HDD failure

[stormbind]

My (secondary) HDD hasn't failed yet, but I think it might... how can I extend it's life?

The other day it made a terrible screech when powering up. About a minute ago, I suferred a Windows write-failure which causes WinXP to become unresponsive

I know it needs replacing, but I wondered if... frequently powering up/down might be causing more damage than leaving it running continuously? Any ideas?

 

[Jeratain]

Back up any critical files before it dies on you. I don't think there's too much you can do to keep it from eventually dying.

 

[Comraddict]

do you know what S.M.A.R.T. is ?

 

[stormbind]

SMART is enabled, but how/when/where does it output warnings?

 

[FriendlyFire]

About a minute ago, I suferred a Windows write-failure which causes WinXP to become unresponsive

Let it rest for 48hrs.
Format it. partitions. (Failure == lose of a single partition)
Dont use more then 50% of avaliable HDD

 

[stormbind]

I'm using 90% of HDD capacity. I need to...

 

[damunzy]

Unfortunately there isn't much you can d when it comes to HDDs going. Well, you could always pray.

 

[HAND]

Is it a maxtor by any chance? I'm going for a western digital or seagate next time ...maxtor drives.. ive had so much trouble with
....hmm my samsung 4gb drive is perhaps the most reliable drive i have owned. I never had problem with that after 3 years of use.

 

[hbdragon88]

I dunno. I read an independent review of Spinrite and they raved that Spinrite 6 saved their crashed hard drive. They were able to recover data after a day of running the program.