External hard drive

[jcsings]

I have had 3 external hard drives fail, this last one took out my entire library of songs. 3 years of work gone. I'm sick and so very upset. Does anyone out there know why I would lose hard drives?

[ddouglass]

Hard drives fail. That is just a fact of life and it isn't just external ones that die. Because they are a mechanical device then just like your car parts wear-out. Icouldn't tell you how many drives I have had fail over my 20+ years of working on personal computers, but it has been many.
The lesson here is to have more than one copy of your library. Either get two identical drives and copy the files to both or have another copy on another computer. If all else fails then you should have your CDs to be able to reload them.
Many of the MTU users even have a backup computer that they can use if their primary show computer decides to quit on them.
The question is how did it fail? Did it stop spinning up (silence), or is it just failing to read the data, or the power won't turn on (power lite)? What exactly did it do? Have you taken it to a computer repair shop to see if it can be fix/data recovered?

[marklwood]

I'm jus fishing here, but do you use these for gigs? What I am getting at is do you take them from outside, possibly cold, to inside and fire them up? I can't tell you how many electronics I have seen fail from this. Think of your glasses fogging up, and now add electricity.

[jcsings]

I never bumped or dropped or tipped over the external. I used it one night the next morning it shorted out. Like I said this is the 3rd one to go out. The first 2 I didn't even get to use. I understand things quit, but I should have been able to use them for a little while. I just don't know why I would lose 3. I am seriously wondering if my computer isn't causing the problem. It is always taken down and put away, never left anywhere it's cold or damp. I have a show 5 nights a week, and it is in a very protected area.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by jcsings

Like I said this is the 3rd one to go out. The first 2 I didn't even get to use. .

What sort of time scale are we talking about losing 3 ? Is it over a number of years or recently ?
If they have all gone recently I should think you have a problem with your computer, or did you buy all 3 from the same supplier at the same time which might indicate a supplier problem like a batch of faulty drives.

I would expect to get a couple of years before failure, unless you accidentally drop one

Roy.

[billyo]

what brand of hhd did you have, if it's a WD i've had problems with those, i've return 4 or 5 of them in a month, do you reformat the hhd before using them ? some manufactures recomends it.. the usb cable might be bad , does your ext. hhd shows up on " hardware tab "

[jcsings]

Originally Posted by Roy Dennis

What sort of time scale are we talking about losing 3 ? Is it over a number of years or recently ?
If they have all gone recently I should think you have a problem with your computer, or did you buy all 3 from the same supplier at the same time which might indicate a supplier problem like a batch of faulty drives.

I would expect to get a couple of years before failure, unless you accidentally drop one

Roy.

I bought the original one when I bought my ruggidized laptop, I was able to get about 250 songs on it, and I don't remember the brand, then it quit. The second was a replacement from the manufacturer, same brand, I was able to load about 5000 songs, and it quit, I was able to take that one to my local IT guy and he was able to save my work, and we loaded it onto a seagate, "Maxtor" 500. I got all 24000 songs loaded to that, using different computers, and it was fine, I started to use my computer and external and within 3 weeks it quit too. How can I tell if it is the computer I bought?