Can a COMPUTER (itself) damage an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE?

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Can a COMPUTER (itself) damage an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE?

Hello all,

Hoping to gather opinions/experiences on:

Can a COMPUTER damage an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE?

In my experience and from what I've heard, the failure or damage of an external drive is usually caused by plugging the wrong power source into the enclosure or the drive itself just going bad etc... and NOT the fault of a computer to which it's connected. But recently I've had an experience that has me concerned that my COMPUTER itself may be ruining external drives.

THE SITUATION:
pmac g4 dual 1gb quicksilver
various external firewire 400 hd's

I was running a fairly new external fw400 hd off my computer when one day the drive suddenly froze. I tested the drive and it came up with about 10 bad sectors. For kicks, I ran the scan on another ext fw400 drive and it can up clean/no bad sectors. Just a few days later, that same drive (that had no bad sectors), wouldn't mount, and upon scanning it, it too had suddenly sprouted about 10 bad sectors. Both enclosures seem to be working fine (when other drives are put in them).

So the question is: Is my computer a culprit? Could it be a bad processor/logic board/firewire bus-card etc...... that is ruining the connected FW400 hard drives?

This may simply be coincidence. It's hard to say, and hard to diagnose/reproduce without the risk of ruining more ext drives. I ran techtool on the computer and all hardware tests passed (including processor and firewire). But certainly problems can go undetected by Techtool.

so the question remains:
Can a COMPUTER damage an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE?

Thank you in advance to anyone who can chime in here. I'd love to keep the computer but am at a bit of a standstill until I can get my head around this.

Thanks!

g4 dual 1.0gb, Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Posted on Feb 27, 2010 12:45 PM

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Answer 1

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spudnuty

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7,116 points

Feb 27, 2010 1:44 PM in response to szucc

Hey szucc,

I tested the drive and it came up with about 10 bad sectors. For kicks, I ran the scan on another ext fw400 drive and it can up clean/no bad sectors. Just a few days later, that same drive (that had no bad sectors), wouldn't mount, and upon scanning it, it too had suddenly sprouted about 10 bad sectors.

Hmm that is unusual but I've never yet seen an instance of a computer causing a problem w/ an external drive. There have been reports of compatibility problems but these were usually w/ WDs. Are your externals different makes?

What I have seen is a bad FireWire 400 cable that caused a major problem with an external drive and possibly with the FireWire input on the computer itself.
The client asked me to look at the external. It wouldn't show up on my computer at all. When I opened it up I found that the interface board had two LSD chips on it and they showed large areas that were totally burned up.
The client blamed the cable and I tend to agree but I'm can't ignore the fact that he's given to often being in a chemically altered state.

That said these Quicksilvers are prone to developing power supply problems and power glitches can cause read/write errors in hard drives. However it seems like if that was happening you'd see major problems w/ the computer itself.

Similarly if there were bad interface chips in the logic board it would be immediately apparent and be constant.

Were you able to correct the bad sectors?
Richard

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Answer 2

Feb 27, 2010 1:50 PM in response to szucc

It's usually best to use an external hard drive that has a separate power supply, rather than use power from the Mac.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 3

szucc Author

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Feb 27, 2010 2:27 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

It's usually best to use an external hard drive that has a separate power supply, rather than use power from the Mac.

To be clear: the ext drives had their own power supplies and were connected to the mac via FW (only for data transfer, not power)

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Answer 4

szucc Author

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Mar 1, 2010 11:45 PM in response to spudnuty

Spudnuty and all,

Thanks a ton for the response. It gave me a lot to think about. I've pondered and tested. (and have blabbed as follows). Apologies in advance for the long story (longer than you may have time for).

FW CABLE:
Both drives that failed were using the same firewire cable so I tested it to see if I could get it to cause a problem. Lay person's test: large transfer b/n ext fw and computer, twisted cable around at all points including ends. But no problems reproduced, cable seems fine (has been successfully in use for years).

QS POWER SUPPLY:
-If a bad one could cause r/w errors to drive, do you think it also could cause SECTORS to go bad (and only on an attached ext fw hd - and not the internal sys drive)?

