Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hard Drive survived fall from table...

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Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 07-07-2010, 06:34 PM:

I was swapping hard drives from my external enclosure, and due to being an idiot, one of them fell off the table onto the ground. Surprisingly, it booted back up and doesn't appear to be making any different sounds and a quick check in Disk Utility (on a mac), it seems ok. I wasn't so lucky the last time this happened before. Should I buy a new one just to be safe, or are the new hard drives generally built tougher these days?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-07-2010, 06:37 PM:

Hell, I've fixed hard drives by dropping them.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-08-2010, 01:06 AM:

My first PC came without a hard drive so I installed a 40 MB one, which was pretty good sized at the time. After a couple of years it just quit working so I called the "help line" and they said, "It apparently has quit working so we'll send you a new one...for $449. Can we have your credit card number please?" I said I would call back after double-checking everything.

I hung up the phone, yelled "FUCKING SONOFABITCH!!" and pounded the top of the computer with my fist, and ... the drive started to work, and it never failed again as long as I used that machine.

Posted by Cody Martin (Member # 2523) on 07-08-2010, 11:43 AM:

Personally, I would go ahead and look at a replacement if you store anything of importance on it.

I have a few laptop drives that have been bumped several times and are fine, but they are only used to move files between one location to another.

Any type of backup media though, I would want to replace just for the peace of mind.

Cody

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 07-08-2010, 05:57 PM:

I removed the hard drive from an inoperable computer, with the intention of destroying it before recycling the rest of the unit. I first threw it down on my driveway, chipping the concrete. I then hit it with a hammer. It didn't seem to suffer, although I had no way to find out if it was actually inoperable.
I marked it NG, and gave it to Goodwill with the rest of the computer.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-08-2010, 06:55 PM:

As long as the drive was not running there is a very good chance that it can survive a fall from a table top, a couple-three feet, to a hard floor. As long as the platters are at rest and the heads are self-parked, hard drives are designed to withstand a certain amount of rough handling.

If they are running, that's a horse of a different color.
Some hard drives and/or computers have built-in accelerometers designed to park the heads and brace for impact in case of a fall but just a plain hard drive that hits the floor while running would probably be a goner.

And, yes, for a locked spindle, banging a hard drive on the table might actually bring it back to life but, as others have said, I would back that hard drive up ASAP and get ready to replace it before it crashes again... Next time, permanently.

Richard, the best way I have seen to destroy a hard drive that's not too exotic is to simply get a big nail or a spike of some kind and drive it right down through the case and out the other side. Once the seal is broken and the platters are bent, damaged or pierced, there is nothing short of microscopic examination that will recover the data from them.

Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 07-09-2010, 09:02 AM:

I just had a 1T drive fall from the bottom of a rack all of 4" and landed flat. After that tiny fall it would no longer start, it made a repeated clicking noise trying to startup. I had nothing to lose so I banged it ( taking Joes advice above, thanks Joe ) a few times on the table and all is well again:)

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-09-2010, 11:28 AM:

Future threads will read:

"I dropped a new xenon bulb off the table... and survived."

or...

"I dropped a brand new, $2,400 dichroic reflector off the table... and not only survived, but kept my job."

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-09-2010, 12:56 PM:

..or, an unknown someone dropping a ISCO Blue anamorphic attachment and it hit the concrete floor on its edge shattering the front element, and 1400 bucks later it's back in operation.

..and the unknown someone is never found...