What would cause unused hard drives to die?

qdemn7

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I have 2 internal SATA 6.0 drives, one a 3TB Hitachi, and the other a 2TB Seagate Barracua that I had been using as long term backup drives, sitting unused for over a year, and now neither one will work.

Both stored in plastic box hard drive boxes in my closet in my computer room, not subject to moisture or shock, or anything.

The Hitachi will not spin up / start at all. Installed in a USB external enclosure, I get the Windows "chime" when I power up the USB case, but nothing else happens. When I do a Hot Plug install, I get the same chime but nothing. If I do a cold start, the system hangs on booting.

The Seagate will start, gets the chime, but always wants to be formatted, and the formatting fails and drive appears as a drive the system can’t access. This happens no matter whether in the USB case, or hot plugged in the motherboard.

Should hard drives be "refreshed" periodically? If so how often?

Asus Rampage 4 Black Edition Bios 0802 (latest one).
I7-4930K @ stock speed / Custom water cooling loop
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB DDR3 1600 @ stock speed.
OCZ Revodrive 120GB (boot drive)
Thermaltake Toughpower W0133RU 1200W
Asus 970GTX
Hitachi 4TB
Toshiba 3TB
W7 Pro 64 bit.
 
Even though all three going bad is terrible odds,Hardened lubricant,bad electrolytic capacitors are two that I can think of right away.I've taken apart and salvaged a lot of them.Leaky electrolytics ,other than shock cracked resistors and other components,is the most prevalent cause I've found.on older ones,before we knew it would happen,gold/ tin creep on mismatched connections was a problem,even in storage.
 
The Seagate will start, gets the chime, but always wants to be formatted, and the formatting fails and drive appears as a drive the system can’t access. This happens no matter whether in the USB case, or hot plugged in the motherboard.

Sounds like a problem with the heads.

The Hitachi will not spin up / start at all. Installed in a USB external enclosure, I get the Windows "chime" when I power up the USB case, but nothing else happens. When I do a Hot Plug install, I get the same chime but nothing. If I do a cold start, the system hangs on booting.

This could be the motor stuck (possible lack of lubricant) or a bad board on the drive.
 
I'm wiling to bet it the lubricant on both of them. I guess this means having to refresh them every few months.
 
The drives got too cold? You might keep them at room temp for a few days and try again. Try not to heat it too fast. I have had electronics get too cold and die. You take it out and it condenses to water droplets which cause failure. So you keep them near a fan and let it sit until it got warm. Then power it up and see. The older VCR's had a real problem with this and had special sensors to tell you. Nothing else seems to have this but even they have the similar problems. I have had drives spin up once they got warm, be gentle, turn them on for a few mins then let the sit and keep trying until they start up. Usually they will unless the head has fallen off, metal does crack with temperature.. I keep the drives in the same room I use all the time so it never gets too hot or too cold for long periods. Cant leave them in the corner where it can get too cold or hot or electrical noise etc.
 
Both stored in plastic box hard drive boxes in my closet in my computer room, not subject to moisture or shock, or anything.
How about static? Because those hard plastic shells may not provide that much protection. I base this on the fact that when Seagate first used those hard shells, they shipped drives with no other protection, but after a few months they started to put the drives in metalized anti-static bags and put those inside the hard plastic shells.

When you hold each drive horizontally and quickly twist it, do you hear a faint whir, indicating that the platters can rotate and aren't seized?

I don't think hard drives made in the past 5 years have capacitors that rot but instead use ceramic capacitors only.

The only other thing I can think of is corrosion of the contacts on the circuit board that go to the head assembly or motor. People have complained about the silver contacts tarnishing on WD drives, but I think other companies use silver, too. Don't rub the contacts with sandpaper or an eraser; just lift the board slightly and put it back. I think the contacts for the head amplifier are often a rubbery strip, just like the kind used for LCDs used in watches, digital voltage meters, maybe phones. Some drives use ribbon cables that plug into a socket and squeeze the cable with lock pins or a latch that slides back or flips up. Be careful with them.

I like to run any unused electronic equipment for an hour, at least every 6 months. I haven't done that with my antique drives, but my 100MB Toshiba MK72PC just fired up OK, meaning I'd rule out a lubricant problem.

