Member Avatar for FireSBurnsmuP

My hard drive just went the way of my last auto-engine today... overheating crash. Run to the Hills.

Has anyone ever had this problem before? My HDD has been hanging a lot lately, and today it hung 3 times in 5 minutes while playing music. That's all. Just mp3 files and my computer hung so bad I could hear the HD humming, so I touch the bottom of the laptop, where its attached. The things hotter than my cpu and gpu combined. My first thought is "Shit! Turn off computer, turn upside down, and open a window!" So I try to turn her off ----------------- then I hold down the power button.

BEFORE! I didn't change a thing. My last upgrade was almost 6 months ago, and it was a RAM chip. If there were problems with that RAM chip, my hard-drive wouldn't be acting so f***ing wierd.

NOW! I can't boot the partition I was using at the time, it goes to bare-minimum boot, but I can still use the other partition, and access (some of) the files on the part. that crashed.

My other partition isn't behaving right anymore, either. Now sudo no longer works, because the setuid no longer functions, but I can still edit some root-owned stuff I shouldn't be allowed to touch just with vi.

I think I need a new HDD - agree, or disagree? I don't wanna shell out THE REST OF MY MONEY* without knowing for sure this is the problem.

Thanks in advance, guys. Hopefully I'll learn enough that I can help YOU for once ^_^

*(no joke, man, I'd probly have to take out a loan to get a good hard-drive. I can't get a job that pays well enough for me to go to a university and deal with this kind of sh**, not in MI at age 19, man.)

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mechbas

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Agree with : treat the drive as failing and make data rescue the priority. For the combination of heat, repeated hangs and odd permission/metadata behaviour strongly suggests physical disk errors leading to filesystem corruption rather than a RAM problem. The safe workflow is: verify with SMART and kernel logs, image the disk (read-only, using a rescue tool), then attempt repairs on the image, not the original device.

Useful commands and checks (run from a Linux live USB):

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
sudo dmesg | egrep -i 'error|I/O|ata|failed|end_request'

Look for bad SMART attributes (Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Current_Pending_Sector, Offline_Uncorrectable). If SMART or kernel I/O errors show up, image immediately with GNU ddrescue rather than copying files directly:

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sda /path/to/backup/image.img /path/to/backup/image.log

Work on the image for any filesystem fixes. Attach the image as a loop device and run fsck on that copy, or mount partitions read-only to extract files. Avoid running fsck or other write operations on the original until the image is secured.

If replacing the drive: for laptops prefer 2.5" SATA parts; consider an SSD first — much faster, cooler and far more shock-tolerant than spinning media. A 7200 rpm laptop HDD will give better throughput but runs hotter and uses more power, so weigh heat/battery tradeoffs. Continue monitoring SMART and temperatures (CrystalDiskInfo on Windows or smartmontools on Linux). References: smartmontools and GNU ddrescue for rescue steps, and Backblaze drive stats for long-term failure trends (smartmontools | GNU ddrescue | Backblaze drive stats | CrystalDiskInfo).

Member Avatar for mechbas

Nothing that can be said here is gonna make you happy. Over heating drives are a 100 yards of bad news. Best advice is to get your data off the drive if you can, the OS and your apps. can be installed later, it's headded further south. There's nothing repairable in the drive either. Even if you had an exact duplicate of the HD repairs are frequently iffy. Tried it couple of times myself without much success.

Member Avatar for FireSBurnsmuP

Well, that makes me feel fine. Getting a new hard drive sounds like a good thing for me, this means I can upgrade with a good excuse ^_^

Good thing I got that 500G external for christmas, cause I backed up all my data already. All my personal data, at least. The operating systems themselves I am not about to trust. Take a look at how they're behaving (first post) to get an idea - most of my first partition's important files were corrupted, just not any of my personal data. Funny how that works, huh?

Well, thanks for that.

NOW! Does anyone have recommendations on what brands to replace it with, ones that will last as long as me? This one was a seagate, probably made by HP and that's why its dead. :P I'm probably going to replace it with a 7200 rpm, cause I'm a speed-freak, what's a good one for a laptop?

Member Avatar for mechbas

I've used many different brands some of which are no longer in production.
It's kinda like which is your favorite flavor of ice cream.
For years, when I go HD shopping the only drive I even consider is WD. They're reliable last for years & warranty issues are infrequent. Never had a prob. w/mfg. on a warranty issue.

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