HDD not recognized in windows and very hot to touch.

Pesto Crumb

Honorable
Jun 10, 2015
7
0
10,510
Hiya folks! So i have a SAMSUNG HD103SI it use to be a usb drive but i decided to start using it as an internal cause of how some games like fallout 4 is freakin huge.

2 times recently i turned on the computer and it wasnt showing up and felt very hot to touch but when i rebooted it would show up and the temps would be normal like around 80 to 90 F.

Am i right in thinking the motor is sticking something like that? and how long do you think its got to live?

I did my best to try and back up everything but its goin to be a while before i can get another drive. it really sucks im addicted to fallout.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
80 to 90F is not very hot for a working HDD.

I would test it out using a free diagnostic tool that you can download from HERE, it is portable so does not need to be installed, just run once downloaded. Note that the file will pop up to save in just a moment after going to the site.
 

Pesto Crumb

Honorable
Jun 10, 2015
7
0
10,510


Oh i should have mentioned. I did run a few test and they all said it was fine. But the 2 times it woudnt show up in windows and felt like i could cook on it was alarming.
Of course the 2 times it was hot and not showing up i couldnt test it.

Just kinda wondering what could be happening and if i should stop using it completely or not worry to much about it.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
If it too hot to comfortably touch then it is a problem and can corrupt data. It could be caused by excessive access, malware, too many sector reallocations, that sort of thing. In other words it is working too hard assuming that it gets sufficient ventilation. It is not a friction issue or the drive would very quickly fail.

You can use it but keep your data backed up as it could be heading toward a failure, while SMART values are a warning they often don't show any issues before a failure.