#$%*!@ WD HD crap!

[WNG]

Sorry for ranting!
Damn, I just discovered a "D" data drive in one of my PCs had shit-canned itself 4 days ago. I tried to access it over my network via VNC and kept erring.
Viewing the logs, it never booted up when I powered up the PC. No warning, no reason. Worked fine up to now, and used sparingly. The only suspect item was that Power Saving setting under Windoze was set to spin down drives after 15 min. to save power and reduce heat.
It was a WD 40 GB PATA factory replacement almost 2 years old. So it's a refurb.
It was fully packed with videos...WRC, MotoGP, F1, TouringCar of which I haven't watched yet. DAMN!

I can't figure out what killed it. Never saw SMART warnings, transfered Gigs off it a week before. Wasn't even running hot since it's not spinning.
Just cold boot dead.
Must be due to it being a WD POS refurb. It's only a 40GB, but I hate the loss of data without warning.
Sadly, I still have (2) 80, an older 120, and a WD rebadged 160 GB. Haven't had a WD failure until now...actually a HDD failure until now. Guess I'm no longer a virgin.

I've seen IBMs, Maxtors, WDs fail (none of my own). Too many Maxtor failures to ever buy another one.
I was about to order a WD 400 GB SATA, now I'm leary.

That only leaves Seagate. I only have one that I bought this year...so that isn't enough to go on to draw any conclusions. So far it's good, but I have noticed its (SMART) temps have risen since new. And this is with a dedicated 80mm fan cooling it.

What's the worst brand you guys have come across failure wise?

I guess I'll try the freezer trick on the WD, nothing to lose now.

[starfury1]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Sorry to hear the WNG

humm well it depends (as you know on the type of failure) you suspect....you could possibly use the same model drive pcb if you can find one.

I never had to use the freezer trick (yet and hope I never have to)
but from what I read its really one shot affair, so if it works grab as much as you can and don't dilly dally...anyway that the story from what I understand you first shot is your best...if its a failure of the mechanical type.

leave this open for others to comment on...best method to get your stuff back.

Yeah "backup" is the magic word but I guess at times we all could stand accused of not doing it with something we really want...although I guess there are those that treat it as a religion (and maybe rightly so)

HDD failures seems no brand is safe totally from it and I think they have all had a dud model at one point or other.
Its a mechanical device so prone to failure at some point I guess even if the electronics will last for years
(and there has been issues with some of that too with some models)

I have read that failures are becoming more common with all. so its now more then ever BACKUP is important. (if what I read is true)

I suspect since the drive market is so cut throat (and when you look at prices you see why) being made as cheap as possible etc with minimum profit on them (compared to the old day) I guess has got to increase failure rates.

Yours was way old and a refurb at that, so I wouldn't have put much faith in it and only used it as temp storage of stuff I had backed up
(this doesn't mean a brand new one isn't just as liable to die...they do)

I have had seagates fail (20GB and 40GB) out of box and my personal 10gb went way ward I think my 40GB WD is a bit suspect
(I have a funny feeling this is an IBM rebage some how not sure on the story)

Yes it would be a interesting to see what others here have had die on them.

Id be really interested in the failures form those that process a lot of drive like system builders etc
Repairers here could offer a good spectrum of knowledge on failures too.

but anyones opinions would be welcomed.

Oddly enough I have a WD SATA 400GB (KS) coming if it ever gets here.

best thing is to google it and see what falls out, if you see failures with a common thread then probably safer to avoid it I guess.

I didn't but WD have been mostly good so wet finger in the air and Hope.
(in a hurry, price wasn't too bad but I really should have done some research on it)

Just my thought on it

CHeers

[willawake]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

I can't figure out what killed it. Never saw SMART warnings, transfered Gigs off it a week before. Wasn't even running hot since it's not spinning. Just cold boot dead. Must be due to it being a WD POS refurb.

every wd i have seen fail did exactly that. actually i have never received any useful smart warning for any hard disk, the most important thing i believe is to listen to hdds and any abnormal sound like whining, pings....backup and replace immediately.

there were a few well known hdd turds but with seagate, wd i have had mixed experience, if they were crap i would realise that from office experience, but i am not of that opinion. sure i get some early fails which suggest that manufacturing tolerances/ qc is not perfect

sorry to hear about your data. problem now is that everybody i am sure has so much data that its not really possible to backup everything properly.

