HDD Question 2

[jason69uk]

can unplugging an external hard drive from the mains power corrupt any data on it??

there is no off button on the external and unplugging it seems to be the only way to turn it off, surely this must damage it because isnt it reading and turning it off, wont it just stop dead and mess up the surface in the same way it would turning the computer of with an IDE drive inside??

Also while im here can keep transferring divx movies thru cable degrade quality on playback or will it always stay the same??

[reboot]

1.) I have no idea.
2.) Digital is digital. The transfer process does nothing to the video stream, so quality is exactly the same as the original (otherwise it wouldn't work).

[ViRaL1]

Your best bet is to make sure that you Stop the device in the OS and disconnect it before unplugging it. This should ensure that no reads or writes are in process when you unplug it.

[jason69uk]

if it did mess the drive up unplugging it can software sort issuyes out suvh as spinrite??

[bazooka]

if it did mess the drive up unplugging it can software sort issuyes out suvh as spinrite??

It is difficult to say.

The integrity of the data on the drive could be tainted if you did not stop the device first.

[jason69uk]

If i did mess up the drive what would the symptoms be, this drive is backed up with films..

Would a chkdsk sort it?

How do i stop the device right click the driveo n my computer and click stop or something??

I recently bought it and have been unplugging from the mains a lot after copying stuff to it, would this be ok doing this?

thank u

[ViRaL1]

To stop the drive in Window$ XP, there should be an icon in the system tray with a green arrow and a card, that says Safely Remove Hardware when you mouse over it. Open this and click on the device you want to stop, then click the Stop button. It should give you a notification when it's safe to unplug the device.

[jason69uk]

ok thanks 4 the reply.

In the past b4 posting these msgs i made sure nothing was being copied to the drive and turned it off by the mains.. seeing as the drive wasnt loading would it be unlikely i would have corrupted the drive??

Also this might sound really dumb but wheres the system tray, lol.
Its not the bar running along the bottom is it?

Please answer questions in order.

thanks 4 all this help by the way all the ppl on this topic, cheers

I heard doing it the way i did can cause corupt data or data loss, what would be the symptoms of this then and would divfix pick the freezes up in movies if it was sectors??

Would chkdsk fix it??

[bazooka]

Would chkdsk fix it??

Probably not

Chkdsk would fix errors with the drive itself, but the videos might be corrupt.

[jason69uk]

Would the errors also get worse even if in future i do do it all correctly?

[jason69uk]

will they get worse??

[bazooka]

will they get worse??

It theory, no, but in the windows world anything is possible.

[jason69uk]

I did do wrong just unplugging it from the mains but the drive wasnt loading at the same and i had finished copying, could this still mess stuff up or should it be ok??

Also i used western digitals disk diganostic tool and let it scan every sector and it completed succesfully..

Does this mean that un[plugging it from the mains hasnt damaged the disk?

[smearbrick1]

I did do wrong just unplugging it from the mains but the drive wasnt loading at the same and i had finished copying, could this still mess stuff up or should it be ok??

Also i used western digitals disk diganostic tool and let it scan every sector and it completed succesfully..

Does this mean that un[plugging it from the mains hasnt damaged the disk?

Yes... you should be ok. Take the advice of the others who have told you and do not unplug the drive until you have stopped it in windows. I'd imagine if nothing was accessing the drive at the time you unplugged it, nothing would be corrupted. Unfortunately, if there was corruption (missing file information) you would not be able to repair this because it was never there in the first place. I would only worry about drive corruption if you are experiencing problems (which you have not indicated whether you are or not.) From now on, do not unplug the drive from the mains (whatever that is) until you have stopped the device in Windows. This will take the guess work out of whether or not you will have hosed data.

[jason69uk]

cheers for the reply it takes windows a couple of seconds to recognise the drive but it always has done.

Ive gone thru a few of the movies, looked in every movie in divfix and has logged no errors.. so im assuming that i am i lucky and have not corrupted the data.

wld the drive without data written on it also get corrupted??

[Nelson37]

Jason - STOP unplugging the friggin drive!!!

If I have a paper with notes on it, and I spill coffee on it, will I still be able to read the note? It's a crap shoot, isn't it? And if these notes are important, I should be more careful with the friggin coffee, shouldn't I?

It is possible to damage your data, it is possible to damage the drive's physical storage capability. Shut it down thru windows or bring down the whole PC before unplugging the drive.

[ViRaL1]

Kinda defeats the purpose of having a hot-swappable external drive, doesn't it?

[Nelson37]

First, who says the drive is hot-swappable?

Second, how do we know it conforms properly to the USB or Firewire spec?

Third, recommended procedure even for conforming, hot-swappable drives is to stop the device in Windows before unplugging data and/or power connectors.

[Nelson37]

In answer to your PM questions - Scandisk or Norton Disk Doctor or something similar should be able to determine if you have any physically damaged, unusable sectors on your hard drive. These tools will also detect most types of file corruption, but not all. If there is physical damage this cannot be repaired, but these tools will mark these sectors as unusable. Unfortunately, like a crack in glass, scratches in HD recordable surface tend to spread over time. The damage could also be in an area where no data is currently stored.

IF - I repeat IF - you had files which were known to play perfectly in the past, which now play with errors, this would be evidence of corruption or damage. However, it is not at all unusual for, say, downloaded Divx or similar files to contain errors from day one. So, if you observe a file on the external HD with errors, which was NOT known to play perfectly in the past, this tells you nothing at all. The error could have been caused by improper HD shutdown, or it could have been there from day one.

As far as evidence you would observe, there are simply too many possible combinations to even begin. Basically, any change from original functionality in any file stored on the drive would suggest a problem. As for how to fix it, again, too many possibilities. It might be easily fixable, or repair may be impossible. No way to tell without trying the various repair tools. Sometimes simply copying the suspect file to another directory solves the problem.

What you are doing is similar to turning off a running PC without performing a normal shutdown. Can you get away with it? Sure. 10 out of 10? Probably. 100 out of 100? Maybe, Maybe not. Would I let someone do this to my PC? No way in hell.