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I'd love to be able to afford a Buffalo TeraStation. It's basically an external RAID setup designed just for backups. One drive fails and you just pop in another and the working drive clones itself to the new one. The idea being that theoretically two drives will never fail at once. So you're protected from all but natural disasters.

You could set up a mirror RAID for less. There are also lots of other types of "RAID in a box" type setups out there.

Originally Posted by crunchb3rry I'd love to be able to afford a Buffalo TeraStation. It's basically an external RAID setup designed just for backups. One drive fails and you just pop in another and the working drive clones itself to the new one. The idea being that theoretically two drives will never fail at once. So you're protected from all but natural disasters.

Or both drives crapping out at the same time, or the enclosure.

The point of a mirror raid is that it's very unlikely that both drives go bad at the same time. If the enclosure dies, no big deal as the HDs individually can be read/recovered on a standard PC (a little more work if they're not using standard FAT/NTFS file systems)

Though I have had instances where RAID controllers go haywire and completely screw things up, or the controllers power supply blowing up and frying both HDs in the process. Both are rare. So RAID isn't infallable.

Truth be told, nowadays your best foolproof option is just a regular external for the local backup (which is good for a speedy recovery + lots of older versions of files) as well as an online service like Carbonite. Depends how much your data is worth to you though.

If it's really important, it's best to back the info up to external HDD, burn it to DVD and store it offsite, as well as use an online backup system like Carbonite or the like.

It just depends on how paranoid you want to be about your data and how much of an issue it would be to recreate it or recover it.

Originally Posted by BigPopov In Windows 7, "Backup and Restore" is under the control panel and it will give you the date and result of the last backup. If the last backup fails I'm pretty sure there's a red or yellow flag under "Solve PC Issues" in the taskbar. The easiest way to look for failing hard drives is; Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer Expand the "Windows Logs" tab, and go to "System." If a drive starts developing bad blocks, it will be yellow flag and the source will say "disk." You'll start seeing something to the effect of windows had detected a bad block on disk0. Even if it's just one error replace it. Bad blocks cause the PC to runs really slow when they hit. You just have to be aware that if the disk referenced is the CD ROM drive, that's only saying the CD has a small unreadable section and not a failing drive. Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management Click on "Storage" and then "Disk Management" this will tell you what disk0, disk1, etc is. Seatools for Windows is another good way to test a drive if you have suspicions.

Looks like my backup has never been set up. I usually do what crunchberry said, manual backup of my documents and some other folders. I have quite a bit of red errors in the 'windows logs tab' under 'system', the only yellow flags I see are for the "WLAN Autoconfig service has successfully stopped", a driver failed to load for usb, and some error loading a webpage. One of the red errors says "the device, \device\cdrom0, has a bad block.

'Disk management' under 'storage' shows my recovery partition as being 12 gb and having 12 gb of free space, which makes me believe my recovery drive is messed up. There's also a 'system reserved' 102 mb disk. Do you know which disk should be used by the computer for recovery? On my other computer it used to show the D drive next to my C drive under Computer, but this computer only shows a C drive.

Originally Posted by Clak This is getting harder to do, but simply find a drive with the best warranty you can. It's not if a drive is going to die, but when. A lot of HDD manufacturers have been lowering their warranty period, used to be able to expect at least 3 years, not any more. So just check the warranty length for whatever drive you're looking at it. Personally I like Western Digital drives, Seagate used to be regarded as the best , but that opinion seems to have changed in the last few years. Assuming this article is still valid http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/s...ties-20111219/ I'd get the WD Black brand as it still has a five year warranty accordion to that article.

Do you know what you would do if the drive failed and you had personal files on it and you have to return it back to a retail store or return it directly to the manufacturer. How could you get your files off it if it dies?

Originally Posted by J7. Looks like my backup has never been set up. I usually do what crunchberry said, manual backup of my documents and some other folders. I have quite a bit of red errors in the 'windows logs tab' under 'system', the only yellow flags I see are for the "WLAN Autoconfig service has successfully stopped", a driver failed to load for usb, and some error loading a webpage. One of the red errors says "the device, \device\cdrom0, has a bad block. 'Disk management' under 'storage' shows my recovery partition as being 12 gb and having 12 gb of free space, which makes me believe my recovery drive is messed up. There's also a 'system reserved' 102 mb disk. Do you know which disk should be used by the computer for recovery? On my other computer it used to show the D drive next to my C drive under Computer, but this computer only shows a C drive.

