Remote Sensing Tools

Anyone who’s experienced an external hard-drive issue is familiar with the frustrations associated. In fact, this morning, I ran into an incredibly frustrating circumstance of my own — not one, but two external hard-drives appeared to be failing. But, with a little diligence, I managed to troubleshoot the problem and was surprised by how simple the cure was.

Have you had any severe weather events lately in your area? Lightning strikes, perhaps? Has the power been excessively chaotic from the power-company while people begin to power-up their air conditioners? There’s a variety of problems that can influence computer hardware, and having a stable UPS back-up system and surge protection often isn’t the end-all be-all, even if they do prevent the ultimate circumstance — which is total catastrophy of a hard-drive or a motherboard.

The solution was easy, and I’m sitting here kicking myself wondering why I didn’t think of it as a first step prior to searching the Internet for data-recovery utilities and everything else anyone could think of.

Bad power supplies! That’s it - that’s all it was! Mark it down as a mental-note for when and if you encounter the odd occurrence of a drive not mounting, disconnecting unexpectedly, hanging, or otherwise behaving badly. If you power-down the drive and disconnect the power-supply cable — and you hear the power-supply ‘buzzing and fizzling’ — chances are it’s probably fried and needs to be replaced.

Fortunately, I have several drives here, and several power-supplies to use and test with. But I can imagine that most people out there have one or two drives and don’t have back-up supplies to troubleshoot such an issue. Before popping through the ceiling to take a look at the attic, I’d like to suggest taking a look at your power-supplies first.

At my expense, I also offer the story from this morning’s experience — of a woodpecker instantaneously wrapping on the side of the house, sending a flood of machine-gun-like ‘rat-a-tat-tat’, as I plugged-in and powered-up a drive. As one can only imagine — a rather startling coincidence. (Admittedly, I nearly popped through the ceiling to take a look at the attic.)