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Just for shits try a brand new sata cable, I had a similar situation I had a drive not load up right, put it in an external enclosure and it still didn't work right (seagate USB3.0 enclosure), got a new sata cable a year ago and the drive still works now. I can't explain it....
 
Just for shits try a brand new sata cable, I had a similar situation I had a drive not load up right, put it in an external enclosure and it still didn't work right (seagate USB3.0 enclosure), got a new sata cable a year ago and the drive still works now. I can't explain it....

Did you check the old SATA cable again? Did it work with other drives? Although cables do go bad, maybe because they use silver strands that would break if you twist them too much. Had some trouble with one of those since wiggling the cable made it work like to check if its a lose contact but when it got hot it stopped working again so that was hard to pin down. Other than something like that I never seen a compatibility problem and was glad they got rid of the old master/slave cables which also had this problem with wires breaking but also huge compatibility issues and sometimes even with the same manufacturer.
 
Even though all three going bad is terrible odds,Hardened lubricant,bad electrolytic capacitors are two that I can think of right away.I've taken apart and salvaged a lot of them.Leaky electrolytics ,other than shock cracked resistors and other components,is the most prevalent cause I've found.on older ones,before we knew it would happen,gold/ tin creep on mismatched connections was a problem,even in storage.

You're most likely correct. I have had talks with Hitachi and Toshiba regarding this due to a client of ours trying to get away from tape for long term archival of their classified data sets that were no longer accessed. Their plan was to just put data on disk and the lock them in a vault. Unfortunately that is a really bad idea because as you have stated, hard drives tend to die if they are left unused.

The consensus was that:

Drives should be powered up every 6 months, and run through a full "read Only" media scan to exercise the drive motor and actuator and identify any new defects that need to be mapped out. Drives should then be placed back into ESD bags, preferable with fresh desiccant packs until they need to be tested/run in 6 months.

Grabbed the above from our email exchange last July...pretty confident things haven't changed since then.

When I asked about why it wasn't something that was really seen or heard about in the past, they said different construction and materials used. Though they would have recommended the same thing back then.
 
The consensus was that:

Drives should be powered up every 6 months, and run through a full "read Only" media scan to exercise the drive motor and actuator and identify any new defects that need to be mapped out. Drives should then be placed back into ESD bags, preferable with fresh desiccant packs until they need to be tested/run in 6 months.

I was wondering about this too.. If air tight containers would make a difference. I am sure the new sealed helium drives would have less problems. But for the rest I would think the cold and then taking them out which causes condensation and such would be the major issue. Use of desiccant is important anyway as it would remove some moisture when you take them out. After a few years I have seen this problem many times. Usually warming them up for a few days and letting the moisture evaporate works. Tapes also have this problem. And offsite storage facilities are climate controlled so this problem does not occur. Since there are offsite storage places, this must be used by a lot of companies. You cant test the drives or tapes every 6 months due to logistics so there has to be ways to make sure things dont degrade so fast. a home is not the best place to store such things. With more companies turning to cold storage which only means the drives are in their cabinets and are powered but sleeping. So All we can do it is make it least likely to fail.
 
I have tried all the suggestions that have been made, and it appears the drives are dead.

It looks like that drives MUST be powered up at least every 6 months for a while, AND they must be stored in anti-static bags, antistatic drive boxes are simply not good enough.

I want to thank everyone for their advice and help. :):)
 
Well I just cranked up an IBM server ( X3400 M3) after 2 months of being turned off

one of the 1TB SAS drives is dead (tick tick tick) cant spin up.

It happens yes when they just sit there.....also happens when they are being used.

HDDs fail....hence why backups etc are important.;)

.
 
It looks like that drives MUST be powered up at least every 6 months for a while, AND they must be stored in anti-static bags, antistatic drive boxes are simply not good enough.

I have ~10 or so old drives that have been on work benches for years at a time unused and have never had that bad luck, sorry! A few are IDE drives I use to diagnose old PC's my coworkers still use and still run great.
 
I have ~10 or so old drives that have been on work benches for years at a time unused and have never had that bad luck, sorry! A few are IDE drives I use to diagnose old PC's my coworkers still use and still run great.

Then I have to assume is was static that got mine.
 
