[laurieirvine]

I have a Samsung 250GB hard drive that I have been filling up with films, but recently it crashed while copying a movie because it was full. Now I can't see anything on the disc at all and can't access anything, though it says the drive is 232GB full.

It comes up with an error message sometimes saying something like 'Could not complete operation copying ****** to F:', even though the copying was being done from another computer to the one I generally use. What can I do?

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With all due respect, if a drive says it's full, it means the drive is full and cannot hold any more data.
Therefore either delete some stuff off it to make room, or buy a bigger drive.
A 250Gb drive only comes up as 232Gb due to rounding. This is normal behaviour.

[Neil Jones]

With all due respect, if a drive says it's full, it means the drive is full and cannot hold any more data.
Therefore either delete some stuff off it to make room, or buy a bigger drive.
A 250Gb drive only comes up as 232Gb due to rounding. This is normal behaviour.

[laurieirvine]

My problem is that I can no longer access any of the data to do that. When I connect the drive to the computer I get loud clicking noises and it rarely recognises the drive - when it does come up I can only see one (empty) folder out of the hundreds I know I have put on it. Otherwise it would be as you say - a simple matter of deleting some stuff.

[Neil Jones]

Clicking noises are not good. Classic signs of a dying drive.
I presume you do have second copies of what's on that drive? Because it sounds like it needs replacing.

[laurieirvine]

Im fairly certain the drives ok physically - its pretty much new and nothing has happened that might have adversely affected it. It seems that the reason its no longer functioning is that it is full and trying to write beyond its capacity, but I dont know how to prevent it writing further or to delete existing data. Is there maybe some program that might be able to access it on a basic level and delete a chunk of data?

[Neil Jones]

Just because its new doesn't mean its not immune to failing early.
Try it on another computer if you can.