| Author | Message | ||
     Shanabana Citizen Username: Shanabana Post Number: 882 Registered: 10-2005  |
My Dell Dimenson hard drive is on its last legs, reluctantly allowing me to post today. It told me to back up everything and get a new hard drive. Dell is thankfully sending me a freebie. When I asked why, I believe the tec guy sputtered something about it not being shut down properly. Is this possible? I do, about 50% of the time, press the button without going through the whole correct shut down procedure. Or when it freezes up I just switch the power off and on. Someone once told me that it has no effect on the computer. Was that person wrong? Or did I misunderstand the tech guy? | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider  Post Number: 15263 Registered: 1-2003  |
Yes, shutting power off when the drive is working adds risk to the drive. Of course, there are times when you have no choice. Best to try shutdown first, then hitting the power button, then, as a last resort, removing the source of power. But "why" is not relevant. Expect every hard disk to fail. It will, for sure. The only question is "when" which is why we have to make backups as a precaution for when it happens. | ||
| Shanabana Citizen Username: Shanabana Post Number: 884 Registered: 10-2005 |
Thanks, Tom. My expetations are too high for the realities that these machines endure, I guess. | ||
| Politicalmon Citizen Username: Politicalmon Post Number: 233 Registered: 9-2005  |
Shanabana; I have to disagree with the assumption that a hard shut off will cause a hard disk failure. At most this will cause errors to be written to the hard drive which should (if they occur) get repaired during the next reboot. Hard drives today are built rock solid compared to the days of the 10MB drives in the first IBMXT that required to be parked before moving the PC. The MTBF (Mean Time between Failure) is extremely long and for someone who has worked in this field for 20+ years it is very rare that I encounter a failed hard drive. The only instance I've seen of problems has been mostly from Dell and one other time IBM who both subcontract (OEM) Asian companies to manufacture the drives. They have both admitted and recalled drives after problems were encountered in the quality control/production side. The fact that Dell swapped this out for you lends me to think that this is another one of those quality issues. In closing I have close to 12 machines operating at my home office and I haven't had to replace a hard drive ever! And some of my machines are running Windows NT and are 10+ years old. Now it is possible thought highly unlikely that an error was written to the Boot Sector of the hard drive, if that occurred hard disk tools should be able to bring the drive back assuming you have the original Windows installation media. | ||
| wnb Citizen Username: Wnb Post Number: 482 Registered: 8-2001 |
I sure wish my HD had been kind enough to warn me before it died! There is no need to physically replace a hard drive due to any type of software error. It sounds like this is a physical problem with the drive that was detected. I can't imagine pulling the plug, even repeatedly, would cause a hardware failure. Disk corruption sure but that is not a hardware issue. So the tech guy's conjecture on what might have caused this is suspect. However if the HD is throwing errors best to back up data and get it replaced. It's also possible that the error detection system provides "incorrect" but "safe" advice: it could be detecting a software error but still recommending physically replacing the drive just because somebody decided that was easier than having people call tech support trying to fix low-level corruption issues. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15272 Registered: 1-2003 |
politicalmon, I'm not saying a hard shut off will surely cause a failure. I'm saying it carries that risk. But just using a hard disk carries risk of failure. The very fact that the metric called MTBF exists means there is a probability between 0 and 1 of failure. I'm sure you agree that any hard disk has a chance of failure. It's significant enough that we IT people recommend doing backups. You do them, right? And sorry to pull rank on you, but at my job, we have a few thousand. At a sample size like that, a day with hard disk failure is not usually a bad day. It's a typical day. | ||
| JMF Citizen Username: Jmf Post Number: 273 Registered: 9-2004 |
I also work with a few thousand... 10,000+ during the school year. Right now it is slow, and I have seen at the very least 5 bad drives per week. All hard drives will die eventually. From my expirience, it is rare that a drive will die from holding the poer button. It is possible to cause some damage though. btw Tom, I read your blog about the job search. I think you interviewed to be my boss. I work at SHU. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15276 Registered: 1-2003 |
No, it wasn't a supervisory position. I suppose we would have been peers. Email me at noglider@pobox.com to trade war stories. One of your former cow-orkers is now my cow-orker. | ||
| Monster© Supporter Username: Monster Post Number: 4442 Registered: 7-2002  |
I've only been working freelance consulting for the past few months, and since then I have ran into several failed HD's, much more than previously encountered, but that only makes since with the increase of drives and the pace at which they are produced. | ||
| Wendy Supporter Username: Wendy Post Number: 2954 Registered: 5-2001 |
