How To Tell If Your Hard Drive is Failing - Tech Tips

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  • čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
  • This is how you tell if your harddrive is dead or on it's deathbed. Also Linus walks through what to avoid in order to prolong the life of your hard drive. Finally, we suggest that users use SMART in order to test and keep up to date on the status of their drives. HD Sentinel is a great way to keep track of this automatically and it can warn you when something is wrong, or about to go wrong. It can even give you an estimated lifespan remaining on your drive, listed in number of days.
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  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 3,1K

  • @sonny01red
    @sonny01red Před 6 lety +1471

    This guy is definitely going to be famous in the future

    • @John-TV_Random-Videos
      @John-TV_Random-Videos Před 5 lety +68

      Yeah, and have have 3 success channels.

    • @mango251
      @mango251 Před 5 lety +15

      @@John-TV_Random-Videos rip ChannelSuperFun

    • @DampedGosling
      @DampedGosling Před 4 lety +7

      Yeah ur prediction iz right

    • @iblistrigger4948
      @iblistrigger4948 Před 4 lety +27

      Linus tech tips. Linus media group. Multi million dollar companys. Yeah

    • @fuguthefish
      @fuguthefish Před 4 lety +24

      Is he that guy LinusCatTips?

  • @bryanchung2023
    @bryanchung2023 Před 10 lety +69

    My computer told me SMART detected a hard drive failure and I should back up the drive...that was 4 years ago and it still works.

    • @vynalexithymia5684
      @vynalexithymia5684 Před 10 lety +4

      You're pretty lucky, i'd say.

    • @MWcrazyhorse
      @MWcrazyhorse Před 10 lety +12

      I have one (of several other) 14 year old drive in my pc and it still runs. How lucky am I with that?
      Lol, I'm not showing off, I'm actualy a little bit worried.

    • @yahyasajid5113
      @yahyasajid5113 Před 3 lety +1

      @@MWcrazyhorse how's it holding up 6 years later?

    • @MWcrazyhorse
      @MWcrazyhorse Před 3 lety +5

      @@yahyasajid5113 Hand to God. It is still running. Another drive failed me, but that one is still running.

    • @therumbonator2502
      @therumbonator2502 Před 3 lety +2

      @@MWcrazyhorse oh wow man

  • @djjesus.hediedforyourspins3154

    I still remember that damned day. The day all the porn disappeared. I remember it like it was yesterday.

    • @larryfernand5436
      @larryfernand5436 Před 8 lety +81

      +DJ Jesus.He Died for your spins Me too, sad sad sad

    • @hfarhanhamdan4981
      @hfarhanhamdan4981 Před 8 lety +25

      vietnam flashbacks i see

    • @earthtothesky8777
      @earthtothesky8777 Před 8 lety +45

      you mean the 200GBs of jav?oh yeah,that is sucks

    • @kkkrk.l.6874
      @kkkrk.l.6874 Před 8 lety +7

      +DJ Jesus.He Died for your spins Leafys vid about porn was more original(the guy lost like 128gb of porn)

    • @juanmiguelgalvez1590
      @juanmiguelgalvez1590 Před 8 lety +11

      +DJ Jesus.He Died for your spins your name, it's perfect. Died for your spins, because hard drives have plates that spin.

  • @stefanhoffmann8417
    @stefanhoffmann8417 Před 7 lety +460

    I have an age-old 80GB HDD laying around which sounds like a V8 trying to start when R/W'ing data. But it still works :D

    • @cloudyreader1152
      @cloudyreader1152 Před 7 lety +15

      I have an ancient laptop with 40GB HDD and it works perfectly fine too :D

    • @noodlesthe1st
      @noodlesthe1st Před 7 lety +22

      I have a 0.4GB hdd

    • @akairis8920
      @akairis8920 Před 7 lety +14

      Well, in the old days things were made not to fail, all other things were not as important. Still have 5 drives from the 90's. None of them failed.

    • @noodlesthe1st
      @noodlesthe1st Před 7 lety +5

      Samster Birdies I don't believe that. I just think that with hard drives that spin faster, made thinner, faster etc. Or just anything being like that, where more complexity and more stress on the product. It just wears out faster. The materials just fail. It's not even a question of design, just a matter of material limits. In engineering we are pushing the boundaries of materials and manufacturing, especially when there is a compromise for cost. I don't think anyone actually wants a harddrive that can last 20 years anyway. Technology advances too fast.

    • @noodlesthe1st
      @noodlesthe1st Před 7 lety +1

      Samster Birdies yes. I meant no general consumer though. I didn't mean it like archive disks and back ups. General consumers don't want it, well wouldn't use it anyway just because of the technology difference in 20 years.

  • @themegaman91965
    @themegaman91965 Před 3 lety +23

    Finally, a video that actually tells you when the HDD fails, and what to exactly watch out for! Was getting concerned about the read/write clicking sound, but definitely don't hear that click of death I've seen on multiple videos. Fingers crossed that its okay, but have backed up data in case its getting ready to fail.

  • @yorgle11
    @yorgle11 Před 9 lety +23

    I was looking at a technical manual for an old 1998 Seagate SCSI drive, and was really impressed by the amount of detail they went into. As far as temperature, it specified acceptable temperatures for 4 different components, and gave a diagram of where to measure them on the drive. For the head and disk assembly, this particular drive gave the maximum temp as 65C, but strongly recommended not exceeding 55C, and said that temperatures above 45C would reduce the operating life. They also gave an adjustment factor for altitude, and went on to discuss airflow.
    Manuals I saw from the early/mid-2000s just give a maximum ambient air temperature surrounding the drive, not for any components of the drive itself, and give no guidance on the optimal range. They also give less detail on reliability.
    Manuals for today's drives give even less information, and in many cases they aren't even manuals at all, they're just a 2 page pamphlet with a few basic specs in a chart. The old manuals were over 100 pages. They took their products a lot more seriously back then.

  • @greycircularity
    @greycircularity Před 4 lety +444

    Kingston SSD: Dies after 3 years
    WD Green Hard Drive: Still alive after a decade

    • @aaddaarraakk
      @aaddaarraakk Před 4 lety +6

      I have a WD 1 TB and a Samsung 840 evo 256gb which are still going strong since 2014. I was thinking about swapping them out but theres really no reason to since they both passed their SMART tests. SSD might run out of write space though here soon. Upgrading the 970 is first on the list right now.

