Bottom line -- you need to buy new hard drives. As you know, hard drives aren't supposed to make noise, but if they do, then it's indicative of an internal mechanical problem. This is not the kind of problem that can be fixed. It's possible that you could continue to use the drives, but the smart money would say that it's only a matter of time before they fail completely. Save yourself the trouble and just replace them. You might also want to consider replacing the floppy too. -- J.W.

Well its the sort of noise that it makes when you open a program or something like that....its just repitive and it sticks at 2% formatting

BTW, I aint gonna buy this thing a new hard drive....If I get a fuctional hard drive...any tips on preventing crashing?

There really aren't any measures that you can take to prevent or avoid hard drive crashes, because there are no user-servicable parts in them. Hard drives are quite durable and typically provide many years of reliable service, but nevertheless the are mechanical devices, and therefore, it's possible that they can and do fail. Fortunately, crashes are relatively rare, but the chances of a failure do increase with time.

Realistically the only preventative steps you can take to minimize the impact of a drive failure are:

1. Make frequent, regular backups of your data
2. Consider setting up RAID, which is specifically designed to prevent data loss in the event of a drive failure.

Obviously it's your call as to whether or not you want to continue using the disk. Based on your description though, it doesn't sound like it is usable now, and if it cannot proceed beyond formatting 2% of the drive plus it's making clicking noises, then I would say it's got at least one foot (if not both feet) already in the grave.

Please understand I'm not trying to be discouraging or negative. The facts as you describe them however seem to indicate that the drive is, well, broken beyond repair. You can take a broken drive to a data recovery service to fix it, but that will set you back hundreds of dollars and will probably take a couple of weeks of time. Whether or not it would be worth doing that would be up to the owner of the drive, but for me, I would say a person in that position would be better off just buying a replacement disk. Naturally this is just my opinion. Good luck getting the machine up and running, whatever decision you decide to make. -- J.W.

randyriver10 -- Your sig block includes language contrary to the LQ Rules. Please remove it.

This post has been reported. -- J.W.

You've got to be kidding me? Man, you moderators have to lighten up... It's a friendly little rhyme...I saw no "hurtfull" content in it

Thank you for responding. What may not be offensive language for one person may be very offensive to another, and therefore, it is best to avoid using questionable language entirely -- J.W.

No, there is no hurtful content at all, but this site is pretty PG-13 with language, and as much as I use that word that rhymes with duck as a comma in common speech; I have, (to my knowledge), never typed it in on LQ. Well, okay, and not deleted it before posting anyway.

This site is fairly dedicated to turning coddled observers on the world wide whatever into concious and aware computer users, quite unlike the goals of MS and just as much, Apple, who want to turn the average user into passive observers. There's nothing that should be passive about your use of the internet. To wander into a beaten metaphor, LQ turns drivers into mechanics. The major difference being that you can work inside, you keep your hands relatively clean, and you only need about four screwdrivers.

The other major difference is that we can help educate a 12 year old into how the internet really works, which only becomes harder if his parents have the house winbox setup not to display a page with the word fsck in it. Similarly, too many new Linux users haven't wandered into the realm of having every box in their life run Linux, some are MCSEs looking around to expand their skills, some are just curious college kids, and a sig full of OS politics just helps as a further turnoff for them to get their geek together.

With that said, I don't care what you have in your sig as long as it falls in that narrow band of the rules.

Next up, that first drive is hosed, I'm assuming it barfs on a low-level format (takes a while... zeroes are written and read to every byte), yank it, plug its serial number into its manufacturer site and hope that its RMA-able.

The second drive is just 98 horking an install, use that guy... what sizes are we talking?

Third, there are two definitions of hacking:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is

That one, which despite Mr Raymond's silly rambling about "happy Knack" I like to sum up more in Pvt. Cowboy's dying words in Full Metal Jacket.

Then there's the other definition, made popular by bad movies and the media:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definit...550928,00.html

If you want to learn about the later, go elsewhere. I've only ever contravened the security of a machine I already was responsible for and had root to, and we don't talk about it on LQ.

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks for the links....

The 2nd hard drive takes about an hour to format (its only 3 gig) and at certain parts of format ...it takes forever

as for the profanity...I'll stick with www.urbanflows.com and keep my hardcore rap antics there

dl ultimatebootcd (free) and run a hd diagnosis test for whatever hd manufacturer it is, maxtor, seagate, ibm, etc.

A low level format is always a pretty mean thing to do to a drive. If you just need a recreational learning box and don't get married to anything on there you haven't backed up, go ahead and use a questionable drive. A low level can be a lot like taking a hammer to the thing if its already on the edge.

A normal fs format in Fedora, Mandrake, Slack, whatever, ext2, ext3, xfs, reiserfs, jfs, etc... should take about 1 minute for that size and speed of a drive.

Cheers,

Finegan