The Dreaded Click
Jul. 27th, 2009 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteMy Western Digital 500 GB hard drive started CLICKING today.
I was still able to get it to mount, but I get the feeling that data isn't moving from my laptop to the drive; normally when it does, the light on the front of the drive will be going up and down. Right now, it's just still, with one little segment near the top "burnt out" (it's not really burnt out, as it does light up every now and again, but lately that section doesn't light up).
I've tried stopping the Time Machine backup, ejecting the drive and remounting it, but that doesn't always help. Even power-cycling doesn't always do the trick, which has me a bit worried. Previous SNAFUs with this or other WD drives have caused me to switch from USB to Firewire for the port of choice, and make sure that it's powered directly into a wall socket, versus a surge protector (which seems stupid, but meh, it's what they told me).
Anyway, after it started to click this morning, I got worried, so I looked into whether it was still under warranty. It is, and in fact, I can upgrade to a 1 TB drive for $20 off the MSRP, provided I ditch the current warranty on my existing drive. Thus, a quandary: do I wait for the drive to asplode before getting a new one, or do I act preemptively, assuming that no click is a good click?
Idea that just got thrown out the window: use a new 1 TB for a data external and use the old data external (250 GB) for Time Machine. That won't work, because if my internal is 300 GB, then I need at least that much (double is better) for a Time Machine. I'm actually kind of cutting it close with the 500 GB Time Machine I'm currently using.
I also have conflicting "to do" stuff with the laptop itself. See, I was worried about losing my iTunes library, so I moved the larger one to my external hard drive. That means it doesn't get backed up with my Time Machine. So if I do something stupid, like delete files off my external, I'm S.O.L. I've been thinking about moving my complete iTunes library back onto my internal HD; I have the space for it. It'll start getting backed up with Time Machine (unless the clicks really do spell bad news), and that should all be gravy. I don't really need two libraries, one iPod-sized and the other not. I can just manually sync what I want through checking and unchecking tracks and playlists and such.
What confused me was that the Genius at the Genius Bar (honestly, at this point, I'm starting to think it's a rather lame title) suggested moving my iPhoto library onto an external! But then I can't access it when I'm out and about, which is why I'd always kept it on the internal. Plus, it's getting backed up by the Time Machine! Apparently using Backup for these purposes is bad, due to the format Backup uses or something.
And don't get me started on the whole battery thing. The laptop's BEEN plugged in, and yet it's mysteriously at only 97% charge, which probably is a little over 2 hours. I'm sure the battery life is supposed to be longer than that, considering I bought it just a few months ago. And yet it still passes Apple's tests.... I've stopped using Firefox 3.5 for now, since it was proving to be a major CPU hog and probably didn't help with my battery problem.
So, yeah, lots of things to do and I have no idea how or where to start. Grr.
I was still able to get it to mount, but I get the feeling that data isn't moving from my laptop to the drive; normally when it does, the light on the front of the drive will be going up and down. Right now, it's just still, with one little segment near the top "burnt out" (it's not really burnt out, as it does light up every now and again, but lately that section doesn't light up).
I've tried stopping the Time Machine backup, ejecting the drive and remounting it, but that doesn't always help. Even power-cycling doesn't always do the trick, which has me a bit worried. Previous SNAFUs with this or other WD drives have caused me to switch from USB to Firewire for the port of choice, and make sure that it's powered directly into a wall socket, versus a surge protector (which seems stupid, but meh, it's what they told me).
Anyway, after it started to click this morning, I got worried, so I looked into whether it was still under warranty. It is, and in fact, I can upgrade to a 1 TB drive for $20 off the MSRP, provided I ditch the current warranty on my existing drive. Thus, a quandary: do I wait for the drive to asplode before getting a new one, or do I act preemptively, assuming that no click is a good click?
Idea that just got thrown out the window: use a new 1 TB for a data external and use the old data external (250 GB) for Time Machine. That won't work, because if my internal is 300 GB, then I need at least that much (double is better) for a Time Machine. I'm actually kind of cutting it close with the 500 GB Time Machine I'm currently using.
I also have conflicting "to do" stuff with the laptop itself. See, I was worried about losing my iTunes library, so I moved the larger one to my external hard drive. That means it doesn't get backed up with my Time Machine. So if I do something stupid, like delete files off my external, I'm S.O.L. I've been thinking about moving my complete iTunes library back onto my internal HD; I have the space for it. It'll start getting backed up with Time Machine (unless the clicks really do spell bad news), and that should all be gravy. I don't really need two libraries, one iPod-sized and the other not. I can just manually sync what I want through checking and unchecking tracks and playlists and such.
What confused me was that the Genius at the Genius Bar (honestly, at this point, I'm starting to think it's a rather lame title) suggested moving my iPhoto library onto an external! But then I can't access it when I'm out and about, which is why I'd always kept it on the internal. Plus, it's getting backed up by the Time Machine! Apparently using Backup for these purposes is bad, due to the format Backup uses or something.
And don't get me started on the whole battery thing. The laptop's BEEN plugged in, and yet it's mysteriously at only 97% charge, which probably is a little over 2 hours. I'm sure the battery life is supposed to be longer than that, considering I bought it just a few months ago. And yet it still passes Apple's tests.... I've stopped using Firefox 3.5 for now, since it was proving to be a major CPU hog and probably didn't help with my battery problem.
So, yeah, lots of things to do and I have no idea how or where to start. Grr.
