Uncreative Labs

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

last novenmer is a rare for me time, I purchased a 160g wd hard drive.
since I know w98 has problems with big drives I partitioned it 40gb x 4.
I busily started storing everything I had on the 4 partitions.
after all, it is new and should last a few years.

since defrag is so slow, I use diskeeper 7 and recently it would not defrag the "fourth" partition.
I managed to move some large files to another drive, about 10gb.
but the rest ( 84 cd images) either pretended to copy of gave an error.
norton disk doctor from norton system works 2002 warned me of dire things. Format refusded to formsat the partition

this morning
ndd from the hiren's boot cd went thru and found NO ERRORS.

still those big files would not copy.
finally I deleted all files manually
and using the newer w98 fdisk, deleted and then restored and formatted to 40gb partition. PERFECT!

I had already called wd and asked then to send a replacement. if you return the bad drive within 30 days there is no charge..
I wonder if the replacement will be older than my drive, I will at least have to pay return shipping on the new or the old ( made in sept 2008)

BTW wd will charge $110 if I fail to return the drive.
the dealer last november wanted $69.00 but sold me the drive for $50.00
no hassle. the price now is likely even less.

I will likely exchange the drive, but feel now there may only be logical problems. I will re-partition as 5-32gb as that is the fat 32 limit
for w 2000. even though for now I am using w 98.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

WD charges you list price if you do not return the drive, and I am sure they hope you don't.

All HDs' fail sooner or later, you need to back up that data in some other media if you cannot replace it.

All storage drives around here are NTFS formatted, seems to work better then fat32 if you have a power outage when writing. I only use fat32 on the older gaming rigs, and fat16 on DOS machines.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

somehow it formatted perfectly
I have not copied anythinmg to it.
many of the cd images are elsewhere
and some are repeated on partitions 1,2,3
it seems only 4 was affected
originally I stored images on several 4g scsi drives.
the 4g scsi drives are still sitting anti-static bags in a metal drawer.
the newer ones, because of my poor management, are, for the most part, stored in partitions 1.2.3
and a few are just cd's. I made a list while I could still see the directory.
I will partition tghe new drive as 5- 32gb not 4-40gb.

My file manager ZTREE will see ntfs as well as fat32.
but my wife and son all ntfs. when her C crashed, I could not access her data.,
I had to rescue data by putting her bad drive in a system running a temp install of a newer os,

she doesn't realize it but her new C is a 32 fat32.
sitting in the bottom of the case.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

Walter, you simply need to stop trusting your data to any magnetic media. With the cost of CD/DVD burners and decent media being what it is, it doesn't make sense to risk anything of great importance to HDD's (and as discussed here before, well-stored optical media hangs onto data a lot longer than any hard drive I've ever seen)...

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

someone did an examination
and I agree with you.
BUT ( this is a little BUT)
cd-r's fade depending on the quality of the dye used.
generally best japanese second from india
brand means little, it is the manuafacturer that counts.
all optical media will eventually fade back to the original state
some are much better than othjers.
however the dire warnings are to be taken with a grain of salt
"average" cd-r's I have seem to be good after 7-8 years. ( I know this is "anecdotal" evidence)
one researcher felt a high quality ( not consumer grade) scsi hard drive intended for server use would be the safest.
BUT ( and this is a BIG BUT) stored in a safe place and not running in a computer spinning.
or in a place subject to fire or theft.

I keep the images on a hard drive mostly for conmvenience.

My actual data loss is minimal or none.
I have most of these burned to cd'-rs ( which can get scratched) or copies on another drive.
or copies on several scsi drives stored in a drawer.
and I have 4 controllers..

also useful would be another pc with everyting on it turned off and unused as a backup.
because you could drop or bang a loose hard drive taking it out of the drawer.

I don't disagree with the life of magnetic media.
my tape backups did not hold up.
( remember them?)
but some kind of multipe backups is best.

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 9:37 pm

reading all your posts, storing something in a COOL and DRY place is best, therefore most environmental effects don't harm it. I've found that CD-R's are best, i have some colored ones from about 10 years ago that still are reading away, also the dark blue and black ones are VERY good. just stay away from RIDATA, but for some strange reason, EVERY dvd writable i got from them seems better than event he mainstreams

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

the new drive has arrived
the older drive seems to be working even on the bad 4th partition.
but who knows what happened to it.
I will be extra careful with the replacement.
and as soon as I can get a big pack of cd-r's will do a big backup.

Joined: 10 May 2008 Posts: 62

Why not use flash memory / flash drives for data backups?

I have noticed USB flash drives have come down in price dramatically for 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB models. Wally world wants only about $20 USD for an 8GB Flash Drive and around $40 for a 16GB. I have seen HP 4GB USB Flash Drives for as low as $10 USD at K-Mart. About six months ago Wally world was clearancing out a bunch of Kingston 2GB flash drives for $5.00 each. I bought two of them and they have been very reliable.

As for your extra scsi and ide hard drives I hope you have enclosures for them instead of just sitting them in a drawer to collect dust.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

I'd still say that at around $0.25/disk (i.e. 5¢/GB), quality DVD+/-R media is still the cheapest/best option. Staples/Office Max frequently has 50-packs for around $12-$15 and CompGeeks/Newegg has them for less than that. While the enviromental durability may be in favor of flash, it's susceptible to static and easily being reformatted/rewritten...

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

either in anti static bags or underneath one
with a bag.
drawer is matal and closes tightly
here in PA we DO have cola dust that attaches to the monitors. ( regional hazard)
better than buying Oil at 3x the price.
i agree with DVD as cd-r's are tiny by comparison
cannot afford a dvd r drive as yet.
my son has one.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

>>>"cannot afford a dvd r drive as yet"<<<

Yes you can (if you can afford 2-3 packs of CD's):

http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=DVD

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

looks good
we have had good luck with the lite-on drive we have.
the asus cd-rw is picky about the disks it can write.
$20,00 wow.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

western digital ( this tinme was helpful)
they sent me a rplacement for my 160 gb drive ( one of the very few new things I bought)
partition 4 got got flakey
the new drive I fdisked and formatted 32gb each'
using the newer w 98 fdisk. the 3rd partition became flakey,.
the mb has a ata 100/133 controller on it so a 160 gb should be no big deal.

I tried "super fdisk" and would up with drives from a-z ( no cd)
shoud be 40 2-+20, new 160 (5) old 160 (4) 11 does not add up to 24.

so I am suspicious of "super fdisk"
www says the w 98 fdisk dated 2000 is ok up to 1 tb., 32 or 40gb should eb no problem

the replacement is made in april 2009. wd has a good reputatiopn so the drive should be ok
fdisk is a VERY TEDIUS way to set up a drive.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I returned the new drive to wd
it had an error
I think they owe me the cost of return shippin
as the new drive had an error.
I don't want to go thru this circuis again and will eiter swallow the cost or toss defective drives
and buy new.
IG the new drive was perfect the cost of return shipping would make sense
but I got NOTHING for my trouble.

I decided to use the OLD drive.
I don';t have confidence thay will send me a check.
and I don't want another NEW drive.
if they send one I will refuse it.