so much for a week off work

[Listener]

My one-week furlough from work is this week. I had planned to do a few things, including learn PHP and Joomla and watch the rest of Season 4 of Highlander, and also catch up on Battlestar.

Yesterday afternoon, we turned on the TV and it started powercycling every 15 seconds. Unplugging and plugging back in did nothing.

Yesterday night, we plugged in my external HD to watch a couple of episodes of Eleventh Hour. It wouldn't boot.

Today I'm going to call Magnavox and take the HD to the repair shop, but it was still really disheartening. If neither can be fixed -- especially the hard drive, which has 100 gigs of movies downloaded from my camcorder on it (mostly of my kid) -- I'm going to be very, very pissed off.

At least MicroCenter has good deals on TB drives. $105, I think.

[Bdoomed]

i think it sums that up pretty well

my harddrive wont boot either, im hoping its the enclosure i bought that fried and not the actual harddrive...
80 gigs of downloaded movies... would be a shame to see it all go.

[Heradel]

Have you tried the freezer method to see if the HD can work (wrap external hard drive in clingwrap and then put it in a sealed ziplock, put in freezer overnight, and see if it works right out of the freezer by copying everything onto a new drive)? Is the enclosure powering up at all, any signs of life? Is the HD clicking?

[Bdoomed]

well when i turn on the switch it tries to power up then makes a click and stops, then tries again and again until i turn it off

[Heradel]

well when i turn on the switch it tries to power up then makes a click and stops, then tries again and again until i turn it off

Mechanical issue then, the freezing might work, but don't keep doing it because you could be damaging the magnetic media.

[Listener]

My problem is the same as Bdoomed's. I tried the freezer trick. Now the drive is at MicroCenter, waiting to be looked at. I asked them to fix it, and if they couldn't, they'll call me and I'll tell them to pick the least expensive 1TB drive, transfer the data to it, and I'll just buy the drive.

Magnavox will replace my TV for free since it's under warranty, but it'll be 5-14 days before they ship a new one out. At least they pay for return postage. Meanwhile, Hulu is my friend -- so far I've watched one Chuck, one Family Guy and two American Dads. Tonight: House.