    • @omerfaikyldrm9924
      @omerfaikyldrm9924 Před 4 lety +18

      yo I have a Kingston ssd stop making me die inside

    • @stevenwarne69
      @stevenwarne69 Před 4 lety +5

      CrystalDiskInfo says my hdd is "good" but it makes a "scratching sound" every now and then even when its not doing anything should i worry? the read/writes seam ok.

    • @BlazertronGames
      @BlazertronGames Před 4 lety +2

      @@stevenwarne69 You should still back up even if it says it's fine, like linus said, hdd's can fail without warning. So the best option would be to just transfer the files you don't want to lose to an external hdd. Things like programs/games can be reinstalled, so you don't really need to back them up.

    • @stevenwarne69
      @stevenwarne69 Před 4 lety +3

      @@BlazertronGames luckily most of it is just games but yeah, you are right i should pick up a back up drive just in case its better safe than sorry, thanks bud

  • @aryanadvay7908
    @aryanadvay7908 Před 5 lety +332

    Notice how Linus's haircut looks like a notch

    • @louisco3603
      @louisco3603 Před 3 lety +6

      Nice Cut G

    • @Funkoh
      @Funkoh Před 3 lety +13

      Yee yee ass haircut

    • @ryzen1169
      @ryzen1169 Před 3 lety +1

      Dababy

    • @laster3753
      @laster3753 Před 3 lety +5

      @@Funkoh Maybe if he got rid of it he'd get some bitches on his tech. Oh, better yet, maybe Yvonne'll call his dog ass if she stop fuckin' with that CEO or PC Engineer she fuckin' with.

    • @Cruelriver
      @Cruelriver Před 3 lety

      Linkin park :)

  • @WolfHack
    @WolfHack Před 9 lety +450

    So I left this tab to go back to it, and saw the tab labeled as "How To Tell If Your Hard" and was starting to question myself.

    • @MrNamegame
      @MrNamegame Před 9 lety +5

      ***** Same story here
      XD

    • @monoolho_mestre
      @monoolho_mestre Před 9 lety +43

      ***** I leave so many tabs open, it just says "Ho"...

    • @WolfHack
      @WolfHack Před 9 lety +5

      KimJongBill Oh you're so smart. I bet you're so proud of yourself and your smartness. All hail KimJongBill!

    • @WolfHack
      @WolfHack Před 9 lety +1

      Kaare Hansen Well aren't you smart? Read the title of this video.

    • @WolfHack
      @WolfHack Před 9 lety +1

      Kaare Hansen I can say whatever I want fool! Even, "gramma!"

  • @yesitsmecsd
    @yesitsmecsd Před 8 lety +24

    love Linus videos...always informative while cracking me up! Such a rare combo!

  • @duanehalbert2946
    @duanehalbert2946 Před 7 lety +7

    I have watched many reviews... for me I love the way you explain it. you are my favorite reviewer keep up the good work :)

  • @1.618_Murphy
    @1.618_Murphy Před 4 lety +66

    Looking back at this day, I'm just wondering, Linus hasn't aged at all!!

  • @ZachBrannigan
    @ZachBrannigan Před 8 lety +1147

    Is it coincidental or ironic that my desktop hard drive failed while watching this video earlier today?

    • @Tykotho
      @Tykotho Před 8 lety +16

      Damn

    • @csgoplayer6899
      @csgoplayer6899 Před 8 lety +56

      +Actxr coincidental, not ironic.

    • @z609gaming
      @z609gaming Před 8 lety +41

      +Actxr both

    • @JamesSoupMoore93
      @JamesSoupMoore93 Před 8 lety +54

      +Actxr my hdd started showing signs of a dying drive last night...
      then today this vid pops up in my recommended vids ?!?!
      they're onto us

    • @PatrikTothMaster
      @PatrikTothMaster Před 8 lety +4

      +JamesSoupMoore93 *looks around* *whispers* ruuun

  • @fredrikl5152
    @fredrikl5152 Před 7 lety +361

    How to know your HD is failing: step 1# Check brand. step 2# if Seagate answer is yes, it's failing. step 3# if other brand check advanced guide.

    • @minicrafter8401
      @minicrafter8401 Před 7 lety +14

      To be honest, they're not that bad.

    • @MrDanderskoff
      @MrDanderskoff Před 7 lety +42

      They have the highest percent of failed drives compared to any other manufacturer

    • @theab101
      @theab101 Před 7 lety +6

      depends on what you are using the seagate for. IMO dont install your OS on a seagate but rather use seagate as a secondary storage HDD

    • @dawoodchaudary8736
      @dawoodchaudary8736 Před 7 lety +15

      fuck ur sooo damn right mine one is seagate and its dead fuckk u seagate whereer u are

    • @florichi
      @florichi Před 7 lety +4

      and mine is running for 3 years now and i don´t have any problems. built other pcs with them too, for friends and they haven´t complained.

  • @toastingtony9104
    @toastingtony9104 Před 2 lety

    coming back to this in 2021, thanks linus.

  • @puertoriconnect4611
    @puertoriconnect4611 Před 5 lety

    This guys awesome. Really good at explaining things!

  • @UbiMortus
    @UbiMortus Před 9 lety +73

    10 weeks ago I put to rest my 80GB WD HDD, that I have used for 10 years. For fire reasons.

    • @MrNamegame
      @MrNamegame Před 9 lety +13

      Alexandru Ionescu Holy crap...that hard drive wanted to go out spectacularily, lawl

    • @UbiMortus
      @UbiMortus Před 9 lety +9

      ***** yup. 10 years was enough, apparently :p

    • @leberkassemmel
      @leberkassemmel Před 9 lety +6

      Alexandru Ionescu That must have been expensive back then...

    • @Dunkelelf3
      @Dunkelelf3 Před 9 lety +3

      Alexandru Ionescu i'm actually using every drive i ever bought into this pc.. there are 4 hdds and 2 ssds in it..
      1. was an old wd 500 gb drive i bought it about 8 or 9 years ago with my first computer..
      2. is a samsung 750 gb drive
      3. is a samsung 1.5 tb drive
      4. is a samsung 2 tb drive
      5 is a samsung 830 series 256 gb drive for windows, games and software
      6. is a sandisk 128 gb ssd for arch linux..
      all still work fine.. smart perfect.. once i got problems with pretty bad transfer rates but it turned out as a bad sata cable..

