Identifying Bad Hard Drive

[markf]

I have a HD10-250 that I purchased shortly after they became available (yes, I paid $1000 for it) with a 300GB drive from Weakness that I added about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately I suspect that one of the drives is about to die. While watching TV this morning, I heard a relatively loud, high pitch whine coming from the DVR and after 30 seconds or so, it restarted. Fortunately, the restart completed successfully and I didn't heard any unusual sounds coming from the unit at least for the next 30 minutes or so I was at home.

Since my wife has quite a bit of programming recorded that she'd be upset about losing, I'd like to try to copy everything to a new drive before it dies completely. Since I don't want to replace both drives if it isn't necessary, is there any relatively easy way to tell which drive is going bad (assuming that I can't detect any unusual noise coming from a specific drive)? Also, any recommendations (brand and model) for the replacement drive?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[oldskoolboarder]

You can try Spinrite to diagnose the drives. It can tell you which is the failing ones. It fixed one of my failing drives, but it was only a matter of time before it finally died. At the least, it might get it to a point where you can mirror the drive.

My SAT T60 recently died and i tried Spinrite. Spinrite basically said the drive was dead. Used InstantCake on an old HDD and now I'm running again.

[mr.unnatural]

Download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic program from their website and run it on each of the Tivo drives while they're installed in your PC. SpinRite is a great program but can be a bit pricey ($89) for occasional use. The drive diagnostic software is free from each of the drive manufacturers and should diagnose most problems with your drives. SpinRite is more of a data recovery and drive maintenance tool than a diagnostic tool, although it will do a great job of checking the drives.

[rminsk]

Download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic program from their website and run it on each of the Tivo drives while they're installed in your PC.Make sure you do not boot into Windows with your TiVo drive connected. Windows will overwrite some data at the begining of the drive.

[markf]

Make sure you do not boot into Windows with your TiVo drive connected. Windows will overwrite some data at the begining of the drive.

Thanks for the replies. Am I correct in assuming if I boot the computer using DOS and check the drives using the DOS version of the drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility, I won't have a problem with data on the TIVO drives being overwritten?

[wscannell]

That is correct. Windows 2000 and up cause the problem with TiVo drives.

[mr.unnatural]

Actually, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP will cause problems if you allow the OS to boot up with a Tivo drive attached. These are the only Windows versions that support NTFS.