36GB raptor failed

Yep. I've had two of these 36GB Raptors in raid 0. I come back to my computer after letting it fold for a couple hours (and me watching tv in another room). I hear the harddrive making a weird clicking sound and my monitor won't turn on.

I bend down to listen to the drives... something isn't right.

I restart the computer and the raid bios is having a hard time to find the second drive, says the array is in trouble.

So I turn it off, take out the second drive (still plugged in), turn on the computer again and take a better listen. I hear the motor spin up, I hear a click, and the motor spins down again, and then the process repeats. I don't know if it's the head hitting the spindle or it's just the ball bearings in the motor turning on and off.

So I'm screwed, right? I don't hear a constant scraping sound or anything. You think the fridge trick would work? Wouldn't condensation screw it up? Or put in a plastic bag?

I've emailed WD, see what they can do, if it's repairable at all (guessing no). I'm wondering if I can get a discount on a velociraptor so I can say "fuck it" to raid... I'm through with this trouble.

The drive is encountering a non recoverable error during actuator initialization it sounds like. Sometimes the freezer trick can free a seized up actuator. As you suggest, you'l lwant the drive in static bag then a sealed Zip-Loc type bag to prevent condensation.

You do have a backup, right?

BTW, a Velociraptor will smoke pretty much any number of 36GB Raptors in RAID-0. A 300GB Raptor has double the sequential throughput of the 36GB, double the cache, and about 2ms faster seek times. Not even close.

You're not gonna get a discount from WD but Dell has a pretty good price.

DougLite said:

BTW, a Velociraptor will smoke pretty much any number of 36GB Raptors in RAID-0. A 300GB Raptor has double the sequential throughput of the 36GB, double the cache, and about 2ms faster seek times. Not even close.

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Exactly the reason why I'd rather just upgrade to a single velociraptor drive!

I don't have money though, so I'm stuck with what I've got.

No, most of my files are not backed up.

So, put the drive in an anti-static bag, but that in a ziplock, put that in the freezer? Or just the fridge? And how long should I leave it in there? and when I take it out, how should I go about plugging it back in? Let it come to room temperature first or?

Yes, put the drive in the antistatic, then in the ziplock, and I'd say probably for 2 hours max in the freezer. Pop it out (don't let to warm up), plug it in, and quick see if it works. If it does, COPY THAT SH** ASAP! Your drive is now on borrowed time, the grim will be back to get it at any time!

Edit: Tis nice to see another fellow IP35 Pro user here ... you've got a PM.

veritas7 said:

Yes, put the drive in the antistatic, then in the ziplock, and I'd say probably for 2 hours max in the freezer. Pop it out (don't let to warm up), plug it in, and quick see if it works. If it does, COPY THAT SH** ASAP! Your drive is now on borrowed time, the grim will be back to get it at any time!

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Yep!

Letting the drive drop to room temp will defeat the purpose.

If the drive starts to work for awhile then slows down, pop it back in the freezer for another shot of cold.

I've even read about guys running the wires out of the freezer door to keep the drive working.

Good Luck!

veritas7 said:

Yes, put the drive in the antistatic, then in the ziplock, and I'd say probably for 2 hours max in the freezer. Pop it out (don't let to warm up), plug it in, and quick see if it works. If it does, COPY THAT SH** ASAP! Your drive is now on borrowed time, the grim will be back to get it at any time!

Edit: Tis nice to see another fellow IP35 Pro user here ... you've got a PM.

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KK, bagged up, time set to take it out at 1PM Central.

Hey, I'm thinking about when I take it out, to put some icepacks around the drive (still in the bag), or just some ice in a cooler. You think that would help?

Hey, I'm thinking about when I take it out, to put some icepacks around the drive (still in the bag), or just some ice in a cooler. You think that would help?

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I wouldn't bother...it's a small drive and shouldn't take very long.

Hope you are able to get your data off the drive. I have two 36 GB Raptors that were used as a raid 0 array for a long time, and now serve time as Linux boot drives. Still working great after 5+ years and fast as ever.

Well I plug it in, and it's no longer the bad click sound (sounded normal. platter spinnging. but no seeking I think).

I get a "Reset Port error" at the raid screen now for my second drive. Opening up the raid thing it looks like it can't even see the drive.

I turn it all off and I see some condensation on the label side of the drive. I didn't see any sparks or anything, but I've got a fan blowing on the PCB to hopefully dry up and water. I knew this would happen.