Depending on the OS, the recovery data should be at least a gig. Sounds like you're right about a borked recovery image.

Do you know what you would do if the drive failed and you had personal files on it and you have to return it back to a retail store or return it directly to the manufacturer. How could you get your files off it if it dies?

There are really only two things you can do. Throw it in the freezer and hope that it'll run long enough to pull your files after being frozen for a day or send it to a data recovery outfit.

Originally Posted by J7. Most of the 1 stars on Amazon, maybe all of them, for external HDD's are due to the drive failing. Some of the 2 stars may be too. I calculated the % of 1 stars and for any drive I looked at it was at least 14% and as high as 18% if my memory serves me correctly. How do you check the status of a drive? When do you get Windows Backup has failed errors? I ran backup once but it did not work.

Most people that got a working product don't leave feedback, but almost everyone that has a problem will leave negative feedback

Originally Posted by J7. Looks like my backup has never been set up. I usually do what crunchberry said, manual backup of my documents and some other folders. I have quite a bit of red errors in the 'windows logs tab' under 'system', the only yellow flags I see are for the "WLAN Autoconfig service has successfully stopped", a driver failed to load for usb, and some error loading a webpage. One of the red errors says "the device, \device\cdrom0, has a bad block.

Those are all no problem. The error on the CD ROM is what you'd see for a hard drive, except it would say disk0 or disk1, etc. It's just saying that a disc you had in the drive had a bad sector (which is common)

Originally Posted by J7. 'Disk management' under 'storage' shows my recovery partition as being 12 gb and having 12 gb of free space, which makes me believe my recovery drive is messed up. There's also a 'system reserved' 102 mb disk. Do you know which disk should be used by the computer for recovery? On my other computer it used to show the D drive next to my C drive under Computer, but this computer only shows a C drive. Do you know what you would do if the drive failed and you had personal files on it and you have to return it back to a retail store or return it directly to the manufacturer. How could you get your files off it if it dies?

Recovery partitions vary in size between whats on them and the creator, I've seen 12gb+ recovery partitions before. It's basically unoptimized, uncompressed files. Windows + all of the drivers and bullshit programs the company put on the PC.

Truth be told, if you need space, you can delete the recovery partition. Windows 7 installation is easy from a Microsoft DVD (which you can download from Pirate Bay,) and is generally much better than the recovery partition (there's no BS programs preinstalled.)

Of course if you're not that tech savvy don't do it. And to answer a question before it arises downloading a non cracked MS OS is perfectly legal and not frowned on by MS, since you still need a valid product key to activate it.

The recovery drive is hidden intentionally, there's no mistake with it. (some manuf forget to do this). The 102mb drive is a system boot manager, you can't/shouldn't delete it.

If your drive dies and has to go back they will not assist in data recovery. That's a whole new field of discussion. If it becomes serious you have to basically pay someone to do it.

Originally Posted by dohdough Depending on the OS, the recovery data should be at least a gig. Sounds like you're right about a borked recovery image. There are really only two things you can do. Throw it in the freezer and hope that it'll run long enough to pull your files after being frozen for a day or send it to a data recovery outfit.

So the only way I can recover is to use the recovery discs I made? What does a freezer do? There's lots of people on amazon who returned their broken hard drives, are they just being extremely risky?

Originally Posted by 62t Most people that got a working product don't leave feedback, but almost everyone that has a problem will leave negative feedback

Good point.

Originally Posted by BigPopov Those are all no problem. The error on the CD ROM is what you'd see for a hard drive, except it would say disk0 or disk1, etc. It's just saying that a disc you had in the drive had a bad sector (which is common) Recovery partitions vary in size between whats on them and the creator, I've seen 12gb+ recovery partitions before. It's basically unoptimized, uncompressed files. Windows + all of the drivers and bullshit programs the company put on the PC. Truth be told, if you need space, you can delete the recovery partition. Windows 7 installation is easy from a Microsoft DVD (which you can download from Pirate Bay,) and is generally much better than the recovery partition (there's no BS programs preinstalled.) Of course if you're not that tech savvy don't do it. And to answer a question before it arises downloading a non cracked MS OS is perfectly legal and not frowned on by MS, since you still need a valid product key to activate it. The recovery drive is hidden intentionally, there's no mistake with it. (some manuf forget to do this). The 102mb drive is a system boot manager, you can't/shouldn't delete it. If your drive dies and has to go back they will not assist in data recovery. That's a whole new field of discussion. If it becomes serious you have to basically pay someone to do it.