The hard drive on my son's Dell Inspiron failed two weeks ago and they sent me a new one. It was just a week or two over one year old but fortunately I purchased the two year warranty. | ||
| Ligeti Man Meat Citizen Username: Ligeti Post Number: 777 Registered: 7-2002  |
I've been burned by leaving important information on computers. Your best bet: write down critical information on lined yellow paper writing pads, like I do. They have NEVER failed me, unlike THE COMPUTERS. Let's all just face it: low tech solutions are the best way to store important information. "Cuneiform tablets and chiseled obelisks are clumsy vehicles for information storage, but they'll be legible long after our magnetic or optical media have turned into gibberish." Bob Seidensticker, Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change Reject hard drives. They will always disappoint you. | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 3742 Registered: 5-2004  |
What happened to Ligeti's post? I was so looking forward to the followups... | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 3743 Registered: 5-2004 |
Ah, there it is... | ||
| Ligeti Man Meat Citizen Username: Ligeti Post Number: 778 Registered: 7-2002 |
I'm leading a relatively hard drive free lifestyle. And I get more promotions at work than the guys with all their computers and gadgets. That's a fact. | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 3744 Registered: 5-2004 |
I believe it. Hmm. Let me rephrase that. I believe that you believe that. | ||
| Case Citizen Username: Case Post Number: 1902 Registered: 2-2005 |
That was an excellent rephrasing. | ||
| us2inFL Citizen Username: Us2innj Post Number: 1491 Registered: 5-2001 |
To avoid major hard drive problems, look into RAID dual hard drive systems. Two drives continuously mirror each other. If one drive hiccups, the other drive takes over, and that one now tries to repair and replace the data on the damaged one. We have an Intel board that handles this, and it works like a charm 95% of the time. | ||
| Politicalmon Citizen Username: Politicalmon Post Number: 244 Registered: 9-2005 |
Well I guess you get what you pay for - I don't own a Dell - I think they skim on the parts & quality; just a handful of Macs & 6 custom built machines. Most of the custom machines have Seagate drives which have performed perfectly over the years. Not sure why so many of you are seeing a high frequency of drive failures? I typically don't. I just resold an Old IBM 704 Server w/ quad proc Xeon with 16 drives running RAID 5 to a customer for $500 - Those drives have been humming for 10 years with no problems. I told the customer to purchase a backup drive from IBM before they discontinue the part. Maybe my perceived perception is a little off since I remember all to well the days when hard drive failure rates were extremely high (mid to late 80s) and in comparison today it's barley a blimp on my radar. In most cases a true hardware failure of a drive can be recognized by these characteristics. - Drive doesn't power up - just plain dead and you have verified that the power connection is good and delivering the proper voltage (DVM). - The drive does spin but you hear a clicking noise emanating from the drive. - your system POST give you an error on screen stating no hard drive found and you have one of the two charactistics above. - you double checked the connection from integrated hard drive controller to your hard disk - made sure the cable is oriented correctly. This usually only occurs if you had removed or replaced the drive during diagnostics. Over the years I have brought drives back from the dead using hard disk recovery tools - but this was only necessary when hard drives had pertinent information that had not been backed up. By the end of this decade you can be sure that the system drive will be replaced by a flash - EPRO - which is the same technology in those USB, based jump drives. No moving parts and they will last forever. I've even seen people use the current USB devices to boot Windows XP and then use the computer's internal drives as data depositories. The key here is in the system BIOS as to whether the boot sequence will allow a USB device to be first in the chain. RAID is fine but will increase the cost of the system in addition to degrading performace - unless your motivated to use RAID level 10. Given the low cost of the USB jump drives - I find this the easiest solution. It appears as a drive in Explorer and you just drag and drop your data onto the drive letter. Simple, quick and remove the drive and keep it in a safe place off site. If the size of the jump drives is not sufficient then purchase an external USB based hard drive and do a monthly dump of your data. This is my preferred method to insure my music library stays intact. Picked up an 100 GB external drive from CompUSA for $120 a couple years ago. I turn it on twice a month just to do a global backup of business related documents & mp3 music files. Also use the jump drive on a daily basis just for business related data. Besides these options you can also burn data onto DVD or CD if need be. The days of tape or zip drives are coming to an end. | ||
| wnb Citizen Username: Wnb Post Number: 502 Registered: 8-2001 |
At the end of the day a HD is a physical machine prone to failure. The only real mitigation is to have more than one copy of data. Tools like Norton Ghost make this relatively easy to accomplish. RAID does the same thing in real-time. Any way you slice it, it's having more than one copy of your stuff. In Ligeti's world, the same principle applies, except he's hiring someone named Bartleby to transcribe the contents of those yellow lined pads and storing the copies offsite in a fireproof container. | ||
