OT: Hard Drive Died

[Marika]

My brand new IBM computer (7 months old now) died a few days ago.

It was the MAXTOR SATA drive that finally kicked the bucket.

I ran a test utility on it and the test utility said it could not continue with the tests because the hard drive was overheating.

I'm waiting for IBM to send me a new drive.

So I'm here on my old lap top....LOL!!!

I just hope I'll be able to restore my system from the back up once I get the new drive installed.

[JasonA]

I've always been partial to Western Digital hard drives, but I think my Dell Dimension at home has a Maxtor in it. Seems like they get all the OE fitments these days. Mine's still running good, but I've thought many a time about buying an external HDD for backup purposes.

[Marika]

I've always been partial to Western Digital hard drives, but I think my Dell Dimension at home has a Maxtor in it. Seems like they get all the OE fitments these days. Mine's still running good, but I've thought many a time about buying an external HDD for backup purposes.

When I got this IBM in March, the first thing I did was open it and look inside. When I saw MAXTOR, I ran out and bought a Western Digital external drive to back up the system. I just hope I can restore my system when I get the new drive. I used IBM's own proprietary back up software and if their choice of hard drives is any indication of how everything else works on that computer, I'm in trouble....LOL

[Scotty]

I myself am a Seagate fan, I have 5 in this computer I am using both Ultra 2 SCSI and EIDE drives. They are quiet and knock on wood dependable. I have a 7 year old Ultra 2 SCSI drive that just goes and goes. This is one area I have never been cheap in, yes Seagate can be more expensive at times but its worth it.

I have built about 500 computers and have had lots of problems with Western Digital and IBM DeathStars (now Hitachi).

I just bought this hard drive for a system I am building for my neighbor

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetai...ductCode=101570

[Regis]

Oh come on now Marika. You can't honestly think that just because your maxtor farted out on you that Maxtor as a brand is inferior. I know plenty of people (some quite knowledgeable) that swear by Maxtor and have never suffered any problems. That's like saying all Fords are bad or all Cadillacs are crappy just because you had "a bad one". Fact is there are plenty of happy Maxtor users out there. I can also introduce you to some tech heads that like to crap all over brands like WD and Seagate for their own reasons. Does that mean they're all bad as a brand? Not likely.

Here are two recent issue laidened computers that I've been asked to diagnose. One is from a family member and the other a close friend. Both can't seem to understand why they keep having hardware issues. In both cases the MoBos blew twice. One of the computers lost a HD...so that comes to 2 mobos and 1 HD for that pc. Now the other pc lost 1 HD, 2 mobos, and 1 vid card. What were the common denominators? Both shut down several times a day and both had temperature issues. The first person like to keep the pc stored in one of those nifty computer desks that have a slot for it. Bad idea. Lousey air flow and the temps easily rose above 100°F. And that's the air temp surrounding the outside of the case. Imagine the inside temp!

The second person liked to keep the pc located about 2 feet in front of a side window. He is a smoker and opens the window when he's on the computer. Cold winter air or warm damp air would rush in constantly. That's a huge temperature change for a sensitive computer to go through in a short period of time. And this would happen over and over again. Computers like a constant temperature.

I had the second person move the pc to a more central location in the room and where it couldn't get direct flow from the window. The first person....waiting on a new mobo and I think I've gotten my point across about the destructiveness of storing it in the desk slot. We'll see.

[Marika]

Oh come on now Marika. You can't honestly think that just because your maxtor farted out on you that Maxtor as a brand is inferior. I know plenty of people (some quite knowledgeable) that swear by Maxtor and have never suffered any problems. That's like saying all Fords are bad or all Cadillacs are crappy just because you had "a bad one". Fact is there are plenty of happy Maxtor users out there. I can also introduce you to some tech heads that like to crap all over brands like WD and Seagate for their own reasons. Does that mean they're all bad as a brand? Not likely.

Here are two recent issue laidened computers that I've been asked to diagnose. One is from a family member and the other a close friend. Both can't seem to understand why they keep having hardware issues. In both cases the MoBos blew twice. One of the computers lost a HD...so that comes to 2 mobos and 1 HD for that pc. Now the other pc lost 1 HD, 2 mobos, and 1 vid card. What were the common denominators? Both shut down several times a day and both had temperature issues. The first person like to keep the pc stored in one of those nifty computer desks that have a slot for it. Bad idea. Lousey air flow and the temps easily rose above 100°F. And that's the air temp surrounding the outside of the case. Imagine the inside temp!