[starfury1]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Humm yeah Will....I agree ....thats the problem.....a HDD is much larger then DVD's so things tend not to get backed up
I try hard to keep personal stuff backed up like photos and home vid's etc...the things you really cant replace

[gastorgrab]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

I no longer buy WD hard drives.

[gonzo0815]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

I still only trust the WD Raptor like series, nothing else from them.
Have had a few WD 40 and 80gb drives which failed on me.
For anythings else i still using and buying mostly Samsung drives.
Recently i tried some Hitachi ones too.
It`s always a gamble with IDE HDD`s, but if a vendor served me well, it stick to it until the inevitable happens and they screwed it up.

[stevo1210]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Every WD hard drive i've had has either died or come up with bad sectors. I bought a WD WB1600JB IDE drive last year and within 2 months, returned it and traded it in for a Seagate SATA drive. It had a bunch of bad sectors and Windows didn't want to boot at times either.
I have one WD hard drive remaining now and it's a 20GB IDE WD drive, it's also about to die. Everytime I turn my PC on, it makes clicking noises for a 10-15 seconds and then goes back to the normal whining noise it usually makes.

I never buy WD hard drives now, I only use Seagate and also Samsung drives. I have used Hitachi hard drives and they are good too. I've had good luck with my 40Gb IBM Deskstar also, there hasn't been any issues with it yet.

[Junk Parts]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

I have a three year old WD 7200rpm 40 Gig IDE in my junk, and a new WD 80 Gig 7200rpm IDE in the wifes junk too. Her first new WD lasted a month then just went away as yours did. It was replaced by WD with a new one. No problems so far. In the past I have put many WD drive in the trash bin. Quantums also ride the magic trash bin here often too. I did learn that with some of the WD drives its best to use the drive setup disk that comes with them. Both of the 80 gigs were slow as hell until first being setup with the WD utillity. I don't know why. All in all I don't think WD makes the cut these days. I have used Maxtors with good luck for the most part in the past. I have had two maxtor failures and these drives were in the four to five year old range. I was able to boot these drives as slaves, and recover the customers personal data. Sorry but with the cost cutting going today we are lucky is any of this crap we buy works at all. I wonder if these WD drives are being made in China now?

[PedroDaGr8]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Sorry for ranting!
Damn, I just discovered a "D" data drive in one of my PCs had shit-canned itself 4 days ago. I tried to access it over my network via VNC and kept erring.
Viewing the logs, it never booted up when I powered up the PC. No warning, no reason. Worked fine up to now, and used sparingly. The only suspect item was that Power Saving setting under Windoze was set to spin down drives after 15 min. to save power and reduce heat.
It was a WD 40 GB PATA factory replacement almost 2 years old. So it's a refurb.
It was fully packed with videos...WRC, MotoGP, F1, TouringCar of which I haven't watched yet. DAMN!

I can't figure out what killed it. Never saw SMART warnings, transfered Gigs off it a week before. Wasn't even running hot since it's not spinning.
Just cold boot dead.
Must be due to it being a WD POS refurb. It's only a 40GB, but I hate the loss of data without warning.
Sadly, I still have (2) 80, an older 120, and a WD rebadged 160 GB. Haven't had a WD failure until now...actually a HDD failure until now. Guess I'm no longer a virgin.

I've seen IBMs, Maxtors, WDs fail (none of my own). Too many Maxtor failures to ever buy another one.
I was about to order a WD 400 GB SATA, now I'm leary.

That only leaves Seagate. I only have one that I bought this year...so that isn't enough to go on to draw any conclusions. So far it's good, but I have noticed its (SMART) temps have risen since new. And this is with a dedicated 80mm fan cooling it.

What's the worst brand you guys have come across failure wise?

I guess I'll try the freezer trick on the WD, nothing to lose now.

Don't forget Samsung, I love their drives, quiet and fast.

[willawake]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Quantums also ride the magic trash bin here often too.

bwahahaha quantum is owning the magic trash bin

[kc8adu]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

i see a ton of bad maxtors with wd in second place.
does that wd spin?is it clicking?
unless the heads and platters ground up i can get the data from most with a board swap or head stack swap.
dont overlook the stupid shit.
had a customer bring in a wd for data recovery.3 shops told him it was hopeless.
set the jumper for the recovery board and fired it up.
nothing wrong or intermittant?
recovered everything before powering off.customer comes in and i ask how it was configured in his box.
he said only 1 drive in system.no opticals either(drive was from a cnc machine)
when it came in jumper was on master.wd drives use no jumper for single drive.
who moved it?his wannabe pc tech.
real issue was a bad psu.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Knock on wood, I've had two 320GB WD's in my NAS bought new over a year ago, still going strong. Also have a 320GB Seagate.

