Tale of woe (was Re: [OT] Hard drive opinions?)

["Jon Payne" <jgpayne@xxxxxxx>]

> tbh, the only hard drives I have really had issues with were Deskstars
(and
> even then, the DTLA307015 I am using in this PC right now has been
rock
> solid no matter what I have thrown at it)

Same drive here, apart from last week when windows wouldn't boot (failing
little time after NTLoader)... then would even get that far... then
completely dead, making strange noises.

Using the IBM tools for diagnosis:

"Device Failure"  (after it first said "Excessive
Shock" but I think maybe
it was talking about me losing 2 years worth of digital photos - and yes I
know it's my fault for not having a backup, but I did, honest, then about a
month ago I ran out of space and so deleted them from my backup drive...
yes
I KNOW! :-/   )

Oh, and the useful SMART status says "good", I dread to think
what "bad"
would mean!

I've been leaving it running trying to recover anything off it for 4 days
so
far... don't hold out much hope :-(

So, it's RAID (mirroring) with two WD 120JB drives, no mucking about!

Jon