    • @MrNamegame
      @MrNamegame Před 9 lety

      Dunkelelf3 I used to have the same problem with the bad transfer rates you mentioned but I found out the motherboard I was previously using was bad...thank god when I rebuilt my old gaming machine for my little brother I had to use a different motherboard to do so as my old motherboard died from a burnt out RAM frequency crystal.

  • @jps2
    @jps2 Před 10 lety +3

    I've been pretty lucky with hard drives. My portable WD 750GB drive has been dropped, stolen, chucked and tossed around and is over 2 years old. I also have an old Seagate 80GB in my system that's been making grinding and churning sounds when it spins up for about 6 months now. Still works like a charm (I use it for music storage).

  • @ninjamaster6986
    @ninjamaster6986 Před 8 lety +1

    best informative video I've seen thank you!! you are a blessing

  • @brankerroberts3360
    @brankerroberts3360 Před 5 lety +11

    I watch NCIX Tech Tips when I run out of things to watch on Linus Tech Tips

  • @shawn576
    @shawn576 Před 8 lety +1558

    You'll know the drive is failing if it has a Seagate logo on it.

    • @deciusvarus
      @deciusvarus Před 8 lety +67

      +Shawn Smith I didn't know much about hard drives. But my computer has beenacting up in the past 3 months. Sure enough... Seagate.

    • @djjesus.hediedforyourspins3154
      @djjesus.hediedforyourspins3154 Před 8 lety +14

      +Shawn Smith wd ftw

    • @demonetizeddemonetisedinmy1890
      @demonetizeddemonetisedinmy1890 Před 8 lety +198

      +Shawn Smith I have a Seagate ST3320620AS and its life is 9 years and still going (AKA still alive). So shut the fuck up.

    • @bland9876
      @bland9876 Před 8 lety +52

      All hard drives fail just like how you are dying right now

    • @eman420x
      @eman420x Před 8 lety +44

      +Shawn Smith False, own dozens of Seagates and use three in my rig and the only dead hard drives I have owned are Toshiba and Western Digital.

  • @MCatwar
    @MCatwar Před 9 lety +18

    lol we booted up our DOS machines at our school and the 72mb hard drives literally started screeching and im like wow this hard drive sounds healthy.

  • @sarathchelsea
    @sarathchelsea Před 7 lety +43

    my Seagate 1tb survived 6 years and still working fine :) the only thing I didn't upgraded

    • @planetx1595
      @planetx1595 Před 6 lety +2

      sarath chelsea Is that the first or second gen Seagate drive?

    • @henm4975
      @henm4975 Před 3 lety

      i got my 1tb in 2012 and now its starting to fail, but i do take care of my things though, reason why it lasted so long

    • @sarathchelsea
      @sarathchelsea Před 3 lety

      @@planetx1595 i don’t remember it’s dead now I bought it on 2010

    • @hondacrx4909
      @hondacrx4909 Před 3 lety

      I’m pretty sure your hard drive is dead now

    • @sarathchelsea
      @sarathchelsea Před 3 lety

      @@hondacrx4909 yes

  • @TheRyxas
    @TheRyxas Před 7 lety +15

    "Damn you, PHSYICS!"
    Made me laugh.

  • @JoshinoGaming
    @JoshinoGaming Před 10 lety +496

    "They're all dead!"
    :O Oh noes!

    • @Redicat
      @Redicat Před 9 lety +5

      :,(

    • @Hauptseite
      @Hauptseite Před 9 lety

      Julian Depaepe R.I.P.

    • @billcIintonvevo
      @billcIintonvevo Před 9 lety +1

      To much lightning near computer. And lil' jimmy was playig. Zap. Outside house. Inside telly stops and computer ssd Sez Fk my lief I got 81 viruses anyway

    • @PSJackson
      @PSJackson Před 9 lety +1

      [Insert Titanic Theme]

    • @rich1051414
      @rich1051414 Před 6 lety +1

      watch?v=saC13RJ8CUs

  • @demon87forreal
    @demon87forreal Před 10 lety +8

    I'm using a 80GB Maxtor drive that's over 10 years old and has pretty much been running 24/7 for the last 5 years or so.

  • @brokereigns
    @brokereigns Před 4 lety +41

    Me trying to chill:
    My hard drive: sounds of a hurricane

    • @samitechcookie9758
      @samitechcookie9758 Před 3 lety

      Could it be a small PC case? Have you checked which processes access how much the hard drive?
      Defragmentation could help too, at least it sorts data , so it can be read much quicker.

  • @mrcmusic1
    @mrcmusic1 Před 8 lety

    That was super as usual,, i find task manager tell you a lot about drive and every thing else.!!!

  • @joj.
    @joj. Před 8 lety +93

    "Damn you Phsyics" -Video Effect

  • @JamesBalazs
    @JamesBalazs Před 8 lety +180

    *accidentally overclocked your SATA bus* XD I'd love to see what sort of tool tries to overclock their processor and ends up overclocking their SATA controller. I'm guessing Linus is talking from some sort of horrific overclocking experience there.

    • @Ryanred5642
      @Ryanred5642 Před 8 lety

      +TheRebel3000 yeah i thought that too lol

    • @gmaninthusa
      @gmaninthusa Před 8 lety +8

      +TheRebel3000 Anyone who does BCLK overclocking, when they have a locked multiplier

    • @Ovcharka88
      @Ovcharka88 Před 8 lety +1

      Or somebody that doesn't know what he is doing...

    • @Ovcharka88
      @Ovcharka88 Před 8 lety

      Or somebody that doesn't know what he is doing...

    • @emperorSbraz
      @emperorSbraz Před 8 lety +10

      +TheRebel3000
      back in the duron/athlon/celeron/pentium era, clocking was primarily done with FSB, where most gain could be obtain. one could go VERY high with it by lowering the multiplier on AMD chips but the problem was PCI/ISA clocks were tied with fixed dividers (similar to what BCLK does nowadays), so going over say 37.5MHz could easily lead to data corruption despite forcing a higher voltage to the 3.3 line responsible for powering such parts.
      the "problem" was first solved by the best chipset ever made (at that time), "nVidia nForce II", which used a completely decoupled fsb/pci clock generator and as well as providing fine 1MHz tuning for the fsb. the best boards with this tech were the ABIT NF7 series and the DFI Lanparty NF2 ultra B.

