hard drive possibly going kaput?

[artoodeeto]

Hey y'all, I have a 3.5" maxtor 500GB drive that once was my main internal drive, for 3-4 years or so, and is now an external since I bought an SSD a year ago. I usually have it standing up on its side rather than laying flat.

The last couple weeks, every once in awhile, it would sort of hiccup. Meaning it's plugged into the power, the USB is securely hooked into the computer, and out of nowhere the computer would lose the connection to it, immediately redetect it, and act as though I'd just plugged it in. Given that this only occurred once maybe every few days, I didn't think much of it. I usually noticed this issue after the drive had been on for at least a few hours; it gets fairly hot after awhile (it's in an aluminum enclosure).

Today...after it'd been on for I think less than an hour, and while I was working on a couple files stored on the drive (Illustrator and word files), it did that hiccup thing again, except it did it once, then a few minutes later seemed to get stuck in a loop of losing the connection and redetecting the drive. It also was popping up a message saying the drive wasn't formatted and would I like to format it. Of course I hit cancel...and I eventually just had to power off the drive. I laid it flat and turned it on again a little while later for a few minutes and it seemed fine.

Does it sound like the drive might be going kaput? If it comes down to it I *could* take it out of the enclosure and hook it directly to the internal SATA connection and see if it's ok, but I don't really have space in the computer case for it. So I thought I'd ask here first.
I don't really have the cash for a new one (I'd want a 2.5" 500GB sata), but I'll spend the money if my data integrity is at risk.

Appreciate the input!

[blaze15301]

hmm that sort of sounds like what just happen to me. my enclosure ended up going bad. the board in side was shorting its self and dieing out. so i took the drive out plugged it into my computer and ran some test to make sure the drive was ok. i used the disk utility from the website here is a link.

http://tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

that has mostly all of the manufacturers utilities.

this happen to my friend and his drive has been click and hiccuping for years now and its still running fine.

[artoodeeto]

yeah, I think I'm going to go get a 500GB 2.5" drive - even assuming this drive is fine, it's made me realize the folly of having a lot of data that's not duplicated anywhere else. besides, I need more space for games than my 120GB SSD can provide LOL...

[blaze15301]

lol yeah i have a terabyte i keep mostly everything on and one time i deleted everything on that. 6 years of data was gone. i wasn't to happy. but i got most of it back.

[artoodeeto]

well, I gots a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 2.5" drive on the way. it's only 8MB cache and 5400rpm, but apparently because it's only 2 platters instead of 3, it has nearly the same performance as the 7200rpm version but won't get as hot, use as much power, and should last longer. Can't beat that...especially when it was only $70 after tax on newegg.
I really want another SSD, but that's a ways off...given that the 500GB drives are still almost 2 grand.

[Zephik]

well, I gots a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 2.5" drive on the way. it's only 8MB cache and 5400rpm, but apparently because it's only 2 platters instead of 3, it has nearly the same performance as the 7200rpm version but won't get as hot, use as much power, and should last longer. Can't beat that...especially when it was only $70 after tax on newegg.
I really want another SSD, but that's a ways off...given that the 500GB drives are still almost 2 grand.

You could have gotten a Hybrid. HDD and SDD mixed together. They're supposedly pretty fast. The 500GB is $130.

[artoodeeto]

You could have gotten a Hybrid. HDD and SDD mixed together. They're supposedly pretty fast. The 500GB is $130.

oh I know, I considered it. But, I just bought something rather expensive for my girlfriend...and I'm going to Italy in a week, which is costing a lot, and there's a good chance the company I work for is going out of business sometime in the next month or two. So...couldn't really justify even the extra $50 on a new drive, especially when said new drive wasn't absolutely needed.

[x88x]

It sounds kinda like what happened to an old IDE drive I used to have. I think it was just overheating since in an enclosure it would do that weird hiccup every now and then, but mounted in a case with good ventilation it would work just fine.

Good luck with the job hunting if your company does go under.

[artoodeeto]

yeah, I've wondered if it might be just overheating. It does get quite hot in that enclosure. but once I get the new drive, the external will only see occasional use, it'll be sort of a cold storage device, the backup in case my (or my girlfriend's) internal drive(s) fails. So I think I just won't really worry about it.

Thanks for the well-wish on the job hunt, I've started looking, and at this point it seems a certainty the company's going under, just a matter of when, which nobody knows. We've gone from 100 employees at the end of 2008 to 25 now (just laid off 10 a few days ago). I just hope I can pull paychecks at least through mid-July before I probably have to go on unemployment. the worst of it is, had management made wiser decisions over the years (it's a sole proprietership, so really "management" refers to one person), the company may have never gotten as big as it did, but it'd probably be fine.

[artoodeeto]

got my new 500GB drive installed last night (I'll try and take a few pics and post in my worklog, which hasn't seen an update in awhile), got everything installed on it. putting it in the computer was a bit of a pain...but it's workin'! My external behaved itself too when I copied everything from it to the new internal.