Hard Drive Clicking?

It must be my lucky year, but I have yet another broken hard drive.

When your hard drive starts clicking and clunking (oh and don’t worry… you’ll be able to tell when it does)….. lets face it. You’ve pretty much got a dead hard drive on your hands! If your lucky enough to be able to still switch your computer on, for the love of kittens back it up because it

will

die!!

There are three ways a hard drive can die. In general this would be either electronically, logically or mechanically (the worst). If your hard drive is clicking, we’re likely to be talking about a mechanical failure. This is definitely bad and I really do feel for you, but read on and maybe there is a tiny (I mean tiny) smidgem chance you may be able to save the data.

Firstly. DON’T KEEP MINDLESSLY TURNING YOUR COMPUTER ON AND OFF!!!! It isn’t coming back to life and will definitely will damage what ever is on the hard drive. This is because inside your hard drive there are platters (I will call them disks) and rows of arms that read data off them. What may be causing your clicking problem is that the arms are unaligned and actually hitting the surface of your disks. Either that or theres something stopping the spindle inside from turning all the way around.

Second. You could try taking out the hard drive and putting it as a slave drive in a different computer. This means putting it as an extra storage drive in a computer with a healthy and working hard drive to load Windows (or whatever) from. Maybe you can access it from here, but if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work so don’t keep trying. You may ruin it.

Third. You could try various Data Recovery programs like Spinrite 6. They provide only a small chance because your hard drive is mechanically broken, but its worth one try.

Fourth. Try turning the hard drive on its side or upside down to see if it helps the spindle start spinning. If this works, back everything up quickly.

Fifth. You can put the Hard Drive in the freezer. No, really you can! There are lots and lots of people, who after putting theirs in a freezer it has worked temporarily. This is because the extreme temperature can bring the parts inside back into alignment temporarily (but only temporarily). Put it in a zip up bag to prevent condensation, leave it for an hour then try it. If still doesn’t work, or didn’t work for very long try leaving it overnight instead. When it does finally load up, you will need to be quick because it could die again at any point. If it didn’t work after doing it overnight…. don’t try again!

Sixth. Give it two swift (but gentle) taps. Some people in rare cases, have found hitting it makes it work. These are extremely rare however, so just make it two taps!!

Or you may want to consider taking it to a data recovery centre. Where they can safely open it up in a clean room and try to fix what is wrong. It will cost you though, so you need to ask yourself if its worth it.

What ever you do, don’t try opening up the hard drive yourself. The parts/ disks are so delicate that they need to be handled and assembled in a 100 clean room. If any particle of dust, skin, hair (or dribble, if its simply too much for you) gets into the inside then its dead forever. That thing spins at a terrifyingly fast speed, so if theres anything in the way its going to hurt it! Although if you’ve definitely ruled out paying for it, then I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to attempt making a clean room!

If anyone has any advice or other suggestions on this subject, please feel free to write in the comments. No advertising of your data recovery services though please, I have a collection of small animals with sharp teeth and I am not afraid to set them onto you!

I will update later on at the progress of my own DIY recovery!

Online Calendar - Journey Project

YES!!! Its finally finished!

I lost this work a while back when my hard drive decided to break. The original was basically a big stop frame animation out of photographs, but of course I lost all of the original files. I didn’t want to make the whole thing again, because it would have been very tedious to spend that much time doing the same thing. Instead, I decided to use the stop frame photograph techniques, but put them in a different context.

The Calendar is of April 2008. I chose this month and looked back at all of the things I had done throughout. I then created six different things (4 stop frame videos, an illustration and a storyboard).

I can’t put the flash object directly in here (its too big). So heres a link below to it:

Interactive Calendar - Journey Project

NESW Animation

Our brief was to create something to represent the North, East, South and West quarters of the World.

For my project I looked at folk music and decided to make the final piece an animated Advert. I looked at many different countries and chose those that gave the best general feel for that particular quarter of the World.

The actual animation is varied because I wanted to experiment with a few new things. All together, there is clay, paper cut out, stop motion and drawn animation. It gave me the opportunity to try a variation of techniques and materials for each subject.

Documentary of Film ‘The Godfather 4′

For a different group’s film they were going to do a documentary on our ‘Godfather film’. This is the reason we have a ‘making of’ to go with our film. The other group followed us around filming, interviewed us and also directed certain parts of their ‘making of’.

Most of the documentary parts are scripted or made up. Each of us had an extreme characteristic we had to live up to. Such as me being an incredibly angry director, Mitch moaning all the time and Nick being hyperactive and drunk. I’ve had to cut it down a bit for the whole thing to fit on Youtube, but the best parts are there, so enjoy!