  • @FAB1150
    @FAB1150 Před 7 lety +203

    lol my hard drive havs all the symptoms but the SMART thing says its perfectly healthy, since 2 years or so :D

    • @FrancoCarrara237
      @FrancoCarrara237 Před 6 lety +4

      i would run some read/write test to see if it fails.

    • @AlexanderPrussak
      @AlexanderPrussak Před 6 lety +6

      With extremely slow he means, it takes like one hour to load the desktop.. I speak from experience from my clearly dying hdd

    • @leonkurtish9242
      @leonkurtish9242 Před 6 lety

      Nuovo mine too 😣lol

    • @ronch550
      @ronch550 Před 6 lety +2

      Nuovo same here. Not sure how accurate SMART is. Then again at least it's there to help diagnose issues.

    • @horodoomwolf
      @horodoomwolf Před 5 lety

      SMART says i have bad sectors but hard drive still works perfectly, it's a Seagate tho

  • @Fukkatsu
    @Fukkatsu Před 3 lety +4

    Looks like I've gone so far down the rabbit hole I'm now watching NXIX Tech tips instead if Linus Tech tips

  • @DaWarMachine
    @DaWarMachine Před 8 lety +22

    @1:31 Damn you, "Phsyics"!

  • @power-max
    @power-max Před 8 lety +131

    NCIX can you please give me tips to maintain the life of my floppy disks, they keep corrupting next to my CRT monitor!

    • @marcospiazza2961
      @marcospiazza2961 Před 7 lety +8

      Power Max mmmmm floppy disks never worked for me

    • @misscattrap
      @misscattrap Před 7 lety +6

      Power Max Make sure the Drives and disks, are clean and perfectly working and qualty ones, also if you buy new floppy disks, dont. They are absolute crap these days, I have 3 year old ones which are dead but 1 decade old ones fully functinonal.

    • @marcospiazza2961
      @marcospiazza2961 Před 7 lety +3

      You know where ;)

    • @10GTech
      @10GTech Před 5 lety

      Why don't you buy a USB? They are very inexpensive yet.

    • @starman8853
      @starman8853 Před 4 lety +2

      TFG well, you’re a few years late. And you’re missing the joke.

  • @Speedy2246
    @Speedy2246 Před 7 lety

    I know this Is a old video but great info! specially for a newbie like me, thanks!

  • @brig.4398
    @brig.4398 Před 7 lety

    We used to run computes 24/7 the older models, the reason was because the chips were mounted in sockets and eventually they would creep or come loose as the computer warmed up and cooled down when turned off, so to prevent we left them on all the time.

  • @quackk2b2t
    @quackk2b2t Před 4 lety +26

    Rip my amazing hard drive.. 2010 - 2019, you will be missed so dearly. And my computer was never backed up...
    My computer just got slower and slower over time, and the hard drive was well maintained. I swept it under the rug and assumed it was age. And that was when it failed.
    All my data. My Minecraft worlds I spent years in and on. My process using custom redirects.
    Gone. Idk if I’ll ever play Minecraft again since my motivation has been lost ever since it happened

    • @doctahjonez
      @doctahjonez Před 4 lety +4

      Bruh, that really sucks. Now I want to backup all my worlds next time I get my computer on. I hope you can eventually get your motivation back, even if it will probably take a long time after that.

    • @adamcallow8451
      @adamcallow8451 Před 4 lety +2

      Oh shit, mine is like 2008 dude, I'm FUCKEDDDDDD

    • @TotemoGaijin
      @TotemoGaijin Před 4 lety

      @@adamcallow8451 Back that shit up, dude.

    • @alarioderpp_control000aa9
      @alarioderpp_control000aa9 Před 3 lety

      Mine is like 2012s, but it’s already giving me the error... I am not scared however. No Minecraft words for me.

    • @manatster
      @manatster Před 3 lety

      USB drive or Google drive

  • @koloks-pf4jo
    @koloks-pf4jo Před 3 lety +9

    even 8 years later you give me awnsers like noone does!
    This is just proof that his knowledge is timeless.

  • @heroknaderi
    @heroknaderi Před 2 lety +1

    Amazing info thank you.

  • @WhittyPics
    @WhittyPics Před 6 lety

    You can configure your system to shut off hard disks when not in use. The whole idea of leaving a computer running all the time came from socket creep. I don't know if newer machines have that issue but 20 or so years ago the constant heat/cool cycle of turning a computer on and off everyday caused the cards to creep out of their sockets.

  • @archechme
    @archechme Před 9 lety +92

    Meanwhile I'm running my gaming PC on a 160GB SATA drive from 2006 and it's still healthy.

    • @MisterMooo
      @MisterMooo Před 9 lety +2

      Yeah I have a PC from 2007 running Vista and it's still good

    • @Kidsnd274
      @Kidsnd274 Před 9 lety +36

      I have an iMac from 2007 and it takes 6 hours to shut down XD

    • @archechme
      @archechme Před 9 lety

      There's something seriously wrong with it then because my Mum's iMac from 2007 works just fine!

    • @Kidsnd274
      @Kidsnd274 Před 9 lety +2

      Bjork Vlogdok Yea, now it doesn't boot :D. Missed the chance to backup...

    • @AidanGieg
      @AidanGieg Před 9 lety

      Kidsnd274 I had a defective HDD from Toshiba once... BSOD about five times a week, then I replaced it and all was well :D

  • @DaveSimkus
    @DaveSimkus Před 10 lety +5

    Good ol' mechanical HDD's are like an old truck. It grinds and makes questionable noise but by some miracle still works just fine :D

  • @hez1711
    @hez1711 Před 2 lety

    Your read head imitation @2:28 is spot on

  • @ErasMcras
    @ErasMcras Před 6 lety

    This is helpful. Due to trauma my D drive is now a corrupted file. Knowing that it's a quick replace and that I won't have to go into a shop is a relief.

