My hard drive turning into (expensive) dust?

[aepytus21]

I recently bought a WD 80GB special edition during a sale at Fry's. The short of the long of it is that my new computer's power supply overloaded (or *something*) resulting in sparks, smoke etc. etc. Looks like blown capacitors.

Currently, the drive seems fine... I just ran 30 hours of Dell benchmarks I got off a disk somewhere. However, the drive makes fairly loud *click* sound when started... normal? It also sounds like there's particulates of some sort in the drive when it is shifted.

The questions:
1) Is any of the above normal? What are the chances that this is the dreaded head smack turning my platters into dust?
2) Any good programs out there to test hard drive integrity?
3) Anybody have any thoughts on Maxtor's warranty? =)

Thanks for any and all help,
A

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: aepytus21
1) Is any of the above normal? What are the chances that this is the dreaded head smack turning my platters into dust?

I've never heard a click from either WD 80GB SE drives I have. Could be a prelude to death.

2) Any good programs out there to test hard drive integrity?

WD has tools on its website you can download to test the drive integrity. WD HD Tools

3) Anybody have any thoughts on Maxtor's warranty? =)

IDE - 3 Years on the SE drive, 1 year for regular drives with the 2MB cache
SCSI - No idea

techfuzz

 

[nightowl]

Was it is a loud thunk? I had an old WD 5GB drive that made that sound and it eventually died when I tried to use it the last time. I also have a newer WD 20GB drive that makes the same sound and it still works OK. So, I would probably not store anything critical on it.

 

[emjem]

Man, you should get your data backed up asap. That drive is headed for death. It could happen while your reading this or a month from now. If the drive is covered by warranty WD will send you a new one so that you can copy the data off of your current drive -- then send the bad drive back to them.

 

[aepytus21]

Hmm.. thanks for the advice (though the bad news is not particularly welcome). The thunk isn't too loud, but it is clearly noticeable and pretty unusual. Guess I'll ignore techfuzz's sig and warranty the drive . Judging by the forum topics, seems like there's been a whole slew of these bad drives...

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: aepytus21
Hmm.. thanks for the advice (though the bad news is not particularly welcome). The thunk isn't too loud, but it is clearly noticeable and pretty unusual. Guess I'll ignore techfuzz's sig and warranty the drive . Judging by the forum topics, seems like there's been a whole slew of these bad drives...

Do I need a disclaimer for my sig now?

techfuzz