My 500GB Western Digital My Book failed this week. From the time I first had it, there were moments when it would pretend that it had “had it”…… but then it would revive, giggle, and we’d skip along merrily (verily !) together again for a time ; “borrowed time”, as is now evident.
I thought we had struck a compromise when, following the Windows Delay Write Failure errors it threw at me, whilst I was demandingly (?) trying to edit film directly on it, I stopped employing it for intensive “live activities” and switched to using it solely for, sedate and sober, steady back-ups, pointing a (misguided ?) finger of accusation at the (over- ?)lengthy 5 metre USB cable that had been connecting it to my computer on some (possibly most) of the occasions when it “fell over”.
FELL OVER
Fell over it certainly did, physically, on a catastrophic Sunday morning in January. [I DON'T KNOW] how violently it was knocked onto its side when two of my shelves collapsed and flung their burden of box-files at both it and its (supposedly Belt ‘n’ Braces) mirroring companion and [I DON'T KNOW] why it didn’t (wind up wound down and) whine THEN instead of dying with NO (new) warning just dazed days ago.
Back in the moment of the mishap, it (didn’t matter (!) and) didn’t mutter a murmer of maleficence. I experienced something ~ no short of a MIRACLE in the midst of disaster ~ for, as well as scattering, if not (immediately) shattering, a brace of external hard drives (that had no chance to shield themselves from the rude impact), the calamitous, crashing cascade had dominoed my Desktop PC’s monitor down onto the screen of my laptop – slamming that shut and splashed the dreggy contents of a cup of chocolate across the vents of the machine below…… and yet….. all the victims were survivors !!!
I was VERY lucky.
You can’t have too many external back-ups (two is the minimum) and I’ve learnt from this, although thankfully not TOO harshly, that it is precarious to position these storage units so closely together that they could simultaneously be destroyed by the same shared fire, flood or, as in my dodgy (book)case, accidental avalanche.
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~ THEY MUSN’T & NEEDN’T BE SKIMPED ON ~
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My personal purchasing proves prices have plummeted ——>
External Hard Drive Expenses :
19th March 2002 – Iomega Peerless 20GB – £292.58
13th January 2003 - Iomega External 120GB – £213.70
2nd November 2004 – Iomega External 250GB – £156.98
26th July 2006 – WD My Book Premium 500GB – £185.02
4th December 2007 – WD My Book Essential 750GB – £99.99
19th March 2008 – WD My Book 2 Essential 750GB – £99.99
The insurance cost of protecting what is now likely to be DECADES of data is negligible.
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Anyway, the main purpose of this post was for me to share one last “clutching at straws” little piece of advice for anybody suffering from an external hard drive that won’t mount.
You COULD try another power supply. When one of my Iomegas was not being recognised by Windows, I contacted their Technical Support and was told : “these things just happen,” as far as they were concerned my drive was dead and all the data was lost.
Not so.
Not so AT ALL.
Nothing was lost.
The SOLUTION was to use another power supply cable. I had to buy the special Iomega one but it did the trick. I’d been put off the scent of salvation by the drive’s case unit illuminating and the fans starting as usual….. there WAS power but not ENOUGH power.
I’ve tried a different power supply with the thwarted My Book – but THAT drive is clacking when it (presumably) tries to engage it’s heads – but can’t.
Gladly, I had the core of its store on a second back-up drive and I will back THAT up as soon as the replacement arrives d.v. there’s no mean disaster in the mean time.