The second person liked to keep the pc located about 2 feet in front of a side window. He is a smoker and opens the window when he's on the computer. Cold winter air or warm damp air would rush in constantly. That's a huge temperature change for a sensitive computer to go through in a short period of time. And this would happen over and over again. Computers like a constant temperature.

I had the second person move the pc to a more central location in the room and where it couldn't get direct flow from the window. The first person....waiting on a new mobo and I think I've gotten my point across about the destructiveness of storing it in the desk slot. We'll see.

Yeah, Maxtor's stock fell over 80% last year as well.

They have the highest return rates under warranty according to some articles I've read.

Honestly, no one builds a decent drive these days. You almost can't for the price they are selling. $1.00 a gig, or less, is what they are going at.

Gibson Research has some great downloadable tech shows that you can listen to regarding this. Everyone is under the impression that hard drives are more reliable today than years ago. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Everyone I know, and I know a lot of people with computers, have had bad experiences with Maxtor.

I have western digital drives that are ancient and still going. As Scotty said, Seagate is another brand.

[Regis]

Yeah, Maxtor's stock fell over 80% last year as well.

Ya know.....I hear GM stocks are falling. I guess that means they can't build a decent car either.

You know Marika, I'll agree that they don't make HDs like they used to. Yup they sure don't. Today they make them a whole lot bigger, faster, quieter, and yet still in the same size case (or smaller) then in years past. Most people upgraded their computers as newer faster models were "born" and that's still true today. HDs having to last 6-10 years just isn't an issue as a whole. Today, would you still want to be using a HD from 8 yrs ago??? The seek speeds were pitiful and the capacities were next to nothing. Something to think about.

[Marika]

Yeah, Maxtor's stock fell over 80% last year as well.

Ya know.....I hear GM stocks are falling. I guess that means they can't build a decent car either.

Comparing apples and oranges.

Hope GM's cars don't crash as often as Microsoft's operating system.

[Marika]

You know Marika, I'll agree that they don't make HDs like they used to. Yup they sure don't. Today they make them a whole lot bigger, faster, quieter, and yet still in the same size case (or smaller) then in years past. Most people upgraded their computers as newer faster models were "born" and that's still true today. HDs having to last 6-10 years just isn't an issue as a whole. Today, would you still want to be using a HD from 8 yrs ago??? The seek speeds were pitiful and the capacities were next to nothing. Something to think about.

You're right, think about it.

Packing all that extra data and speed into the same small area. No wonder hard drives are crapping out at an incredible rate.

[Scotty]

XP has a terrific back up application, I have a separate drive just to back up to. Everynight all of my word docs, excel docs, outlook pst files are backed up. My advice is to use it, and monthly burn a CD with important information on it.

[Regis]

In reality computers are much like the engines of cars.....in so many ways. The figures and percentages of hardware "failures" have to be taken with a grain of salt. For example (and this might be true), if Dell purchases Maxtor HD's for all their computers and lets face it the vast majority don't know squat about computers, and say a customer has a problem with his/her computer. What is the first thing people jump to conclusions about? They say "I think the HD is shot." Quite often it's simply a software issue but that's difficult to convey to most ignorant users. Since time is money it's easier and faster for a tech to simply swap out the HD for a new one whether that was the actual problem or not. It's about keeping the customer happy at someone else's expense. I have a friend that freelances for Dell and some other companies. He'll tell you the samething. So what happens is that all those HDs that really don't have a problem get written up as defective. And who bites the bullet for all that? Not Dell.

[Marika]

In reality computers are much like the engines of cars.....in so many ways. The figures and percentages of hardware "failures" have to be taken with a grain of salt. For example (and this might be true), if Dell purchases Maxtor HD's for all their computers and lets face it the vast majority don't know squat about computers, and say a customer has a problem with his/her computer. What is the first thing people jump to conclusions about? They say "I think the HD is shot." Quite often it's simply a software issue but that's difficult to convey to most ignorant users. Since time is money it's easier and faster for a tech to simply swap out the HD for a new one whether that was the actual problem or not. It's about keeping the customer happy at someone else's expense. I have a friend that freelances for Dell and some other companies. He'll tell you the samething. So what happens is that all those HDs that really don't have a problem get written up as defective. And who bites the bullet for all that? Not Dell.

