialog appears "Customize Notifications" Scroll and locate "Safely Remove Hardware" Use the drop down to select "Always Show" Click the OK buttons and close that dialog The icon is now available and use it to remove the Firewire drive. Then goto Device Manager and UNInstall the firewire drive. Do NOT uninstall any associated software that came bundled with the drive - leave all that installed. Shut down your computer. Disconnect the firewire drive. Find, purchase, steal a dedicated power supply for your firewire drive. Restart your PC without the firewire drive DISconnected (That of course should read to restart with the firewire drive fully DISconnected) Download and install WD diagnostic tool (firwire version): http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...gnostics.shtml Fully shut down your computer Reconnect the WD 500gb firewire HDD with it powered from a dedicated power supply. Restart your PC. Windows "Found new hardware" wizard will detect the connected firewire HDD and will correctly reinstall it. Check in "MyComputer" that it has beed assigned a drive letter. Check in Device Manager that it is not flagged with an Exclaimation or Questionmark. Now run WD's diagnostic tool which will check it's health and try to repair any problems found. |
#8
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
On Apr 5, 6:48*am, "Band" wrote:
"muzician21" wrote in message ... I've got this WD 500 gb Firewire *external My Book drive I've been using to store mostly video files for a big video project. It doesn't have an on/off switch, Yes it does, the switch is on the rear panel, but..... Put it this way, there's not a switch I can turn to on/off. It's internal and self actuated. If as implied, you are powering it from the firewire connection No, there's a separate external wall wart for power. |
#9
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
"Centre Parting" wrote in message
... snip Unless a drive has a decent volume of air moved across the PCB, it's doomed to a short life. snip Google's research suggests otherwise: From http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf quote Contrary to previously reported results, we found very little correlation between failure rates and either elevated temperature or activity levels. /quote http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/m...resting-thing/ notes: quote there is less correlation between drive temperature and failure rates than might have been expected, and drives that are cooled excessively actually fail more often than those running a little hot /quote best Paul. |
#10
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500 GB WD My Book external H/D suddenly not wanting to fire up
PeeCee wrote:
"Centre Parting" wrote in message ... snip Unless a drive has a decent volume of air moved across the PCB, it's doomed to a short life. snip Google's research suggests otherwise: From http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf quote Contrary to previously reported results, we found very little correlation between failure rates and either elevated temperature or activity levels. /quote http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/m...resting-thing/ notes: quote there is less correlation between drive temperature and failure rates than might have been expected, and drives that are cooled excessively actually fail more often than those running a little hot /quote best Paul. Not my experience. I used to run my drives fanless. Had about 5 failures over 2 years. Since then (about five years ago) I've been running another 5 or so with fans .... and not a SINGLE failure. All were and continue to be on high quality PSU's and mobo's. Coincidence ? Doubtful. |
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