  • @mdante6236
    @mdante6236 Před 7 lety +14

    Here's a bit of a cool story.
    I have a 250gb seagate hdd right.
    So there I was making music. Just finished exporting new track that I spent several hours on.
    Avast gives me a notice that it's detected win32 malware gen.
    Decide to run malwarebytes
    All g.
    Computer restarts.
    Apparently something happened along that process and my computer is now on an infinite restart loop.
    The OS got funky cause the hdd decided it was a good idea to y'know, fail, there were certain crucial files related to the OS that the hdd decided was unimportant. They went bye-bye and got corrupted during the whole get rid if this virus deal.
    At first I thought it was the virus that somehow managed to fuck up my computer. But it was actually just the hard drive going spastic.

    • @TheSubber10
      @TheSubber10 Před 7 lety +2

      Damn. Just in case you don't know, if you are lucky and the track is still intact, you can retrieve it by booting from your bios into a bootable USB like hirens boot or any other tool. from there you can enter to, for example, miniwindows xp, and retrieve any file that isn't dead. Good luck!

  • @21starsinthesky97
    @21starsinthesky97 Před 5 lety +5

    little did young Linus know he was about to create a whole company

  • @darthollpheist1156
    @darthollpheist1156 Před 6 lety

    This is a great video. I have a ssd boot drive and a 1tb hdd. I think I'm going to buy a 2 tb drive to add on and buy a backup drive. The question is, should I buy a backup drive and put it in the same PC, or buy something else like an external drive then unplug it and just keep safe somewhere?

  • @MindOfMurdock
    @MindOfMurdock Před 4 lety

    Would love an updated video for 2020!

  • @BagelCollector
    @BagelCollector Před 8 lety +5

    Honestly it's the best setup to have an SSD for your programs and OS with a mechanical drive for mass storage. It reduces the wear and tear on both drives and it makes sure that the mechanical drive has plenty of downtime and only spins up when it has to. Even for me with a Seagate drive as a mass storage drive it's lasted me years with no problems whatsoever

    • @gmaninthusa
      @gmaninthusa Před 8 lety

      +BagelCollector Or Use Raid 1/10

    • @BagelCollector
      @BagelCollector Před 8 lety +3

      Nobbs66 And spend 4x as much on harddrives? Okay

    • @BrawndoQC
      @BrawndoQC Před 8 lety

      +BagelCollector Not only that, you can create images of the boot drive to your mass storage. (I use Macrium Reflect). SSD dies, no problem, buy a new one, boot with rescue media, re-image it with the original. If it's a bigger drive, then in Windows after you boot, just extend the partition to its full size. No headaches. I use 2x3TB in Raid-1 for mass storage.

    • @jeevespreston
      @jeevespreston Před 8 lety

      +BagelCollector Or even better, 4 SSD's in a RAID 5 array, SWEET transfer rates!!! And run an external NAS box of some sorts for regular backups.

    • @BrawndoQC
      @BrawndoQC Před 8 lety

      jeevespreston You lose one drive of storage and read/write speed. However, yes it's much safer.

  • @MonsterDC24
    @MonsterDC24 Před 10 lety +18

    Hey Linus I've been watching your videos for a \while and haven't seen anything about knowing if you PSU is failing I have a Evga Nex750B and recently its been making a whining noise so I was just wondering if that means it failing.

    • @ProMilkshake
      @ProMilkshake Před 10 lety +3

      Thats called coil whine, linus has a video on his personal channel, if you search "What is coil whine, linustechtips" you will find it.

    • @EkeDeke
      @EkeDeke Před 10 lety +4

      this is a common on transformers in general that they are dying, but bear in mind allot of transformers will make a whining noise if they have a high load or a wery low load, so if you resently changed the system that might be it

    • @MonsterDC24
      @MonsterDC24 Před 10 lety +3

      berzu21 Thanks to all of you guys

  • @synergy021
    @synergy021 Před 7 lety +1

    Years and years and years of experience with spinning drives tells me it is MUCH better to never let the drive spin down. 24/7, constant speed, constant temperature will let it live as long as it possibly can. Also a hard drive cooler that maintains the temp at just a few degrees over room temp help too. No hot drives.

    • @MsAussie83
      @MsAussie83 Před 2 lety

      Where can I find one of those hard drive coolers? Are they spendy? Most important of all, will they fit inside the current tower that I have? Or will I have to have a different tower?

  • @dragunovbushcraft9232
    @dragunovbushcraft9232 Před 7 lety

    I have IDE hard drives in an old XP computer I've had since 2002. All three hard drives are still quiet, and working fine. I STILL use it.

  • @InklanUtterfield
    @InklanUtterfield Před 7 lety +7

    I just had a sudden vision of completing my thesis and having my harddrive fail on me. *shudders*

  • @mattharper890
    @mattharper890 Před 7 lety +6

    if hard drives can fail from just a short drop of say 2.5' then how can they stand up going through the mail. knowing that the mail system is unforgiving?

  • @2paths423
    @2paths423 Před 2 lety

    When you were talking about cooling laptops I was waiting for you to say something about razer blade and you did

  • @johannespersigas87
    @johannespersigas87 Před 4 lety

    Very well said... thanks for making this video... now i understand why my WD is dead...

  • @slendii366
    @slendii366 Před rokem +3

    This guy should start his own CZcams channel.

  • @thisemptyworm4677
    @thisemptyworm4677 Před 5 lety +6

    You forgot the slow boot time. My longest boot time was 10 minutes. Restarted the system several times to make it work

    • @aleynak2014
      @aleynak2014 Před 3 lety

      You are a man/woman of patience. When i had windows 7/10 installed on my presario in the past, it took close to an hour and i just gave up on it, without trying to restart it like an idiot.

  • @Perrinthetical
    @Perrinthetical Před 4 lety

    RIP NCIX. Thank you for not deleting your videos

  • @MrEp5
    @MrEp5 Před 7 lety

    I know this one is old, but i noticed my drive failing as well when copying files, but the one error to look for back in the day was always that cyclic redundancy check thing... Now I use Hard Disk Sentinel now for all kinds of monitoring.

