Do I need to replace this drive?

[Midnight Robot]

Hello everyone,

 

I know you aren't supposed to drop a hard drive because it can seriously damage them, but what about if they go from standing vertically to flopping over horizontally? A cat knocked my WD My Book over (seriously that's what happened), and I'm not sure if there's a way I can check to see if there's any damage done to it before I use it to organize data from some other drives I have. I don't want to load it up and all of a sudden poof, it dies and all my data and hard work is gone. It flopped over on a hard table sadly, not something soft like carpet, but it was unplugged at the time thankfully. 

 

Only reason I'm really concerned is because I want to use this drive to hold data from other drives as I format them and do some reorganization. It will hold the only copy of some important data for a short period of time, so I don't want it to die in the middle of my reorganization. Is there anyway I can check for damage using software? It's one of the newer WD drives that has hardware encryption so I can't remove it from the enclosure or it will be useless.

[wyattzx]

If it literally just fell over, you should be just fine. The enclosure surrounding the drive should have taken most of the impact. Although plastic doesn't adsorb shock, the drive.. laid down, so to speak. Not fell flat. So the total impact area is reduced, as the surface is not making contact all at the same time. You should be just fine!

[Judahnator]

Modern hard drives are much more resialiant.

 

If the drive was powered off, it is likely fine. If it was running, it could have damage to it. Although if Windows can see the drive it is fine.

 

The main thing you need to worry about with hard drives is shocking them while they are running. When a drive loses power (or is powered off) the magnetic head (cant remember what it is called atm) that reads the data moves to the very innermost part of the drive. This protects both the platters and the head.

 

If the drive was running, the magnetic head was on the outside, and it was firmly jolted, you could have a problem. If the head and platter ever came in contact while the platter was at full speed they would form a kind of "spot weld" together, and damage a good chunk of the platter. This would cause data loss, and likely a dead drive. This is rare though.

 

As i said, if Windows says the drive is fine then it likely is.

 

 

~Judah

[Midnight Robot]

If it literally just fell over, you should be just fine. The enclosure surrounding the drive should have taken most of the impact. Although plastic doesn't adsorb shock, the drive.. laid down, so to speak. Not fell flat. So the total impact area is reduced, as the surface is not making contact all at the same time. You should be just fine!

I didn't think about it falling that way but yeah you're right, I'm just really glad it didn't fall off the table and hit the floor. Then it would probably be junk.

 

Modern hard drives are much more resialiant.

 

If the drive was powered off, it is likely fine. If it was running, it could have damage to it. Although if Windows can see the drive it is fine.

 

The main thing you need to worry about with hard drives is shocking them while they are running. When a drive loses power (or is powered off) the magnetic head (cant remember what it is called atm) that reads the data moves to the very innermost part of the drive. This protects both the platters and the head.

 

If the drive was running, the magnetic head was on the outside, and it was firmly jolted, you could have a problem. If the head and platter ever came in contact while the platter was at full speed they would form a kind of "spot weld" together, and damage a good chunk of the platter. This would cause data loss, and likely a dead drive. This is rare though.

 

As i said, if Windows says the drive is fine then it likely is.

 

 

~Judah

Yup powered off and unplugged. Wasn't using it at the time, just had it sitting near by for when I wanted to use it. I didn't know that's how the heads in drives reacted when powered off, I thought they stayed wherever they were when it was shut off or unplugged. I learned something new, thanks! It's good that they do that otherwise a lot more people would probably have dead or damaged drives. How does the head manage to move back if it suddenly loses power though? There doesn't appear to be an off button on WD My Books so I frequently just unplug it once I'm done and have closed all the open files saved on it.

I haven't plugged the drive in since this happened actually, but I will check it out soon. 

[wyattzx]

I didn't think about it falling that way but yeah you're right, I'm just really glad it didn't fall off the table and hit the floor. Then it would probably be junk.

 

Yup powered off and unplugged. Wasn't using it at the time, just had it sitting near by for when I wanted to use it. I didn't know that's how the heads in drives reacted when powered off, I thought they stayed wherever they were when it was shut off or unplugged. I learned something new, thanks! It's good that they do that otherwise a lot more people would probably have dead or damaged drives. How does the head manage to move back if it suddenly loses power though? There doesn't appear to be an off button on WD My Books so I frequently just unplug it once I'm done and have closed all the open files saved on it.

I haven't plugged the drive in since this happened actually, but I will check it out soon. 

Care to mark this thread as answered? c: