I am glad a visual was put, for the meaning of 'Bathtub Curve'. I am no stats guy, but I can dig a Bell Curve, nine times out of ten, and I groove to a good Fletcher-Munson Curve with regularity. The idea of a Bathtub Curve makes me feel .. bubbly.
However, when it comes to interpreting Hard Disk Drive Mortality Rates, I think there are some more factors to be considered.
I've sold at least a thousand, and worked on almost as many more drives. Mostly from the latter case, I have come to form some impressions, having seen quite a lot of what most storage users would call 'very private' information. So I end up having an opinion or two, for this. Ok. Three.
It's come up in meetings before, but bears repeating: Google released findings saying those common-off-the-shelf IDE drives they'd been running (!droves of drives!) did NOT fail (any differently) when their environs let them run rather hot.
So, now, if the much dreaded Heat is not our bugbear, what gives with hard drives dying without our permission?
We are not children, here, so let's skip past the usual physical interferences, like shock, vibration, infra-Gaussian warbling, ball-pein hammers and gamma particle storms.
I believe the real answer is easily explained.
Hard disk drives are marvels of precision machining, spartan firmware, inspiring ASIC chippery and wildly fast signal processing when those bits zing by under the 'flying' heads.
These drives are conceived in unusually clean rooms. Some say classy. I say immaculate. And their nascence in mangers of such purity does not prepare them for life on the streets.
I choose to believe that most hard disk drives feel a bit excited when they are first written with their very own system image: "Yes. I'll remember that for you. Yes. Yes." .. etc.
At this stage, all is as intended.
Soon enough, our earnest little friends are further coddled into various systems, for shipment worldwide. Away from their siblings, they are now out on their own, and are still eager to remember & retrieve lots more for us, in mere milliseconds!
Then the box opens and it's up & onto the new owner's desktop! Happyhappy! Joyjoy!
But alas: As if it's not disappointing enough for them to finally learn which operating system the majority of these drives have to host, add to that, that a certain number of them will soon be asked to store untold horrors; filth and crud which their owners call 'data'. Bad recipes. Panda porn. Political opinions. Twittertwattwaddle. Fwd'd Fwds .. yucky stuff. Blech.
Think about it. (or maybe .. don't).
Marvel as we may, it is _us_ who kill them: Hard drives die of abject depression, chronic bewilderment, and disgust.
On 05/09/2014 3:55 PM, JD wrote:
But alas: As if it's not disappointing enough for them to finally learn which operating system the majority of these drives have to host, add to that, that a certain number of them will soon be asked to store untold horrors; filth and crud which their owners call 'data'. Bad recipes. Panda porn. Political opinions. Twittertwattwaddle. Fwd'd Fwds .. yucky stuff. Blech.
Think about it. (or maybe .. don't).
Marvel as we may, it is _us_ who kill them: Hard drives die of abject depression, chronic bewilderment, and disgust.
Good to have you back among us, John!
Thanks for making a rainy afternoon a bit sunnier. :)
The lifespan of humans is not a bad analogy. Typically, death rates are very high in the first 2 weeks of life, still quite high in the first 2 years of life in 'underdeveloped' countries. In many cultures, children don't get named until they are a year or two of age (you don't want to get too attached to them!). Mortality levels off until old age (which is 30 or 70 depending where you live). If you make it to age 80, you are in a select group and have a reasonable chance to make 85. If you make it to 102, your chances of making it to 104, however, are not so good.
Of course, if the 102 -year-old steps on a banana peel, the odds go down more. Which raises the issue of trauma, suicide, and homicide.
I ran out of hard drive space on my MacBook Air, so I spent the last few days transferring everything to an external drive, the same one that has my backups, and deleting the original to make room for things like swap. I don't want all my data in just one place, no no no! So I took it to my office to sync with my desktop machine.
As I was plugging the external drive in, about an hour ago, with my back turned to it, it jumped off the desk. I suspect all the stuff I put on it, like John says, was too depressing and it just couldn't take it. I am unable to revive it, and I fear my data is lost just before I could back it up.
If anyone knows of a fairly cheap place that might be able to recover some data on post mortem, I would appreciate it.
-Dan
On 2014-09-05, at 4:18 PM, Gilbert E. Detillieux wrote:
On 05/09/2014 3:55 PM, JD wrote:
But alas: As if it's not disappointing enough for them to finally learn which operating system the majority of these drives have to host, add to that, that a certain number of them will soon be asked to store untold horrors; filth and crud which their owners call 'data'. Bad recipes. Panda porn. Political opinions. Twittertwattwaddle. Fwd'd Fwds .. yucky stuff. Blech.
Think about it. (or maybe .. don't).
Marvel as we may, it is _us_ who kill them: Hard drives die of abject depression, chronic bewilderment, and disgust.
Good to have you back among us, John!
Thanks for making a rainy afternoon a bit sunnier. :)
-- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: gedetil@muug.mb.ca Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Dan Martin GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143@shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on
On 2014-09-05 Dan Martin wrote:
I ran out of hard drive space on my MacBook Air, so I spent the last few days transferring everything to an external drive, the same one
If you haven't done much besides formatting/partitioning the original Air drive, that is probably the best bet for recovery of important files. Don't write anything more to it until you image it or decide for sure what you want to do.
put on it, like John says, was too depressing and it just couldn't take it. I am unable to revive it, and I fear my data is lost just before I could back it up.
What kind of symptom/noise is the drive making? How far do you get with it? BIOS recognition? OS recognition? See the partn table? Even with a head crash you should be able to get data off the rest of the drive. There are tricks...
If anyone knows of a fairly cheap place that might be able to recover some data on post mortem, I would appreciate it.
I've done it myself enough times, and written my own perl tools to help (like 15 years ago), but now there are a few good Linux similar tools like photorec and ddrescue, and one other that escapes me at the mo.
I think the trick for you is seeing how you can "cheat" by figuring out how far you can get with the two drives. There are tricks... you might get lucky.
I can provide help for a pre-arranged fee through my business if you have nowhere else to go. Certainly cheaper than mail-away recovery places.
If you want to proceed yourself, the FIRST line of business is dd (or ddrescue) what you can to spare drives, then work off the spares.
Good luck!
re stuff deleted on the original (laptop) drive: I tried data recovery once a few years ago with a Mac - a program had destroyed a lot of source code. I shut down the Mac almost immediately. I got some software to sift through files, but recovered next to nothing. Seems it almost immediately overwrote the files.
In this case, I got a warning that I was low on drive space even after the removal of files, almost a guarantee that any usable space was used. To further complicate matters, it is a SSD.
re the external mechanical drive: When plugged in to power and USB, it makes a faint beep, on for a couple seconds then off for a couple seconds - this sequence repeats 2 more times then it is silent. I have not tried any drive diagnostics - I have not done it on a Mac before. Can you do this through USB?
I am using the original on-board drive which is custom made for MacBook Air, as I believe it was fully overwritten anyway and I have to use the machine.
I have not touched the external drive since 2 failed starts.
-Dan
On Sep 6, 2014, at 1:03 AM, Trevor Cordes trevor@tecnopolis.ca wrote:
On 2014-09-05 Dan Martin wrote:
I ran out of hard drive space on my MacBook Air, so I spent the last few days transferring everything to an external drive, the same one
If you haven't done much besides formatting/partitioning the original Air drive, that is probably the best bet for recovery of important files. Don't write anything more to it until you image it or decide for sure what you want to do.
put on it, like John says, was too depressing and it just couldn't take it. I am unable to revive it, and I fear my data is lost just before I could back it up.
What kind of symptom/noise is the drive making? How far do you get with it? BIOS recognition? OS recognition? See the partn table? Even with a head crash you should be able to get data off the rest of the drive. There are tricks...
If anyone knows of a fairly cheap place that might be able to recover some data on post mortem, I would appreciate it.
I've done it myself enough times, and written my own perl tools to help (like 15 years ago), but now there are a few good Linux similar tools like photorec and ddrescue, and one other that escapes me at the mo.
I think the trick for you is seeing how you can "cheat" by figuring out how far you can get with the two drives. There are tricks... you might get lucky.
I can provide help for a pre-arranged fee through my business if you have nowhere else to go. Certainly cheaper than mail-away recovery places.
If you want to proceed yourself, the FIRST line of business is dd (or ddrescue) what you can to spare drives, then work off the spares.
Good luck! _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Dan Martin GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143@shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on
On 2014-09-08 Dan Martin wrote:
re the external mechanical drive: When plugged in to power and USB, it makes a faint beep, on for a couple seconds then off for a couple seconds - this sequence repeats 2 more times then it is silent.
Sounds like dead motor (is it spinning?) or dead/locked-in-park heads. Or the heads crashed on a super-critical area of the disk.
Your next step may be cracking the drive open to see what the heads/platter is doing. Sure, that's the last gasp, but I do it all the time and sometimes I can get things going again to get some data off. (Clean room schmean room.)
I have not tried any drive diagnostics - I have not done it on a Mac before.
In theory an Intel Mac should be able to boot normal x86 boot CDs for disk diags. Unless the Mac BIOS does something stupid to make that impossible (wouldn't surprise me). You'll have to ask/google Mac people. My fave utility for this is UBCD which has all the mfr's diags on one disc that manages to boot on more systems than the originals!
Can you do this through USB?
No. Diags don't run through USB.
--- Trevor Cordes wrote:
In theory an Intel Mac should be able to boot normal x86 boot CDs for disk diags. Unless the Mac BIOS does something stupid to make that impossible (wouldn't surprise me). You'll have to ask/google Mac people.