INTERFACE CHIPS ON LOGIC BOARD
-are these particular to the FW card or am I misunderstanding the term INTERFACE?

w/regard to LAST TWO ABOVE:
-no other problems with computer itself, no constants or other errors/problems etc.... The only thing worth noting is that right after the 2nd drive went bad, I booted into os9 to test the drive there, and upon boot, just before the extensions loading stage, I got a system freeze (cannon ball system crash error). But I've never gotten that again, and can boot repeatedly with no problems in both 9 and x...... Odd coincidence or indicative of something?

ok, so......... THE HARD DRIVES that failed:
(all of the following is, of course, on the QS dp 1gb in question:

DRIVE#1: Samsung HD300LD (300gb) in Lacie PORSCHE enclosure
-I was doing a clone to a dmg on this drive and in the middle of the operation tried to 'get info' on the clone in process
-it froze the drive and the drive wouldn't mount anymore. I assumed that I had just shocked the directory.
-but a scan reported about 10 bad sectors.
-THE BAD SECTORS WERE ALL IN THE FIRST MINUTES OF THE LONG SCAN (Techtool). Any indication of something here?
-I overwrote with zeros
-tests showed no more bad sectors and directory tested fine
-but soon after started showing issues and tests showed bad directory
-I reformatted repeatedly but was never again able to write a viable directory to it

DRIVE#2: West Dig WD800BB (80gb) in Lacie D2 enclosure
-it's an older drive and had been used very seldom in the last year but quite a bit prior with no issues.
-BUT this drive had JUST been scanned and reported no bad sectors
-(right after the 1st drive sprouted bad sectors, I tested this one too)
-then a few days later I plugged this drive in and it came up as unrecognizable
-scanned and found about 10 bad sectors
-again: THE BAD SECTORS WERE ALL IN THE FIRST MINUTES OF THE LONG SCAN (Techtool)
-I overwrote with zeros
-tests show no more bad sectors and directory tested fine

But just on Saturday I had been having an issue with the Lacie PORSCHE enclosure (the one mentioned above in DRIVE#1), where, when turned on, it would intermittently not spin up an enclosed drive (not one of the HDs in question - I'll call it DRIVE#3). But upon taking the drive out and using elsewhere it started up fine, so the PORSCHE seemed to cause no damage to drive#3, it just wouldn't spin it up.

-to test the PORSCHE enclosure again, I put the WD80BB (DRIVE#2) in it and it immediately gave the flasing light of chipboard doom.
-so the 80gb (overwritten w/0's and up to this point fine) is now completely DEAD, in all ways and won't respond or spin up in any situation (in enclosure, ATA master/slaves busses etc...).

Lot's of mysteries.... Is my PORSCHE enclosure an issue in the story here?
-Did it kill the WD800BB (DRIVE#2) this saturday or was that drive ready for final failure anyway?
-The PORSCHE didn't kill the other drive(#3) - it just wouldn't spin it up,
-and it was NOT involved at all when the WD800BB (DRIVE#2) first sprouted bad sectors,
-but WAS involved when the HD300LD (DRIVE#1) sprouted its bad sectors.....

The only constant is the QUICKSILVER, but that seems to be working fine now...

Geez..... ????

So, back to the main issue, I've run my QUICKSILVER subsequently in small tests with fw drives attached and have had no problems, but am, of course, concerned about going back to it, and if it does indeed eat drives, the havoc it will cause with my business and studio.

Thank you so much for even looking at this verbose rundown.

szucc

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Answer 5

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Mar 5, 2010 8:29 PM in response to szucc

Hey Szucc,

PORSCHE enclosure an issue in the story here?

That enclosure seems suspect.

-The PORSCHE didn't kill the other drive(#3) - it just wouldn't spin it up

Yes but it wouldn't spin up in that enclosure, yet it would in another.
I've got a WD here that was fine and then the power supply just went South. So it's sitting here running w/ the supply of an old Apple SCSI external.

Read this study, Google:
"google hard drive study"
and the first return is the Google hard drive study.
Points to consider.
. Drives go bad and even a certain percentage of new ones will fail within the first 3 months.
. Drives will go bad just sitting around. That's why posters around here are surprised when they go to start up their computers that have been sitting in the closet for years and they don't work.

if it does indeed eat drives, the havoc it will cause with my business and studio.

Yes, one of my clients is a professional photographer. She's running a Mac Pro w/ 2 20" Cinema Monitors 3 internal drives and 3 external ones. One of the externals is a dual array so it really counts twice.
Just recently her primary backup died just short of 3 years but it was backed up in two places so she's OK. The drive went back to the manufacture for a free replacement.
I'd stop using the Porsche case and buy some newer drives.
Richard

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