  • @iam_joshua_bcxvii
    @iam_joshua_bcxvii Před 10 lety +4

    Holy shit, Extremely slow transfer rate is one of the symptoms of m internal lappy drive, didnt know until now. Good thing I already bought a new one due to the agony of trying to use it and fix it with conventional software like defragmenting it,etc. Got a faster running drive now. This video is helpful. Thanks.
    As of now I'm actually backing up slowly my data from this still working yet super slow drive. Afterall I'm planning to buy an adaptor that will make it an external USB hdd. It will serve as my second backup drive, even though slow, its use as a backup will be great sinc Hard disk sentinel tellsthat the drive still has 1000 days lifetime. My fault though, I keep it running 24/7 for months without turning the laptop off. Odd really, the laptop sustained my immmense usage of it, but the drive did not. It just got slowed though. Felt lucky enough it did not tottally got broke unlike my external hard drive which was thrown by my cousin out of my window on the second floor of the house. I hope the platter is not damaged, so I can still transfer it to a working drive and recover all my 500+ movies there, haix

  • @johnDingoFoxVelocity
    @johnDingoFoxVelocity Před 8 lety +7

    Nice video but honestly I stay away from Seagate hard drives they constantly fail unless you firmware update them I have a western digital 350 gig ide and 4 2tb drives as well and none needed firmware fixes and there still going strong even the 350 gig at 10 yrs old this year

    • @mitrooper
      @mitrooper Před 8 lety +3

      +john m I agree, I have had a number of harddrives over the years from a bunch of manufacturers and the Seagate harddrives always fail on me. I don't buy those Seagate drives anymore.

    • @nix5843
      @nix5843 Před 6 lety

      Hello John you hit the jackpot! Most of my seagate harddrive dies easily compared to western digital. I have 2 and still running for almost more than 10years now.

    • @tylerdoop
      @tylerdoop Před 6 lety

      Great. I just bought 2 4tb Seagate drives yesterday. I was weary about them .-.

  • @howardboyd7764
    @howardboyd7764 Před 6 lety

    Man this video was awesome.....

  • @charade97
    @charade97 Před 7 lety

    Would it be better to have a tower lying on its side than standing upright. Mine has rubber feet (Dell) on the side panel. Excellent video by the way!! Thank you.

  • @yola5444
    @yola5444 Před 5 lety +53

    we entrust our lives in these hard drives and they just die on us without warning

  • @Wat72-
    @Wat72- Před 7 lety +22

    My HDD is making weird sounds all the time and my pc freezes too often when accessing a game off of it, I have my OS on a separate SSD. Is my HDD done, should i get a new one, are there some diagnostics i can run?

    • @Chuckiele
      @Chuckiele Před 7 lety +4

      Windows shuts off unused drives. So if you start a game after you havent used your HDD the last 10-30 minutes, then it needs to start the HDD again and that needs some seconds, which is absolutely fine. If youre starting the game, close it and open a movie on the same drive and then it still freezes, then it might be a problem. Just use SMART and look at the state of your drive and youll see.

    • @Wat72-
      @Wat72- Před 7 lety

      But i have some drivers and stuff on it, that would keep it active, right?

    • @Chuckiele
      @Chuckiele Před 7 lety

      Villee.. Drivers on a second harddrive? how come?

    • @Wat72-
      @Wat72- Před 7 lety

      I dont really know, i just installed some not so important drivers on it since my ssd is only 60gb

    • @Chuckiele
      @Chuckiele Před 7 lety

      Villee.. if youre talking about something like logitech gaming software, that isnt actually running all the time and the driver itself indeed is on your system partition.

  • @ikanderson
    @ikanderson Před 7 lety

    I have had the hard drive in my PC for almost 10 years and it still works. (It makes a clicking sound when idle, but it has been doing that for like 3 years)

  • @RezidueWithaZ
    @RezidueWithaZ Před 4 lety +1

    This guy is awesome haha, such a calm but intelligent personality

  • @BeanieBrony1995PSQUEE
    @BeanieBrony1995PSQUEE Před 9 lety +6

    i have 6-7 year old drives no errors, haven't been used often at all, how much longer you think ill get if i use it(turn it on every week) 0 i'm using a drive dock bay

    • @hizokuto
      @hizokuto Před 5 lety

      I bought my hard drive in 2010, and checking SMART or CrystalDiskInfo as another comment said shows that my harddrive is perfectly fine. We might've just gotten luck, and we also could have drives that suddenly fail without warning. I could buy an HDD and start backing up properly, but I might roll the dice a little longer.

  • @GamingTaylor
    @GamingTaylor Před 10 lety +22

    I just had my primary drive fail today... it felt like part of me died. lol. Then after getting over that, you have to dish out ~$70-100+ for a new 1TB+ drive, then have to reinstall windows, and all your drivers for everything...then have to deal with losing all your programs, data, games. Ughh. Here is a tip...."bigger" is NOT "better" with hard drives, since hard drives will typically last about the same amount of time big or small. I leave my PC on 24/7, and this 1TB drive last me around 4-5years.

    • @Bneboy
      @Bneboy Před 10 lety +1

      Dang...

    • @TheTyTyXD
      @TheTyTyXD Před 10 lety +6

      Why do you leave your PC on all the time? Surely you don't need it running all the time?
      By the time your current disk fails, SSD's should be pretty cheap and have a lot longer life span

    • @DanDelos
      @DanDelos Před 10 lety +4

      A good hard drive will usually last much longer than 4-5 years. In the 15-20 hard drives I've used, none have lasted UNDER 5 years. Actually most of them still work; even ancient 20mb and 100mb (MB, not GB) drives from the 1990s still work!
      Also, if you have important data, you should always be backing it up regardless.

    • @wifi7365
      @wifi7365 Před 10 lety

      Daniel Delos
      always bacl stuff up
      my maxtor with windows 2000 failed yesterday the heads got stuck to the platters and when it did spin up it had bad bearings and windows blue screened

    • @TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32
      @TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 Před 10 lety +1

      I have a 2.5 TB hard drive that last nearly 800 days power on time and it still works just got noisier so decided I would upgrade.
      Also why would you reinstall winders and drivers? Do you not keep backups? to replace my drive it was a matter of running macrium reflect, telling it which backup to run and leaving it for an hour. Bam it was done, I was back to my stuff with all my files. Keep backups people.

