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Month in review - December

· 約4分
Josh Wong
Content Strategist & Technical Writer

December is always a bit of a hectic month with holiday gatherings and wrapping up tasks at work before the New Year break. Although I didn't get around to writing a post for this month, I do have quite a few topics to briefly share in this month-in-review post.

  • Wrote a post for the Mercari Engineering Blog
  • Bought a washer and dryer machine
  • Tried resurrecting a problematic hard drive
Disclosure

Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you go through those links to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. Note that I only link to products and services if I am actively using them and am greatly satisfied with my experience.

Wrote a post for the Mercari Engineering Blog

As part of the annual Advent Calendar series of posts on the Mercari Engineering Blog, I wrote about personal knowledge management (PKM):

Let me know what you think!

Bought a washer and dryer machine

Hang clothes outside or inside to dry is pretty common Japan. But sometimes, we need to wait a full day (or two!) for clothing like jeans and hooded sweatshirts to completely dry.

After researching machines and confirming that one would fit, my wife and I decided to buy a Panasonic NA-LX127BL-W (Japanese). This front-loading, drum-type machine uses a heat-pump system for drying, which dries clothes pretty darn quick. The machine has a smartphone function that is convenient for:

  • Scheduling a washing and drying cycle.
  • Checking the soap and softener tanks.
  • Confirming details about errors that occur during a washing cycle.

Panasonic NA-LX127BL-W washer and dryer machine after installation

Panasonic NA-LX127BL-W washer and dryer machine after installation

Overall, we're very happy with the Panasonic NA-LX127BL-W washer and dryer machine. We've reduced how much time we spend hanging clothes out to dry and saved a lot of time waiting for those clothes to dry. Our clothes also smell much more pleasant and feel a lot softer!

Tried resurrecting a problematic hard drive

A friend told me that his computer refused to recognize his external hard drive. On top of that, the hard drive made a clicking sound. I offered to troubleshoot the issue on my computer.

I tried the following methods to salvage the problematic hard drive:

MethodResult
Plugged the hard drive into my desktop and then my laptopNo change. Both computers exhibited the same behavior of briefly showing a connection to the hard drive but neither were able to show the contents of the hard drive. After a while, both computers were eventually unable to connect to the hard drive, which caused an endless loop of the computer trying to install the device driver.
Uninstalled the driver when Device Manager finds the device, then restarted my computerNo change. The drive still didn't appear in the list of available drives.
Installed WD Drive Utilities to see if the hard drive appeared in the utilities softwareThe drive does appear in this tool even after restarting the computer and unplugging and plugging in the device again.
Followed the steps in How to Shuck a WD Elements External Hard Drive to open the external casing of the hard drive to check if there were any loose partsNothing seemed loose. I made sure all the connectors were fully connected, but the drive still didn't appear in the list of available drives. Unfortunately, I lack the tools to open the disk enclosure and inspect the issue further.
Followed the steps in How to Shuck a WD Elements External Hard Drive to cover the 3.3V pin with tape.Covering the 3.3V pin with tape didn't work. The drive still didn't appear in the list of available drives.

Friend's disassembled Western Digital Elements external hard drive

Friend's disassembled Western Digital Elements external hard drive

Unfortunately, I was out of ideas to resolve the connection to the faulty hard drive. At this point, the only way to copy the data on the hard drive is to contact a professional who could remove the disk from its enclosure and further troubleshoot the issue.