- Sep 4, 2014
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- 18,520
I bought a new WD Blue 8TB HDD in May (shipped and sold by Amazon). I was going to use it as an external, but I installed it in my computer temporarily so I could copy files to it easier. I filled about 4TB and then procrastinated about removing it and putting it in an external enclosure. It was still in my computer when the power went out to my house for about 1 second and turned back on. I unplugged my computer and waited a couple hours to make sure the power was stable before turning my computer back on again. When I plugged my computer back in, it wouldn't boot and I could hear the HDD spinning up and making a beeping noise over and over. I knew what this meant, so I shut it down and removed the drive.
The computer booted fine and I plugged the HDD in with a USB adapter so I could record the noise it is making. You can hear the platters spin up and then I think there might be the sound of the heads moving before hearing something that sounds like two beeps, then the process repeats. I uploaded the audio here:
You will need to turn your volume way up to hear it spin up. It goes through two cycles. The beeps are around 6s and 15s.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfoqWzmZ00o
Unfortunately I did not make a second backup of the files, so I would like to be able to recover the data if possible, but it is not important enough to me to pay someone to do it. Does anyone know what would have failed to cause this specific beeping type sound? Maybe there was some kind of power surge that burned something out on the board? If that is the case, would it be as simple as buying another same model drive and swapping the board? I remember reading many years ago that there is a chip on the board that stores data about the platters and that needed to be swapped as well, but I'm not sure if all HDDs work that way.
I have learned my lesson and if I am able to recover the data, I will get another drive and make two copies of everything. I am also thinking about getting a UPS for my computer.
The computer booted fine and I plugged the HDD in with a USB adapter so I could record the noise it is making. You can hear the platters spin up and then I think there might be the sound of the heads moving before hearing something that sounds like two beeps, then the process repeats. I uploaded the audio here:
You will need to turn your volume way up to hear it spin up. It goes through two cycles. The beeps are around 6s and 15s.
Unfortunately I did not make a second backup of the files, so I would like to be able to recover the data if possible, but it is not important enough to me to pay someone to do it. Does anyone know what would have failed to cause this specific beeping type sound? Maybe there was some kind of power surge that burned something out on the board? If that is the case, would it be as simple as buying another same model drive and swapping the board? I remember reading many years ago that there is a chip on the board that stores data about the platters and that needed to be swapped as well, but I'm not sure if all HDDs work that way.
I have learned my lesson and if I am able to recover the data, I will get another drive and make two copies of everything. I am also thinking about getting a UPS for my computer.
Last edited:
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