| Ligeti Man Meat Citizen Username: Ligeti Post Number: 780 Registered: 7-2002 |
Right, good luck with your computers, which will likely combust on you in the middle of an important sales presentation. Real good system, that one. I'll be in the waiting room, ready to come to the rescue with my yellow pads of useful, concrete information and graphics. Happens all the time at work. Seems like I'm always covering for the wireless crowd and their malfunctioning gadgets, all constantly yakking on their cellphones. My organic, down-to-earth low-tech methodologies have garnered acclaim from many CEOs, some of whom you've read about in magazines. | ||
| Monster© Supporter Username: Monster Post Number: 4511 Registered: 7-2002 |
oh shut up already, or better yet, ask Dave and Jamie to start a LOW/NO Technology section, oh yeah, it's called a newspaper, a book, a letter, meeting with your psychiatrist/groups, friends, etc...etc., for someone who is so against technology you sure spend an awful lot of time using it to complain about it. Or at least that's this character, how many more do you have? | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15358 Registered: 1-2003 |
Why do you folks take ligeti's jokes so darned seriously? | ||
| Monster© Supporter Username: Monster Post Number: 4512 Registered: 7-2002 |
I don't take it serious, why do you take what I said serious? | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15361 Registered: 1-2003 |
Duh. Never mind. [slaps his own forehead] | ||
| Ligeti Man Meat Citizen Username: Ligeti Post Number: 781 Registered: 7-2002 |
Now you see? Monster has unwittingly identified the heart of matter for us. Low technology is, in fact, the fraternal twin of high technology. The organic, people-oriented concepts I am introducing demand to be put alongside news about the latest cool hard drive. The new technologists have inflicted a great deal of inefficiency on the workplace. A strong case can be made that today’s office worker is less productive than his counterparts from the pre-digital age. Why? Computers computing things that don’t need to be computed, of course. Email. Compulsive Internet behavior. Cellphones. Silly gadgets that distract people from actual work. Try as they might, Dell, Apple and IBM cannot create products that rival the direct effectiveness of person-to-person communication, good listening, and the accuracy of ideas captured with a simple pencil and pad of paper. Don’t get me wrong: new technology has a role to play. I can’t imagine, for example, how air traffic control could be managed without the aid of a radar computer. Closer to home, I look at the geeks in my office who insist on using Razr cameraphones at their desks instead of landlines. The result? Static-immersed, unintelligible conversations, with every third word garbled. Delays and fatal misinterpretations in urgent deals often result due to lousy (surprise, surprise) wireless connections. This morning, I had to shoo the IT guy out of my office because he insisted he needed to install a program that would allow Outlook to dial my phone calls for me. Never mind that I asked these goofballs to fix my printer TWO WEEKS AGO. These guys live for opportunities to waste time on totally cool, silly junk that slows hyper-efficient workers like me down. As a result: I have banned all laptops, Blackberries and cellphones from meetings I conduct. People have to actually sit there and listen, think and remember key discussion points instead of push buttons and have fun with blinking lights. I also do not permit subordinates to call me on a cellphones unless in an emergency. FACT: 99.99% of all conversations can wait until access to a landline is available. I am working on a plan to create an Internet station in the common area of our offices. All employees will retain the ability to email from their desks and workstations (although landline telephone calls are much more effective). But when people really need to look up the GNP of Guam, they’ll go to the community computer with Internet access and get the task done without distraction (although most information you need can be found quicker in desk reference books). Result? Less company time spent on eharmony.com, downloading porn and music or IMing friends, and more work being accomplished. Reject the digital lifestyle. Our economy depends on it. | ||
| Agon Citizen Username: Agon Post Number: 12 Registered: 8-2005 |
Brilliant. Seriously. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15363 Registered: 1-2003 |
Yes, that's more cogent than other stuff you've written. Try offering that to David Pogue of the NY Times. I wonder what would happen. | ||
| TarPit Coder Citizen Username: Tarpitcoder Post Number: 124 Registered: 12-2004  |
Yeap, it's one of the better ones. I really think Ligeti should see if he can get this stuff syndicated. He could reach out to more minds. He could start a movement. It could be: <coworker> I have generated some powerpoints <convertee> REJECT POWERPOINTS! <coworker> Er if you will just look at ... <convertee> REJECT LCD PROJECTORS! <coworker> If I draw on the whiteboard <convertee> REJECT HYDROFLUOROCARBONS! <coworker> Does anybody have any chalk? He's right about critical thinking. It's getting more and more rare. |