Fuck.

When it's all dry (I don't want to freeze the condensation) I'll put it back in the fridge.

This is stupid.

I don't want to sound rude or like a broken record but to everyone with RAID0.

BACKUP YOUR FILES.

Please!!!

Just as a sidenote:

When the Raptors were first released, the original 36GB Raptors years ago, I had a buddy working in I.T. (I had just retired from 20+ years of that crap before it even had that "I.T." name), and he ordered a Raptor for the company server (small radio station, didn't need a lot but that would help the basic music management system they were using at that time work better.

Got it, put it in, *dead* in a week, if that long. RMA'ed it, WD sent a replacement first for the regular swap, second one, *dead* in a week, if that long. Another RMA, third one, dead in under 12 days. Another RMA, fourth one, dead in 13 days iirc.

Needless to say he won't ever buy or recommend WD stuff ever again.

I had 2 80GB VelociRaptors earlier this year and I miss 'em. Damned fast, solid drives. Can't speak for their long term reliability, of course, but geezus they were freakin' fast.

Lazy me hasn't assembled my new system yet, but the 2 36G raptors in raid0 in this thing have been running almost continuosly since 2004, so I certainly got my money's worth out of them.

thebeephaha said:

I don't want to sound rude or like a broken record but to everyone with RAID0.

BACKUP YOUR FILES.

Please!!!

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Um, ANYBODY with ANY data sitting on ANY type of computer needs to back his or her data up. A single hard drive can fail at any time, as can multiple drive arrays. That's computing 101 folks. I have no pity for anybody who loses data without backups.
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Joe Average said:

Just as a sidenote:

When the Raptors were first released, the original 36GB Raptors years ago, I had a buddy working in I.T. (I had just retired from 20+ years of that crap before it even had that "I.T." name), and he ordered a Raptor for the company server (small radio station, didn't need a lot but that would help the basic music management system they were using at that time work better.

Got it, put it in, *dead* in a week, if that long. RMA'ed it, WD sent a replacement first for the regular swap, second one, *dead* in a week, if that long. Another RMA, third one, dead in under 12 days. Another RMA, fourth one, dead in 13 days iirc.

Needless to say he won't ever buy or recommend WD stuff ever again.

I had 2 80GB VelociRaptors earlier this year and I miss 'em. Damned fast, solid drives. Can't speak for their long term reliability, of course, but geezus they were freakin' fast.

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sounds like they were doing something wrong or the power supply was sending dirty power to the drive. statistics would dissagree with your friend. with an increased failure rate i have three 36gb drives in my old axp system in raid 0 still working almost 6 years. how about that for ur long term reliability.

When I had my two drives running together once, I unplugged the front fan that was blowing air on them. Maybe 5 minutes later the screen locked, plugged the fan back in and rebooted, worked just fine. Those drives were scorching... that could've caused your problem too.

Well, I tried the freeze again and same problem.

It's dead... going to rma from WD, but the data loss sucks. Big time. I can't blame my self because there's nothing I can do now.

Joe Average said:

Just as a sidenote:

When the Raptors were first released, the original 36GB Raptors years ago, I had a buddy working in I.T. (I had just retired from 20+ years of that crap before it even had that "I.T." name), and he ordered a Raptor for the company server (small radio station, didn't need a lot but that would help the basic music management system they were using at that time work better.

Got it, put it in, *dead* in a week, if that long. RMA'ed it, WD sent a replacement first for the regular swap, second one, *dead* in a week, if that long. Another RMA, third one, dead in under 12 days. Another RMA, fourth one, dead in 13 days iirc.

Needless to say he won't ever buy or recommend WD stuff ever again.

I had 2 80GB VelociRaptors earlier this year and I miss 'em. Damned fast, solid drives. Can't speak for their long term reliability, of course, but geezus they were freakin' fast.

Click to expand...

oh great another anecdote about hard drive manufacturer X and how all their drives are horrible

Yea you should definitely back up your raid0 set up lol. sorry for your loss, but it is these mistakes that we learn from the most. And for people hating on the Raptors, I've had my 36gb raptor drives for 6 years and am now using 2x150gb Raptor drives in raid 0. my 36gb raptor drives are still being used in my mom's computer which is on for 24hours 5 days a week. I'll say goodbye to it soon, but they served me well