Have your tried the drives on an internal PSU instead of the enclosure ?
 
Have your tried the drives on an internal PSU instead of the enclosure ?

Yes. I even tried them on my other PC. They're both dead, and I have to assume it was either static, or simply sitting unused for a year.
 
I am sorry if I come off as an ass but those drives look to be old as f^#$, why would you want to use those and how could you use them, they must be too old to work on any modern system?
 
I am sorry if I come off as an ass but those drives look to be old as f^#$, why would you want to use those and how could you use them, they must be too old to work on any modern system?

it's not more than 1 year ago i changed a 40MB drive on a test system for a new 40MB drive, we have older systems running on old motorola 68000 systems, that use 200-300MB drives, sometimes old hardware need maintenance to :)

And changing these systems is not a option, there aren't any replacement systems on the marked.
 
I just cant comprehend what possible use any technology that is older then I am could have today and how it is that a modern computer can't fulfill whatever need that, that ancient technology can.
 
I just cant comprehend what possible use any technology that is older then I am could have today and how it is that a modern computer can't fulfill whatever need that, that ancient technology can.

Old computers running legacy software, nostalgia, curiosity, just for the fuck of it, etc.
 
Industrial machines for testing, CNC, old robot welders etc. are the typical problems,
some of these machines are reliant on the CPU clock, some of them can be exchanged with new hardware from the manufacture, but some aren't available, for upgrades.
some manufactures have around 20 years lifespan og devices that need to be tested on the system.
i updated 2-3 GenRad embedded nail testing systems, that could not be updated, because of the test the system was using, a 40MB drive cost in the range of 10000USD.
 
I remmember long time ago floppy disks had to be stored vertically (not horizontally) to prevent data loss)
 
I remmember long time ago floppy disks had to be stored vertically (not horizontally) to prevent data loss)

Sorry for the necro, but I've never heard that. How would that be beneficial?
 
If I remember correctly it was because of the internal tape rubbing, it was SUPER fragile. and with it sitting vertical the tape had less pressure on it.
 
There is one problem that not many people know about unless they live in tropical climates. There are bacteria that loves to eat stuff.. No matter how careful you are with things, stuff like floppies, video/audio tapes, CD's, DVD's get eatten.. CD/DVD's if they are pre-pressed like movies and stuff are worse than the ones you write too.. There are special services that clean up tapes but you still lose some data. the dvd's become useless though. I once saw a writable cd that became totally transparent. It did nto have any writing on it but it did have a coat to write to but that was all gone.

also after not using it for a while one of my seagate externals just stopped working with a weird 1-3 led staying on of the 5 that showed how full the drive was. Luckily I have 3 of them and the board is interchangeable as this was when seagate thought they could sell usb2/3/esata/ieee connectors and make more money. If this was the new fad of having been soldiered onto the drive circuitary, the drive itself would be dead. Maybe it got too cold and wet.. Now that the warrenty period is over it was time to die even if not being used.. I think using stuff kills these kinds of bateria that eats stuff..
 
I just had this happen to me with a pair of drives. One was a hitachi, the other a western digital. Both were in external enclosures and used infrequently as backup drives. Both had very few hours of power on use even though they were 2-3 years old.

The last time I used each one was almost a year ago. The WD won't spin up at all, it just hums and gets hot. I'm sure the problem there is the lubricant dried up. The Hitachi will spin up but won't recognize as a drive, and if it is plugged in at boot the PC won't start. I highly doubt the controller board has gone bad and think the problem is with the read/write heads or the platters somewhere.

What I find really interesting is that something about current mechanical drives makes them prone to failure during periods of disuse. In contrast I had several 40gb drives, and a few 80gb drives, that literally sat on a desk in my basement for YEARS and still worked. They weren't even in anti-static bags... they were just sitting on a shelf exposed to some sunlight and collecting dust. I plugged them in and not a single one had failed. In contrast, the current high capacity drives are so fragile. They fail when they are being used, they fail when they're not being used, and they fail without warning in many cases.

As a result, the mantra I stick to is A. use SSD whenever possible and B when forced to use mechanical drives (due to space requirements) NEVER use them without some form of redundancy, be it raid 1 or raid 5.
 
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