I understand what you're saying and the examples you use, but in MY case, this was not a software issue. This drive died. Dead dog. Bad dog.

Just got a call from DSL, they are delivering the replacement hard drive. So I'll be up until 3 am with the computer...

[Regis]

Ugh.....I accidentally hit delete as I was fat fingering the keys and lost everything I just typed.... joy joy. Let me start over. Of course now it's going to be the short version... simply out of disgust.

Good luck with your new HD and hope it works out this time around. I'm curious though, what were the codes? Or would it just not bootup? I should be receiving a HD this week that apparently refuses to bootup. There are a couple of folders that "must" be retrieved I'm told. I'm anxious to get my paws on it. Shouldn't be too hard.

What I'd really like to make and have on hand, this may be up Davedog, Scotty, and some others alley, is an actual HD disk swapable reader frankensteined from a large capacity HD. I still need to talk to my hardware specialist friend to see if it's doable. That way if i had to I could literally tear apart the HD case and access the disk directly for those times when the disk won't turn. <scratching my chin>

[Marika]

Ugh.....I accidentally hit delete as I was fat fingering the keys and lost everything I just typed.... joy joy. Let me start over. Of course now it's going to be the short version... simply out of disgust.

Good luck with your new HD and hope it works out this time around. I'm curious though, what were the codes? Or would it just not bootup? I should be receiving a HD this week that apparently refuses to bootup. There are a couple of folders that "must" be retrieved I'm told. I'm anxious to get my paws on it. Shouldn't be too hard.

What I'd really like to make and have on hand, this may be up Davedog, Scotty, and some others alley, is an actual HD disk swapable reader frankensteined from a large capacity HD. I still need to talk to my hardware specialist friend to see if it's doable. That way if i had to I could literally tear apart the HD case and access the disk directly for those times when the disk won't turn. <scratching my chin>

Here's what happened.....

I was working in Lotus Wordpro on my monthly newsletter for photographers. I went to save the document and suddenly, the entire system started to run slooooooooow. Hourglass popped up and wouldn't go away.

I went to close Lotus and it wouldn't close. I used Ctrl/Alt/Delete to try to close Lotus and the task manager got stuck as well. As I kept trying to kill the program the machine ground to a halt. Mouse, everything, dead. I heard clicking coming from the hard drive but no grinding noises or screams.

I had no choice but to power off/on.

Once I did that, all I got was a cursor blinking on a blank screen. Couldn't access the drive. BIOS is fine. No error codes, no nothing. I tried to access IBM's protected section of the hard drive and that wouldn't even work.

I booted up with the drive with Spin Rite and started to run tests. It told me the drive was overheating (155F) and that it could not continue with the tests.

A little info about the Machine. IBM model 8148-CJU, 3.2 Pentium 4HT, 1 gig of memory running at 3200, 80 gig SATA drive, GeForce card, blah blah. Not a slow machine by any stretch of the imagination. Photoshop opens in about 4-5 seconds flat.

Needless to say I scan for virii, spyware, malware, run a powerful firewall and I'm very careful about e-mails and all that other stuff. I know the machine was clean and tweaked. It's just that the hard drive crapped out.

[CaddyChris]

Hey all,

Here's the thing about hard drives. Internally they have not changed. Its still a couple platters spinning at high speeds with a "head" in between those platters seeking data very quickly. The "data" is nothing more than a + or a - . Just the fact that these things work so quickly and most of them for a long time amazes me. They need to come up with some new technology BUT one can't argue with the price at less than 1$ a gig. Much more efficient than much else. Whenever I am seeking a medium to back up tons of data (movies, music, photos, etc) it always comes back to a harddrive for price and reliablilty. I never ever ever have just ONE copy of anything important. I have 3 harddrives with all the same stuff on them. Call me crazy but when one goes, at least I have that data 2 more times.

The reality of the matter is, is that when you do have a crash and I'm sure most long-time cpu users have, it SUCKS and one can only hope that data recovery is an option.

Good luck with the recovery.

Oh yes....I use maxtors, had to send one back years ago because it would randomly not spin up...wierd.

[Regis]

I booted up with the drive with Spin Rite and started to run tests. It told me the drive was overheating (155F) and that it could not continue with the tests.