Using Windows disc to recover would be good except for missing all the drivers and any programs that came with the PC.

I chose to show hidden files and folders and the recovery drive was still not shown. Every other computer I own shows the D drive next to the C drive.

I'm not worried about recovery files from a bad hard drive but rather someone else gaining access to them if I return it to a store or the manufacturer. What's stopping them from looking at it or using a program to gain access to the files. I'm puzzled how all of these people on amazon are returning their hdds.

Originally Posted by J7. So the only way I can recover is to use the recovery discs I made? What does a freezer do? There's lots of people on amazon who returned their broken hard drives, are they just being extremely risky

Kinda. If you're going to be using the disks on a broken drive, then you're probably wasting your time though.

As for the freezer trick, I'm not sure how it works, but some people have success with it.

If you're going to return it and want a little piece of mind, try to find a really powerful magnet. I'm not talking about a fridge magnet or magnetic screwdriver. The HDD itself has a couple small neodymium magnets in it, but using some larger more powerful ones should wipe the drive. I'm worried about this myself before, sending in a drive for a warranty claim with data still on it. Cause I know that even though the drive is dead those platters still contain the data, and if the drive was fixed they'd still be readable. Just a chance you take I guess.

I have five externals at the moment... all of which are 4+ years old. No failures, and one of the five functions as a frequently accessed NAS (LaCie 2TB).

The only issue I've had is with my Seagate... seems to lose power every so often. Also have a Buffalo and two WD's.

Originally Posted by J7. Using Windows disc to recover would be good except for missing all the drivers and any programs that came with the PC. I chose to show hidden files and folders and the recovery drive was still not shown. Every other computer I own shows the D drive next to the C drive. I'm not worried about recovery files from a bad hard drive but rather someone else gaining access to them if I return it to a store or the manufacturer. What's stopping them from looking at it or using a program to gain access to the files. I'm puzzled how all of these people on amazon are returning their hdds.

Not to sound rude, but most of the stuff they ship with PCs is bullshit anyways. There's maybe only one or two vendor supplied applications I've ever reinstalled, and no client has ever complained or noticed.

Windows 7, by default, will have most of the drivers for the PC including wireless. I very rarely do a fresh install and not have WLAN. If you can connect to Windows Update, it will download most of the remaining ones. Anything not done this way can be downloaded easily from the manuf. The process is a little more time consuming but worth it in the long run.

Even showing hidden files, your recovery will not show up. It is a special configuration that manufacturers have control of to not show the hidden volume. Like I said though, some will show it some won't (this Sony I am working on, for example, does not.)

The easy answer to the HD thing is that there really is no way to guarantee except to keep your HD and physically damage it. But then you are liable for the cost of it.

Say you get a hard drive and you only put videos you recorded from your tivo or music you either ripped from cd, bought on amazon, or itunes; and the drive dies and you have to send it in - will those files contain any personal data within them?

You can use programs like Crap Cleaner. Just wipe the drive using the secure file deletion options. It even does the Guttman method of 35 passes.

I would probably still be worried even if I did that, especially given my lack of expertise in this realm. I thought I was overreacting until I read this http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...our-hard-drive

Worried about what? If you wiped it like that, the only people that could recover any data would be living in the Matrix. Even the NSA wipes their drives 7 times (as opposed to a ridiculous 35) and considers that enough.

What do you honestly think would get recovered? Identity theft is 100x more effective digging through trash bags. I wouldn't worry. I doubt any elite level hackers buy refurbed drives from Best Buy anyway. They're getting OEM drives from Newegg.

Originally Posted by crunchb3rry You can use programs like Crap Cleaner. Just wipe the drive using the secure file deletion options. It even does the Guttman method of 35 passes.

How are you supposed to do that if the drive is dead? That would only work if it's still somewhat functional.

Well, if the drive is dead, that's a different issue. Not really much you can do. Still, as long as it's not full of sasquatch porn, I wouldn't worry. A retailer isn't just going to put that right back on the shelf. They probably have regulations for that kind of thing, just to maintain consumer confidence.