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"Invisisble" external hard drive

laughing dog

laughing dog

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Today, when using my personal external hard drive with my work computer, the work computer initially showed the contents of the external hard drive. But when I tried to copy some files onto it (as I have done every year for the past 16 years), that computer acted as if the external hard drive did not exist. I did copy the files onto a stick successfully.

So, I took my external hard drive home. Now my personal computer does not recognize the hard drive's existence at all.

I would like to salvage the information on that hard drive, but I have no idea how to get even get my laptop to acknowledge the hard drive is even connected.

Anyone have any suggestions other than I am screwed?
 
laughing dog said:
Today, when using my personal external hard drive with my work computer, the work computer initially showed the contents of the external hard drive. But when I tried to copy some files onto it (as I have done every year for the past 16 years), that computer acted as if the external hard drive did not exist. I did copy the files onto a stick successfully.

So, I took my external hard drive home. Now my personal computer does not recognize the hard drive's existence at all.

I would like to salvage the information on that hard drive, but I have no idea how to get even get my laptop to acknowledge the hard drive is even connected.

Anyone have any suggestions other than I am screwed?
Click to expand...
Usually this means the file allocation table has broken somehow.

You can attempt to "repair" the drive, but this often happens when older, cheaper, or less well established MFR drives are removed without dismounting them, or when they are mounted improperly.

Read the hard drive for the model name, and try googling

Code: 
Recover data "model_here" drive doesn't mount
 
Jarhyn said:
laughing dog said:
Today, when using my personal external hard drive with my work computer, the work computer initially showed the contents of the external hard drive. But when I tried to copy some files onto it (as I have done every year for the past 16 years), that computer acted as if the external hard drive did not exist. I did copy the files onto a stick successfully.

So, I took my external hard drive home. Now my personal computer does not recognize the hard drive's existence at all.

I would like to salvage the information on that hard drive, but I have no idea how to get even get my laptop to acknowledge the hard drive is even connected.

Anyone have any suggestions other than I am screwed?
Click to expand...
Usually this means the file allocation table has broken somehow.

You can attempt to "repair" the drive, but this often happens when older, cheaper, or less well established MFR drives are removed without dismounting them, or when they are mounted improperly.

Read the hard drive for the model name, and try googling

Code: 
Recover data "model_here" drive doesn't mount
Click to expand...
Thank you. I googled it, and found a youtube video. As I was watching the video, I plugged the hard drive in, and viola, it showed up!!! I don't know what happened, but it works now.
 
laughing dog said:
Jarhyn said:
laughing dog said:
Today, when using my personal external hard drive with my work computer, the work computer initially showed the contents of the external hard drive. But when I tried to copy some files onto it (as I have done every year for the past 16 years), that computer acted as if the external hard drive did not exist. I did copy the files onto a stick successfully.

So, I took my external hard drive home. Now my personal computer does not recognize the hard drive's existence at all.

I would like to salvage the information on that hard drive, but I have no idea how to get even get my laptop to acknowledge the hard drive is even connected.

Anyone have any suggestions other than I am screwed?
Click to expand...
Usually this means the file allocation table has broken somehow.

You can attempt to "repair" the drive, but this often happens when older, cheaper, or less well established MFR drives are removed without dismounting them, or when they are mounted improperly.

Read the hard drive for the model name, and try googling

Code: 
Recover data "model_here" drive doesn't mount
Click to expand...
Thank you. I googled it, and found a youtube video. As I was watching the video, I plugged the hard drive in, and viola, it showed up!!! I don't know what happened, but it works now.
Click to expand...
Sometimes windows recognizes a broken FAT and auto-repairs it.
 
A 16 year old HD?

For backup I used multiple drives.

Even for things I am just playing with today I backup to multiple flash drives. Cheap insurance.
 
Observation: I have never seen an external hard drive die. I have seen many external hard drive enclosures die.

It is likely that there's an ordinary hard drive inside, accessible by a suitable enclosure.

However, I'm also going to say, don't bother. Copy that data off. A drive that old is going to die on you one of these days. Drives have bearings, bearings wear.
 
One other thing I did was to periodically back up my external hard drives to CDs.
Back about 15 years my laptop that had a lot of work related things and a large library of tech cal documents crashed. It only took a day or two to get a new computer and get restored to where my pother computer was.

I don't know what is out there today, I went to Target and got high opacity flash drives,. Two for redundant file backup and one for a restore.. Speed is not a problem for me.

External hard drives are miniature hard drives, spinning disks.

USB Flash Drives offer a convenient and portable solution for basic storage needs, but they lack the speed and capacity of SSDs. On the other hand, SSDs offer robust performance and are an excellent choice for those needing fast, reliable, and ample storage.Oct 27, 2023
Click to expand...



USB Flash Drives: The speeds of USB Flash Drives are generally sufficient for basic tasks such as file transfer and data backup. However, they usually can't compete with SSDs when it comes to reading or writing large volumes of data quickly.

SSDs: SSDs offer significantly higher speeds, which can be crucial for tasks that require fast data access. Newer SSDs equipped with NVMe technology can offer even faster data transfer rates, making them ideal for professional and intensive applications.
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External SSD drive. About $30

thevortech.com

Ssd External Hard Disk Hard Drive Ssd 1 2 4 8 12 16 32 64 TB External

Enhance Your Storage with Our SSD External Hard Drive - 500GB to 64TB Capacity Lucas T. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"Amazing speed and capacity! 💻⚡️ Perfect for storing all my files and transferring data quickly." ⚡ High-Speed Connectivity: USB 3.1 interface for fast transfers, with USB 2.0 compatibility. 💾 Spacious...
thevortech.com thevortech.com

If you8 do not need speed flash drves are the way to gho.

When something sappers to have a problem even if only once it is time to replace it.

Seagate HDD relibbilty

Hard disk drive reliability and MTBF / AFR | Seagate US

Seagate is no longer using the industry standard "Mean Time Between Failures" (MTBF) to quantify disk drive average failure rates. Seagate is changing to another standard: "Annualized Failure Rate" (AFR).
www.seagate.com

A quick look at reliability, you can loo0k around to get a better picture. Look at manufacturer sites. Take the numbers below with a grain of salt.

A lot depends in how often drives are accessed.

MTBF mean tie between failures. These kind of equipment tend to have a bathtub legibility curve. Flat reliability rate until wear out when MTBF goes up. Motors failing.
It is common to see MTBF ratings between 300,000 to 1,200,000 hours for hard disk drive mechanisms, which might lead one to conclude that the specification promises between 30 and 120 years of continuous operation.
Click to expand...

An SSD should ideally last as long as its manufacturer expects it to last (generally five years), provided that the use of the drive is not excessive for the technology it employs. Consult the manufacturer's recommendations to ensure that how you're using the SSD matches its best use. 6. Do SSDs fail faster than HDDs?Apr 5, 2024
Click to expand...

What is the life expectancy of a flash drive?
USB flash drive - Wikipedia
between 10 and 100 years
Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the exact type of memory chip used, and are thought to physically last between 10 and 100 years under normal circumstances (shelf storage time).
Click to expand...
 
steve_bank said:
Electrons are moving parts ....
Click to expand...
Not in the sense we are talking about. Their friction causes heat but doesn't break whole atoms off to join in their flow and motion in the way mechanical kinetic bits do.
 
This gets into electronics reliability and failure mechanisms along with some physics and chemistry

Flash mercenary uses MOSFETs which have a gate that is electrically isolated.. Charge on the ate determines if it is conducting or not. The is lotion layer between gate and channel is very thin. The electric charge on the gate creates a mechanical force on the insulating layer which in the long term can lead to cracking. Reading and wrting FLASH memory creates cyclic stresses,

The gate is electrical isolated, when a charge is injected on ten gate it stays there when the memory is powered down.

Floating-gate MOSFET - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I was a readily;ty engineer at Inel in the 80's on computer system they used to make, Mutyibus.

Current can affect long term reliability in electronic devices, other than creating heat. Heat does affect reliability.

Arrhenius equation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

In physical chemistry, the Arrhenius equation is a formula for the temperature dependence of reaction rates. The equation was proposed by Svante Arrhenius in 1889, based on the work of Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff who had noted in 1884 that the Van 't Hoff equation for the temperature dependence of equilibrium constants suggests such a formula for the rates of both forward and reverse reactions. This equation has a vast and important application in determining the rate of chemical reactions and for calculation of energy of activation. Arrhenius provided a physical justification and interpretation for the formula.[1][2][3][4] Currently, it is best seen as an empirical relationship.[5]: 188  It can be used to model the temperature variation of diffusion coefficients, population of crystal vacancies, creep rates, and many other thermally induced processes and reactions.[citation needed] The Eyring equation, developed in 1935, also expresses the relationship between rate and energy.
Click to expand...

In electronics reliability failure modes and defects are given an activation energy, and the equation is used to predict failure rates versus temperature.

Looks like my long term memory is working....haven't thought about this stuff in a long time.
 
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