Put a Kool Blue ice pak on it and give it another try . There are so many possiblities and causes to consider..... aren't computers fun? I have a friend that crashed 2 computers back to back. Took him awhile to figure out that it was because he would constantly and unknowingly move system and critical files inadvertantly. He's what you would refer to as a fast clicker. Click on things so fast that even he didn't know what he was clicking . My wife has caused problems on my (our...sorry) computers because of her overly fast clicking. I've cleaned computers that had system files dragged all over the place.

Then there are the system cleaners that do a little more cleaning than they really should. The old rule of thumb was/is.....If you don't know what it is then leave it alone. But no one likes a "dirty house" so many necessary files get deleted for the sake of having a clean computer. A little dirt never hurt anyone. The list goes on and on.

None of these situations or problems may apply with your HD Marika. Just pointing out that there is a long list of possibilities. Do you have an IDE reader?

[Marika]

Hey all,

Here's the thing about hard drives. Internally they have not changed. Its still a couple platters spinning at high speeds with a "head" in between those platters seeking data very quickly. The "data" is nothing more than a + or a - . Just the fact that these things work so quickly and most of them for a long time amazes me. They need to come up with some new technology BUT one can't argue with the price at less than 1$ a gig. Much more efficient than much else. Whenever I am seeking a medium to back up tons of data (movies, music, photos, etc) it always comes back to a harddrive for price and reliablilty. I never ever ever have just ONE copy of anything important. I have 3 harddrives with all the same stuff on them. Call me crazy but when one goes, at least I have that data 2 more times.

The reality of the matter is, is that when you do have a crash and I'm sure most long-time cpu users have, it SUCKS and one can only hope that data recovery is an option.

Good luck with the recovery.

Oh yes....I use maxtors, had to send one back years ago because it would randomly not spin up...wierd.

Chris is right. Hard drives have only so much physical space on the platters for data. As the data size requirements of platters increase, the bytes of data get smaller and smaller. Things can become very "iffy" at that point. They spin faster and faster, seek times increase, temperatures rise, more things can go wrong. How much farther can they push current day technology? Not much I think. At this point I think the industry has reached it's physical barrier.

They need to either come up with a new technology or begin to build drives that are physically larger and have special cooling systems, getting away from the old style sizes.

Same thing with CPU's. They are getting faster and faster but with what results? Lap tops are now running at nearly 75% greater temperatures than just 5 years ago. Machines are experiencing more heat related crashes and lock ups than ever. Again, I think a physical barrier has been reached for current day designs.

My old AST computer had THREE FANS inside keeping a 200 Pentium running cool. My new IBM has only one fan, on the power supply.

[Marika]

Do you have an IDE reader?

No.

[kevinrea]

personally, i myself would not own an ibm pc.

we have them here at work, and they are just nothing but problems.

that is why they switched to Dell here at work.

[Scotty]

Hey all,

Here's the thing about hard drives.  Internally they have not changed.  Its still a couple platters spinning at high speeds with a "head" in between those platters seeking data very quickly.  The "data" is nothing more than a + or a - .  Just the fact that these things work so quickly and most of them for a long time amazes me.  They need to come up with some new technology BUT one can't argue with the price at less than 1$ a gig.  Much more efficient than much else.  Whenever I am seeking a medium to back up tons of data (movies, music, photos, etc) it always comes back to a harddrive for price and reliablilty.  I never ever ever have just ONE copy of anything important.  I have 3 harddrives with all the same stuff on them.  Call me crazy but when one goes, at least I have that data 2 more times. 

The reality of the matter is, is that when you do have a crash and I'm sure most long-time cpu users have, it SUCKS and one can only hope that data recovery is an option.

Good luck with the recovery. 

Oh yes....I use maxtors, had to send one back years ago because it would randomly not spin up...wierd.

Chris is right. Hard drives have only so much physical space on the platters for data. As the data size requirements of platters increase, the bytes of data get smaller and smaller. Things can become very "iffy" at that point. They spin faster and faster, seek times increase, temperatures rise, more things can go wrong. How much farther can they push current day technology? Not much I think. At this point I think the industry has reached it's physical barrier.

They need to either come up with a new technology or begin to build drives that are physically larger and have special cooling systems, getting away from the old style sizes.