I've never been able to get it to work. When I insert Memtest86+ v4.10, it does work. However, keyboard does not respond. Since this program starts right into its diagnostic, that isn't a problem. But the eject button on they keyboard does eject the CD.
For hard drive diagnostics, I use Hiren. But that has never worked on an Intel Mac. Hiren has multiple tools, and I tried Hiren version 9.9, 13.1, and 15.2; each time the iMac just ejects the disk. I also burnt a CD of SeaTools for DOS v2.23, and a disk for SeaTools for DOS v1.10PH, and one for Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, but the iMac ejects those too.
My fave utility for this is UBCD which has all the mfr's diags on one disc that manages to boot on more systems than the originals!
I have a copy of UBCD v4.1.1 and tried it on my iMac as I type this. (24-inch mid 2007) It was able to start, and did respond to the keyboard. Until I started SeaTools for DOS v1.09. It showed the legal disclaimer, but when I tried to type "Y" to accept, it froze. Salvation HDD Scan & Repair V3.0 froze on "Loading". Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic V4.15, V5.04f, and V11.2 all froze on "Loading".
Can you do this through USB?
No. Diags don't run through USB.
Perhaps this is part of the problem. Intel iMacs do not have PS/2. I checked Wikipedia, every model of iMac back to the first G3 in 1999 has been USB only. Power Mac built in year 2000 was the last to use mini-DIN-8 for keyboard. They never used PS/2 (mini-DIN-6).
Rob Dyck
Intel-based Macs do not have a PC BIOS, which is what handles keyboard I/O in DOS (and, generally, in real mode no matter what OS). The iMac (et. al.) do have OpenFirmware and/or EFI, which handles the booting. OF has its own USB class drivers, which the OS must then supplant during its boot sequence.
Take the drive to an actual PC with a SATA (or IDE, if applicable) port and boot diags there. Or buy one of the better Mac disk repair utilities. Or just pay Trevor to scan the drive for you, even if it is HFS+.
-Adam
On September 8, 2014 11:52:31 PM CDT, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
--- Trevor Cordes wrote:
In theory an Intel Mac should be able to boot normal x86 boot CDs for disk diags. Unless the Mac BIOS does something stupid to make that impossible (wouldn't surprise me). You'll have to ask/google Mac people.
I've never been able to get it to work. When I insert Memtest86+ v4.10, it does work. However, keyboard does not respond. Since this program starts right into its diagnostic, that isn't a problem. But the eject button on they keyboard does eject the CD.
For hard drive diagnostics, I use Hiren. But that has never worked on an Intel Mac. Hiren has multiple tools, and I tried Hiren version 9.9, 13.1, and 15.2; each time the iMac just ejects the disk. I also burnt a CD of SeaTools for DOS v2.23, and a disk for SeaTools for DOS v1.10PH, and one for Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, but the iMac ejects those too.
My fave utility for this is UBCD which has all the mfr's diags on one disc that manages to boot on more systems than the originals!
I have a copy of UBCD v4.1.1 and tried it on my iMac as I type this. (24-inch mid 2007) It was able to start, and did respond to the keyboard. Until I started SeaTools for DOS v1.09. It showed the legal disclaimer, but when I tried to type "Y" to accept, it froze. Salvation HDD Scan & Repair V3.0 froze on "Loading". Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic V4.15, V5.04f, and V11.2 all froze on "Loading".
Can you do this through USB?
No. Diags don't run through USB.
Perhaps this is part of the problem. Intel iMacs do not have PS/2. I checked Wikipedia, every model of iMac back to the first G3 in 1999 has been USB only. Power Mac built in year 2000 was the last to use mini-DIN-8 for keyboard. They never used PS/2 (mini-DIN-6).
Rob Dyck
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 2014-09-08 Robert Dyck wrote:
For hard drive diagnostics, I use Hiren. But that has never worked on an Intel Mac. Hiren has multiple tools, and I tried Hiren version 9.9,
I take my previous comment back, then. Once again the insolence of Apple reconfirms my long-held opinion that <FlameShieldOn> Apple sucks^H^H^H^H^H isn't that great. Sorry, guys, but $250 extra per PC for the privilege of *not* being able to run standard x86 direct-boot utilities? ...
No. Diags don't run through USB.
Perhaps this is part of the problem. Intel iMacs do not have PS/2. I checked Wikipedia, every model of iMac back to the first G3 in 1999 has been USB only. Power Mac built in year 2000 was the last to use mini-DIN-8 for keyboard. They never used PS/2 (mini-DIN-6).
We weren't talking about USB *keyboards* we were talking about USB hard drives (and docks, etc). What keyboard you have is irrelevant, if (as Adam said) the BIOS does its job correctly. But the HD utilities themselves need to talk direct IDE to the drive, and thus can't go through a USB drive converter intermediary.
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Adam Thompson -
Dan Martin -
Gilbert E. Detillieux -
JD -
Robert Dyck -
Trevor Cordes