I'm in trouble!

[falcon409]

It appears that my HDD's are dropping off. Yesterday morning I loaded the system to discover that my D: Drive was gone. Today, sometime in the last hour or two my E: Drive quit. I was just compiling a few models in MCX for Caledonia County Airport and it showed that it couldn't find the make model file. The E drive also houses my FSX Installation (D: Drive had my P3D installation) so I've lost both Sims. The only drive left is what holds the OS, when that goes, obviously, I'll be gone and out of business. Technically I'm out of business already, without those two drives, I've lost everything I ever worked on. I'll stay on as long as I can but I have no backups and no way to purchase new drives even if I was lucky enough to salvage what's on the old drives. Sorry folks!

[huub vink]

Oops Ed, that doesn't sound good. Hopefully it is "just" a software bug and you can retrieve all data. Hardware errors are normally catastrophic....

Success,
Huub

[gavinc]

Ed,
I don't suppose you have another PC in the house. It seems weird that you lost 2 disk drives like that. I wonder if the issue is you motherboard.

If you have another PC you could pull one of the "bad" drives and install it in the other PC to see if it is truly dead or whether it is your MB that can't see it.

Gavin

[p14u2nv]

I am very sorry that you are having these issues Ed. Over the years I too have lost some drives and I know that feeling of loss and understand where you are. Seems most suspicious and very strange that both drives have gone down more or less at the same time. Could possibly be a bug of sorts as previously posted. I assume you can run a deep virus scan to rule out outside or 3rd party manipulation or hacking for the C:\ drive. Btw, is this a laptop or desktop? Which operating system? Btw have you recently upgraded the latest and sometimes dreaded MS Updates? If you can possibly remove and then install each drive in an external chassis and have access to another pc through its USB port (a friend, a pc repair business or the local library even- that's if they let you of course) you can check each drive and know if each drive is actually damaged. Another thought, over the years I have taken drives that were "failing" and put them in my stand alone freezer for a day or two and was able to transfer all the info to another drive at -20 degrees or so...sometimes...if it's a laptop wrap it in sealed plastic and put the entire laptop in the freezer.

If I can help you in any way just say the word. Considering all the upgrades that you have created for the sims over the years for all to use it's only fair.

[falcon409]

Thanks for all the good thoughts and suggestions. just trying to remember when it was that I was "gifted" the necessary funds to build this system through the generosity of folks like you. It was at least 2 years prior to when Ickie passed away (2016), this computer is at least 8 or 9 years old. The MB is the oldest link in the chain and the two drives that have gone out are next in line and the C Drive is the newest of the three.

So I have to look at a new MB and at least 2 new HDD or SSD's. (If I have to get a new MB it should be the latter). I plan on taking the two drives to a local Computer Store to see if they are wasted or if I need to look at some other cause. I have known this was inevitable given it's age but money was always my excuse for not upgrading. Procrastination can be an excuse for not washing the dishes or it can be the cause of losing years of irretrievable work. I'd have much rather it be the dishes, lol.

Even if this drive dies I'll update from time to time via my iPhone.

[oldmsgt]

Ed
Sorry to hear of your HD problems. Hopefully the data can be restored. Best of luck to you.
The OMS

[ToniJH]

Hi
Does the bios recognize both drives? If it recognizes, issue might be in Windows, maby IDE/SATA driver in windows is corrupted.
It is very rare that both drives stops working almost same time, i think the issue is in Windows, motherboard ports etc.

It would be good if you can test those both drives on different PC, so you can make decision easily which parts you have to replace on your system, let's hope those parts are not your HDD.

[Allen]

Seems unlike both drive would fail so close to each other. Maybe you can get ahold of *SATA to USB adaptor so you could turn the HDDs into big USB thumb drives/external drives.

*SATA is the most common now days and would be safe bet that the drives are SATA since IDE was on the way out around 05-ish.

[expat]

I can relate to this Ed having lost several drives over the years and scrambling to transfer data before they bit the dust. Our house was flooded recently - a whole separate story as we had to move out for a year - and I found six inches of water in my PC case. I sent the three disks to a computer specialist. The two storage drives with the too good to lose files were saved but the C drive (sitting lowest in the case) was a write off. It had Windows and other OS files and most programmes. Got a free upgrade to Win 10, bought some bigger SSD's and memory and with some time all was back and in fact better than ever. Take those drive to the computer store.