Same thing with CPU's. They are getting faster and faster but with what results? Lap tops are now running at nearly 75% greater temperatures than just 5 years ago. Machines are experiencing more heat related crashes and lock ups than ever. Again, I think a physical barrier has been reached for current day designs.

My old AST computer had THREE FANS inside keeping a 200 Pentium running cool. My new IBM has only one fan, on the power supply.

While I agree in concept in what you are saying, to a point. I have two Seagate Cheetah X15 hard drives running at 15,000 RPM that have 5.4 ms access times. They are about 4 years old and they scream. I have tiny drive coolers attached to each of them to keep them as cool as possible. I have two X15 15,000 RPM SCSI drives, one 10,000 RPM SCSI drive and 2 EIDE 200 gig drives, with a PC Power and Cooling 475 watt power supply. Typical EIDE drives run at 7200 and 5400 RPMs.

I use Executive Software's Diskeeper Pro 9.0 to keep my disk, MFT table, and paging file defragmented so that they run as fast as possible.

[WarrenJ]

It doesn't matter WHAT brand hard drive you use. ANY hard drive will fail, eventually.

Prepare for it.

Regards,

Warren

[CaddyChris]

While I agree in concept in what you are saying, to a point. I have two Seagate Cheetah X15 hard drives running at 15,000 RPM that have 5.4 ms access times. They are about 4 years old and they scream. I have tiny drive coolers attached to each of them to keep them as cool as possible. I have two X15 15,000 RPM SCSI drives, one 10,000 RPM SCSI drive and 2 EIDE 200 gig drives, with a PC Power and Cooling 475 watt power supply. Typical EIDE drives run at 7200 and 5400 RPMs.

yeah that sounds pretty sick....and $$$. I've been eyeing up the LACIE Bigger Disk 1 Terabyte. I keep talking about it but for 850$ ehhhh, not quite yet...haha. I'd love to get some 15K rpm drives and put them in a RAID or something. But first I need to get my own place, pay off debt, pay off debt, did i mention pay off debt.....etc etc.

[rgnoon]

Yes, all drives will fail...and if you don't agree...give me the drive. I have found that allot of this drive preference is pretty subjective. I personally have found Seagates to be louder than most (although a few of my ATA Maxtors are pushing it). Seagates to seem to last, When I was working with a company that built, rebuilt and refurbed Sun machines, I saw plenty of cheetah's and barracudas, SCSI and FC both, that withstood some pretty crazy abuse. Then saw a few of sun's multipacks full of Fujitsu drives catch on fire... I've had seagates die WAY to early, and fujitsu drives last longer than the servers they were in. Seagates, WD, Maxtor, Fuji, Hitachi(IBM)....whatever. Anyway my point was just that often it's hit or miss.

On another note...how about a comment on how IBM (Lenovo's) support treated you. I've had EXCELLENT experiences with IBM's support for years...but now that Lenovo has taken over the support call centers (as of the begining of OCtober), I'm curious to see what happens.

[Scotty]

While I agree with what you are saying, the Seagate Cheetah line has a MTBF (mean time between failure), Full Duty Cycle of 1.4 million hours with a 5 year warranty. That figure blows away EIDE drives when EIDE drives used to report MTBF (I think they reported figures of about 300,000 hours)

EIDE drives no longer report their MTBF figures at least not WD, Hitachi or Maxtor, but they gladly warranty it for 5 years and gladly replace them. Lots of people say that my SCSI drives are overkill.... well yes they may be.... but they are server drives, I run a business off them, I feel more secure with them. And TO DATE... I have never had a SCSI drive go bad, so I am a Seagate SCSI drive fan for life.

The reason I have drive coolers is because of this statement:

Hard drive reliability is closely related to temperature. By operational design, the ambient temperature is 86°F. Temperatures above 122°F or below 41°F, decrease reliability. Directed airflow up to 150 linear feet/min. is recommended for high speed drives.

IMHO? if you want drives to last longer buy a dedicated drive cooler.

[rgnoon]

Drive coolers would be nice, If i had far fewer drives, and could fit them in the drive cages of my servers and RAID towers at home.

Anywho, I'm surprised Scotty, that you haven't ever seen a SCSI drive go bad. I guess the 500 machines you built were primarily desktop application stuff? PM me some time about this (where we don't have to take up room on the forum), I'm interested in hearing more about your experience in the field. I always enjoy swapping stories with fellow technofiles. :-)!