  • @MariaEngstrom
    @MariaEngstrom Před 7 lety

    I have been using computers since the early-mid 1980s and I have never had a total hard drive failure, two of my current drives, one in my computer (a waste drive) and one in my NAS have failed in that they either are making unpleasant clicking sounds whenever they get close to being full or driven hard or just report failures to the OS. Both drives have been in that state for several years, and I keep using them, no loss of data so far.

  • @Jenuin
    @Jenuin Před 5 lety

    Great video on hard drives.

  • @davidhg117
    @davidhg117 Před 10 lety +5

    They were all dead. The final write command was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the mouse button. And then it was all over. To make any kind of sense of it, I need to go back six years. Back to the night the channel was created.

  • @adrianl896
    @adrianl896 Před 6 lety +10

    "Damn you phsyics!"

  • @Tome4kkkk
    @Tome4kkkk Před 4 lety

    Linus! Could you make a video on HDD disk clicking / APM head parking?! It's a plague nowadays! Ten years ago I thought that if I just stick to company X, I won't have the issue. But it's omnipresent now! Hitachi, Seagate, WD, you name it! It's an in-your-face planned obsolescence too!

    • @domantasdobrovolskas2759
      @domantasdobrovolskas2759 Před 2 lety

      I bought a new HDD 6 months ago. It started clicking out of nowhere a few days ago. At first I only had to restart my PC 2 times and then it worked normally. Today it only shows error messages. Cables seems to be fine. HELP!

  • @thephoenixhasflown
    @thephoenixhasflown Před 6 lety

    He is absolutely right. My computer's fans were on a little high so I decided to power it down because the room was hot where I had the computer. I power it back on, * zerbert * nothing. 0 warning beforehand, and then Gone with the Wind.

  • @MrBonglove
    @MrBonglove Před 9 lety +61

    linus is a hacker on the 4chin

  • @dc5000123
    @dc5000123 Před 9 lety +4

    Just replaced my WD Caviar 250GB hard drive. Made on April 27th, 2007 and died on May 10th 2015. It lasted 8 years & 13 days. It did make an unusual electrical buzzing sound on May 8th 2015 and restarted the computer. Looks like I had one chance to clone it, but I'm cheap :P

    • @joegaming4369
      @joegaming4369 Před 8 lety

      mine had 80 XD

    • @joegaming4369
      @joegaming4369 Před 8 lety

      also it was a western digital(it has black font so i know if that represents anything) and im getting a new 1TB for buy new build also from WD so exited

    • @melzoa
      @melzoa Před 8 lety

      Mine died at September 2nd, 2015, made at 2011

    • @joegaming4369
      @joegaming4369 Před 8 lety

      Le' Moob Man what company made it

    • @melzoa
      @melzoa Před 8 lety

      +Joegaming Samsung.

  • @ZicajosProductions
    @ZicajosProductions Před 7 lety +1

    The paradox with "turning it off" when we're not using it is that some people (such as myself) avoid shutting down our PC's just because startup takes so long from our storage device.

  • @debbiem8827
    @debbiem8827 Před 7 lety

    Thank you it was very helpful

  • @Fokkas
    @Fokkas Před 10 lety +9

    OVERWHELMING, oh dear god... I .. I can't take it... Tootlescoopers I need to back up all my po...family... memories.

    • @tonton9598
      @tonton9598 Před 10 lety

      trust me, you dont wanna know that the hackers are holding your po.. i mean... "family memories" for ransom...

    • @Fokkas
      @Fokkas Před 10 lety

      Oh dear god... Without those.... home and public videos... of... family, you know... I might implode... or die.... OR DIE AND IMPLODE O.o

    • @erik5634
      @erik5634 Před 6 lety

      porn family memories?

  • @alexiafox74
    @alexiafox74 Před 8 lety +26

    I have a Gateway PC that I got in 2010 and it was working very well for a good few years. But in 2013, I started getting the BSOD. I would normally get it every once in a while but one day, I got the BSOD, and went to restart the computer to get back to my desktop. As soon as it said "Starting Windows", it would go back to the BSOD. I was like "WTF". Restarted the PC, went back to BSOD again. Several restarts later... STILL getting BSOD. I told my dad and he took it to the Geek squad at Best buy. He came home and several weeks later he got a call come come pick up the PC. I was very exited that they had hopefully fix it, but my dad came home and told me the pc... hdd... died. I was sooooo sad. It had like 4 gbts of Ram and 640 gbts of storage on the hdd. It wasn't only the hard drive that failed. I heard it was also a disc controller failure. Luckily, today I got a new Asus PC and it works great. I will always remember you, Gateway PC... (No need to remember the computer, I still have it lol).

    • @omegafiregaming9693
      @omegafiregaming9693 Před 7 lety +8

      your ram's fine dude. it's only the hdd thats gone, you should take it out

    • @alexiafox74
      @alexiafox74 Před 7 lety

      OmegaFireGaming Yeah, I'm doing a project, Laptop to desktop.

    • @BrophyMichael
      @BrophyMichael Před 7 lety +3

      I feel like this is a modern version of a Grandpa Simpson story that goes nowhere... thumbs up! lol 👍

    • @alexiafox74
      @alexiafox74 Před 7 lety

      Mike D xD

    • @crttelevision6960
      @crttelevision6960 Před 7 lety

      Your last line (Luckily, today I got a new Asus PC and it works great. I will always remember you, Gateway PC... (No need to remember the computer, I still have it lol).) sounds so much like me lol! I hate parting with devices I've had for a while even if they no longer function! Wow thanks for making my morning! Have a good one!

  • @JohnSmith-xq1pz
    @JohnSmith-xq1pz Před 7 lety

    The WD blue EIDE 80gb drive from my inspiron 1300 lasted for about 10 years before something want wrong with the read head. Thankfully I was able to get it to boot one last time to copy my data off of it.

  • @monkeywithocd
    @monkeywithocd Před 7 lety

    My mechanical hard drives all start making a slight grinding noise after about a year in my desktop, and I replace them when i start being able to hear the grinding sound without putting my ear to the case, which is about every 2 to 3 years. That said, I'm hoping my decision to upgrade to an SSD for Windows and a few things like games that practically need an SSD, and two traditional hard drives for everything else will let me get a bit more use out of the traditional ones.

