Failing hard drive? I hope not

[elicoten]

I have a WD 200Gb hard drive. Recently there has been two incidents where the drive, for no apparent reason would spin down whilst the computer was on (in use).

First time it happened once and then it was heard spinning up again and worked for about 10mins after that. After that time it started spinning up and spinning down continuously. The computer was hardly usable as each time the hard drive spun up, it immediately 'failed' again. I used the power button to switch off the computer and it wouldn't start because the hard drive kept on going on and off.

I took the computer's cover off and disconnected the drive and started the computer from a boot CD I have, and that worked fine. I then reconnected the drive and it seemed to work for about 4 - 5 days. After about 5 days, the same thing happened again (drive spins down when it shouldn't), but when I took off the cover, as I pulled the cover to remove it I accidentally pulled it quite hard (as to get it to move you have to pull it quite hard to get it out of its 'locked' position) and it jogged the computer a bit. That caused the computer to freeze completely, and when I got the cover off I saw that the power cable from the hard drive was almost completely out. once I pushed it back in and turned the computer on again it seemed to work.

I would like to know is this a likely issue with a loose cable or is it more likely that the drive itself is failing. From the Western Digital website I downloaded their Drive diagnostic utility and it did a quick test using S.M.A.R.T. and it passed. The computer seems to work normally in between these incidents and there are no noticeable performance problems or strange noises.

Any idea as to what is happening and how safe the data is on that drive? Is the drive likely to fail (its about 2 and a half years old) or is it more likely that the drive is ok and I should just make sure the cable is firm? If the drive does appear to be failing, what is the best way to backup >150GB of data?

Thanks for any suggestions/advice

[gabo]

is there a warranty? try to ask from where you buy it ^^ good luck hehe

[elicoten]

It is still in warranty but they will only replace it if the drive is definately broken. The drive at the moment is working and the problem is only intermittent so I don't think they will replace it under warranty. I also don't think they will copy all my data over.

Eli

[rwshthn]

I have a WD 200Gb hard drive
is there 200 G hard?!!!!!!!!!!!

[darko]

you might wanna go to the shop that u got the HD from and ask around, as for the backup, then the only way i can think of, is that you can compress that data and burn them to a dvs, of course you'll need to have a dvd writer
as for u rwshthn, these days, hard disks can be much bigger then 200gb, take a look at this
http://www.superwarehouse.com/MicroNet_ ... B/p/623224

600gb hd, i am planning on bying a 300gb one, next month

[xb_billa]

if u got warranty , then go to the dealer and solve it :lol:

[tdcool]

All new macs have hard drive sensors so that they are protected when falling . Where you using a mac?

[Paolo1993]

it happen to me once, i bought a new hard drive

[Jonxmartini]

never heard of anything like that happening, but i would sugest you copy and cormpress all the data and put it somehwere for the time being a second or external hard drive or a bunhc of dvds flash drives what ever you have avalible to you. Good luck!

[tdcool]

This is why you should back up regularly! No one ever does it, but you should