Film Workshop - The Godfather 4

For the past four weeks we have been doing a film workshop at University. Me and two others decided it would be fun to do another Godfather film, but make it more like a ‘how not to do’ take.

I created most of the used storyboards, so ended up directing a lot of it (which I enjoyed). There is still part of me saying that I enjoyed directing the actual photography rather than the actual film as a whole. Creating the storyboards and camera angles/ set ups were definitely the most engaging for me.

Working with Mitch Oram and Nick Stamp was also enjoyable. Together we helped solve the technical problems and produce the actual film’s ideas. I did however find it quite stressful directing the acting, which I have had no experience of dealing with before. Our main actor (Nick) has also never acted before, which made this part even more strenuous. I found the best way to direct our actor was to show him what we wanted rather than just say what we wanted.

Another lesson I ran into was: Don’t film at night! Its difficult to pull off and everybody is more tired than usual! If I ever have to again, I will film at noon and just make it look like night in the editing phase!

Anyway, here’s the film:

So Your Macbook Pro is dead….

Yes, its finally happened…. my Macbook Pro died on me. Being suspicious of Apple’s optimistic marketing, I am not surprised. I am surprised at how spectacularly it did break down however! With a PC you will usually encounter problems with speed, viruses and files getting corrupted after a few months. My Mac has been good for the past year, but I think its been saving it up!

Basically you switch it on and the grey start up screen has a little folder on it with a cute flashing question mark. An impression is immediately cast on you that this is not good! You start panicking and switching it on and off repeatedly for about ten minutes.

This ‘cute little question mark’ can mean that the computer has misplaced the start-up files. Well thats what will happen if your lucky - and in that case you can tell it where they are. What it will usually mean is that your hard drive is fudged. That is to say, you cannot start your beloved Macbook - forget about it.

If your an extremely short tempered person you will grab the nearest pen and plunge it through the screen like a jack hammer until your rage is satisfied. On the other hand, you could phone the nice Irish Apples and ask them for some help. My warning is to go slowly on them - remember their stuck in an office with a script and a ‘I can do Mac Repair’ book. If you don’t let them go through their little tick boxes they simply don’t have any more a clue than you do.

So basically, after you let them go through their tick boxes they will tell you your hard drive is fudged. Just like I did. You will ask them in a shrieky and shaky voice whether all of your precious files are gone forever. They will try to calm you and say “its certainly possible”….. but you know you won’t ever get it back….

You could skip the Irish Apples and take it straight to an I-can-do-Apple Repair shop. They will probably take one or two weeks to replace the hard drive in your Mac. If your not daft you’ll have Apple Care, which will cover the costs. If not……… serves your right for being so optimistic!

I’ve lost my holiday photos and a pretty important project I was working on for Uni, so I’m a little angry about the whole thing. Do you know the funniest part though? Its Apple’s fault. They bought screwy hard drives off some Chinese people (Seagate) and knew about the problem, but didn’t recall anything.

Basically the Read/ Write heads on the hard drives are prone to randomly breaking off, making recovery impossible. If your reading this before a problem occurs (and I can’t stress this enough) - BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!!

Oh well happy days…….

No One Knows - Late Uncle Richie

One of my favorite songs by my old band Late Uncle Richie. Probably the last I’ll post for awhile (don’t hate me Josh!) lol. I want to perform this one again because its toooooooootally awsome to play!

Remember, if you like these - check out Eight Frets - a band made up of two of the members from this one.

Buzzcocks Cover! (ever fallen in love performed by Late Uncle Richie)

This is another video of a band I was in awhile ago. Sadly split up in 2007.

This was one of our best covers (I thought!). Its Ever Fallen in Love by The Buzzcocks.

Serenade - Late Uncle Richie (a band I was in)

Josh - you’ve asked for it and here it is!

Finally got around to uploading one of these videos that were taken when I was in a band called Late Uncle Richie. I’m the guy on the right playing lead. If you like this check out myspace.com/eightfrets- they are a new band formed by two of the members in Late Uncle Richie - I should be doing something with them in the summer too so thats kewl. Or if you want to hear the songs we recorded go to myspace.com/lateunclerichie … anyways heres the video - more to come soon.

Flash Animation - Musical Postcard

This is my first proper attempt at flash animation. We were briefed to make an ‘interactive postcard’ about what we’d been up to. So here’s mine - a couple of pieces of bread recording at a studio

Click the 4 darkest dials on the mixing desk to hear some sweet toasty music !!!!

Hope you like it; I’ve had to link you to my website because we can’t upload flash movies straight into these blogs:

The Toasties - Recording at the Studio