  • @RichardThornrose
    @RichardThornrose Před 10 lety +40

    My primary SSD gets BSOD ~3 times/day.
    Failing?
    Srsly fcking never buying OCZ again. They send drives without updated firmware even if the drives have been out for like ~4months.

    • @sayresyDevino
      @sayresyDevino Před 10 lety

      I had similar problems with my NEW rig. Figgin W8 version of BSOD was happening at least three times a day. Turned out was the memory controller and after a BIOS update and a firmware update for the SSD all is good with the world again.

    • @charlesmcguffy
      @charlesmcguffy Před 10 lety +1

      Yeah, my OCZ SSD failed pretty quickly. Awful company.

    • @LokiTime
      @LokiTime Před 10 lety

      My Vector failed in 5 months too...

    • @AnimeFantasyVII
      @AnimeFantasyVII Před 10 lety

      I've got a Patriot 60GB SSD, never had an issue, even though I reinstalled Windows like 15 times on it lol.

    • @Matticitt
      @Matticitt Před 10 lety

      I have bought 5 SSDs in my life... the only one that have failed was OCZ. And it failed imediately... it was gone!

  • @user-kg8yk4yi6u
    @user-kg8yk4yi6u Před 8 lety +7

    well my PC freezes and Idk what to do... rip

  • @jjhack3r
    @jjhack3r Před 5 lety

    I have a western digital with 50,000 hours that sounds smooth and checks out with Crystal disk info. I also have a handful of dead Seagate drives with less than 10,000 hours...

  • @raza78695
    @raza78695 Před 2 lety +1

    This video is still useful after 8 years

  • @casbot71
    @casbot71 Před 4 lety +8

    You forgot to mention one other cause of hard drive failure that I just discovered disassembling my gf external HD… *full of cockroaches.*
    And cockroach egg cases, and cockroach shit. Oh and it's been left on continuously for almost a decade, including for the last two weeks after it stopped reading and started beeping 🤯
    Oh this is going to be a _fun decade._

  • @horukiaoutsuri676
    @horukiaoutsuri676 Před 6 lety +11

    How about 100% disk usage what is the problem is the hard drive?

    • @davidbolha
      @davidbolha Před 5 lety

      a1qfxs This is happening to me at the moment. Could be a faulty RAM perhaps. Maybe a virus, trojan & similar that's hogging up resources. 🤔

    • @robertct06
      @robertct06 Před 5 lety

      I bought a brand new laptop and it’s doing that idk why

    • @normalname1842
      @normalname1842 Před 5 lety +7

      Its fine,its a bug within Windows 10

    • @supersonicboy9145
      @supersonicboy9145 Před 5 lety +6

      I've had this, but I ignored it. My pc was incredibly slow sometimes, freezing, and absolutely just non-responding. I have the "This pc needs to be repaired" error, and now I have to get a new hard drive and install windows.

    • @Adam_Ch739
      @Adam_Ch739 Před 5 lety +3

      not a bug its caused by windows update , type services in task bar search and search for windows update -proprieties - stop and disable -apply that should fix it

  • @cssplayer91
    @cssplayer91 Před 7 lety

    i have a 12 year old WD enhanced IDE hard disk on my gaming machine that still works perfectly well. I had no idea heat was one of the causes of hdd failure, thankfully my custom case has the intake fan cool the hard drive first.

  • @tompov227
    @tompov227 Před 7 lety +1

    linus is killing me because even tho his videos are 5 minutes if you click on 300 of them in a row it takes so long ;-; they're so good tho

  • @RTMonitor
    @RTMonitor Před 6 lety +4

    I feel like I don’t belong to the world because I kept destroying my SSD Drive so soon for physical trauma. I kept banging too much when rage is coming to me for playing video games. I can’t control from what is wrong with me and I don’t feel I could take care a computer because of my disability.

    • @Iucebowel
      @Iucebowel Před 3 lety +1

      buy a pc, keep the cabinet in a different room.

  • @Benri05
    @Benri05 Před 7 lety +7

    Mine is a 7 year old HDD and showing signs of impending doooom hahahaha

  • @oXDestroXo
    @oXDestroXo Před 7 lety

    my dad had a custom gaming PC built in 2005 made to run The Sims 2 at max settings (lol). The HDD had 250gb, which was pretty good for a HDD back then. I have it in my PC right now (Mostly used for movies, tv shows, general media) and it clicks, but quietly. I'm not sure what to make of it. It has had a memory leak before, but it seemed to fix itself, and other than that it has never misbehaved. Also, WD FTW. 11 Year old hard drive has outlived two of my Seagates.

  • @rajkumarwadeyar6409
    @rajkumarwadeyar6409 Před 5 lety

    Thanks man!

  • @-eternal
    @-eternal Před 4 lety +9

    Anyone else getting this in 2019?

    • @chenzitong1
      @chenzitong1 Před 4 lety

      Yep... my seagate drive craped itself so i was looking at vids on how to fix them.. really not liking my chances.....

    • @-eternal
      @-eternal Před 3 lety

      @@obamasphere9950 No one asked Nazi, it's been a year. You wouldn't know that.

  • @funnypranker34
    @funnypranker34 Před 7 lety +20

    I experienced my first hdd failure yesterday

    • @funnypranker34
      @funnypranker34 Před 7 lety +8

      ***** family is more important then electronics.

    • @funnypranker34
      @funnypranker34 Před 7 lety

      And also if you have spare pc parts or a junk computer, save the hard drive, DVD Drive if needed, ram, and sata cables

    • @funnypranker34
      @funnypranker34 Před 7 lety

      ***** nice. Did you get the ram too cause any ram (including the old stuff) that still works is worth some money

    • @deriancantrell1362
      @deriancantrell1362 Před 7 lety

      my just happened to yesterday funny thing is No backups and saving for new PC so was waiting to transfer save games well to bad :(

    • @TheNBKiller
      @TheNBKiller Před 6 lety

      Was it scary?

  • @frankynakamoto2308
    @frankynakamoto2308 Před 7 lety

    Flash memory in a USB can last much longer, also Ions can be use as good source of memory storage.

  • @DampedGosling
    @DampedGosling Před 4 lety

    Hi Linus first time on this channel bcause i am watching on Linus tech tips and techquickie