[KC013]

Thanks for kicking me in the posterior. I hadn't backed up in over month. doing it now!!

[falcon409]

Ok, It seems that I was the cause of the second drive going off-line. When I installed them I never noted which one was which (they are all stacked in close proximity to each other and I never jotted down S/N). Anyway, as best I could I checked the S/N of the top drive (the one I could actually read the label on) and since it did not jive with the two that showed on the "Belarc Advisor" print out I assumed it was the correct drive and disconnected it. The next day when I started the system and found only one drive available I made the assumption that a second drive had gone out. . . .wrong. Long story short, it is only the D Drive that has failed.

[Jafo]

That's half the problem solved then...

With the 'D' drive that is possibly dead you first need to check the connectors...and if possible try another port on the MoBo.... particularly if the system is opened...or moved...or just plain cycled hot/cold a lot. Connectors can 'fret'.

Any attempts to read or recover data off it needs to be non-destructive...no read-and-write.

As a non-system drive...and if you can trust your local computer shop not to bin it by reformatting you can test it in another machine to see if it registers.
Modern systems are pretty good at 'seeing' drives...and these days it's not as common at all as it was in the 80s/90s for HD's to simply snuff it. Bad sectors etc are far less common.

If the drive is visible/OK on a second machine...copy [Do NOT MOVE] the data to a second drive, then you will have a backup before attempting to relog it in the original machine...

[SgtT]

I hope you are able to get it squared away. I wish there was more I could do to help.

[falcon409]

Here's the latest. I shut down the computer, took all three drives out, dusted em' off, blew out the connection, rerouted a few cables and plugged everything back in. . . .I now have all three drives back online. . .?

[expat]

Great news Ed. Am sure you are testing it all out and hope it all works and is stable.

[Allen]

Maybe you should run some sort of Disc check program that can check the SMART stats of the Drive. I have used CrystalDiskInfo and Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic to do disc checks.

CrystalDiskInfo
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/det...XP8K4RGX25G3GM

Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows
https://download.cnet.com/Data-Lifeg...-10972008.html

[Aharon]

If you got your two hard drives back in action, FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO is to IMMEDIATELY do back up of all files from your two hard drive!!!!! So that you still have important data in event your hard drives fail again.

Regards,

Aharon

[MZee1960]

Here's the latest. I shut down the computer, took all three drives out, dusted em' off, blew out the connection, rerouted a few cables and plugged everything back in. . . .I now have all three drives back online. . .?

Great news, Ed !

...... and my wife thinks it's useless when once a year I take my case apart for some 'spring cleaning'. Hardware often needs 'cleaning' as much as software.

Remember, backup is your friend - I use SyncBackFree, it does a great job of keeping track of drive content changes/additions on my laptops and this desktop.

Keep the same backup files on at least two separate external drives (preferably stored in different physical locations), and only plug them in for backup or file retrieval purposes to further protect the data.

[SgtT]

Glad you were able to get them back.

[Jafo]

As MZee said...Syncback is an ideal proggy to set up to auto backup your stuff to a secondary drive, etc. I've been using it for eons.

Once you do get into doing specific backups of 'valuable' stuff...you can take it further and backup the backups. It's called 'redundancy' backup.
I have Syncback doing that, and the redundancies, but to be totally sure I also image my disks...OS drive incrementally nightly ...and the drive with FSX weekly also to be sure thricely that I don't lose my skins.

About 15 months ago I managed to get a power spike via an unprotected audio system [most likely] even though the computer itself was on a protected UPS. I lost the audio system...the Motherboard and the CPU ....and a bit later the GPU turned up its toes after I managed to replace the rest. Total cost [doing it myself] was a bit over $2000.
All in all I think I lost about 2 days of emails. Every single piece of data was safe....though I'm still suspicious the MoBo might still be OK...

Good you have everything back....now's the perfect time to plan ahead...

[tgycgijoes]

That is truly a blessing and answered prayer for you.

[Manschy]

Wow, just read about your trouble and I was sad to hear it but at same time, I read you could fix it. Puh, good news, mate! To substitute any hardware or reinstalling software is one thing. But loosing something you create by yourself, work and skills you have invested days, weeks or even months in - this is indispensable. Hope everything is back now to where it belongs!

[Dangerousdave26]

Ed

Can you give me an estimate on how much space you need to back up your files?