Maxtors I am scared of. I have a stack of about 30 dead Fireball 3 and a few Fireball CX. Seen a few dead WD's, but nowhere near the amount of Maxtor. I do have a WD800 80GB that runs but is very slow and has a ton of bad sectors.

Ironically I've had two 160GB Maxtors in my main PC for years and they still work fine. Maybe the quality of the PSU and the amount of cooling affects it.

I am scared of Hitachi also, since they are just rebadged IBM's for the most part, and after the 75GXP series I don't want to go back. Also bought a new 30GB travelstar for my laptop years ago, and it always made random clicking noises. Now I have a Samsung 160GB in my lappy and it's great

Overall the most reliable drives I've seen are probably Samsung and Seagate.

[linuxguru]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

The real issue is bad PSUs, especially the quality of the +12v rail. Even the so-called IBM 60GXP and 75GXP 'Death Stars' have very low failure rates with good IBM (Delta OEM) PSUs. All four of my 60GXPs purchased new in 2000 are still functional, though one has some bad sectors. In systems powered by Deer or Powmax PSUs, the story is very different. High ripple on +12v is definitely one cause of failure, aggravated by poor cooling.

For notebooks, the Seagate Momentus 5400.2 and 5400.3 are very good - I haven't had a chance to try out the 7200 series yet.

[Newbie2]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

In 2003, I had a Seagate 60GB ST360012A PATA hard drive in a then-new HP Pavilion 514n PC, and that Seagate hard drive crashed. I was unprepared for a hard drive crash at that time, so I lost a lot of data.

Got the hard drive replaced under warranty, same Seagate hard drive. It has been transferred to 2 PCs (my current main PC, then my backup PC), and its still going strong.

The POS PSU in my old HP Pavilion was a Bestec PS3-size 200W power supply. This info might support linuxguru's theory about having a POS PSU along with a HD.

[Topcat]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Fujitsu or bust!

[starfury1]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

yeah it does raise an interesting point
Re the PSU HDD relationship

"How often is a crap supply responsible for the demise (or early demise) of the HDD"
or guess the other side is "How well a HDD can handle a crap PSU"

Thank you all too for adding to the post

[WNG]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

How strange is that!?! The original WD 40 GB came from a HP Pavilion 514! It slowly began to die with longer boot times and finally SMART warnings.
I better go back and inspect that PC and confirm the BESTEC PSU. I have a few spares I can swap in for the owner.
I retrurned the dead drive and got this one. I will assume my PSU wasn't the culprit. It's a 250W Delta.

Heat may have been the issue, although the environment isn't hot, with an intake fan right beneath it. It's cool enough in there to sustain a slimline 30GB Maxtor. And those have one of the worst reps. That OS drive is backed up accordingly.

It's true, with so many drives in so many boxes, backing up all becomes almost impossible. This one wasn't backed up as it was only video downloads and I assumed I'd be watching then deleting each file.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I did forget Samsung, I have an old 20 GB that's still going after 9 years. No more WD for me.

[acstech]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

Don't forget Samsung, I love their drives, quiet and fast.

QFT!!!

The worst I've seen, and it was probably already mentioned, was the IBM Deskstar series. Every ****** one of them I knew about failed. Knock knock knock... ping ping... knock knock knock... ping ping...

I've seen quite a few WD's fail too. Back in the day everyone used to say how wonderful they were. I dont see where they're any better than average. I did see one in a Dell recently though, where a bad cap in the PSU obviously caused the hard drive to crash. Fortunately the rest of the system was ok, and with a new HD and recapping on the PSU it went on it's merry way.

[pentium]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

In my lifetime I have only seen one maxtor drive fail me. Every other maxtor I have used were either slow or rock solid. I had one IBM drive go in my old mac SE but I think it was because I improperly installed it.
As a matter of fact I have had more apple hard drives die than regular pc drives.
Moving back to WD, I have NEVER seen one of their drives go bad unless you were really careless. and I have never had a seagate fail. My ST-225 is still purring along.

[PedroDaGr8]

Re: #$%*!@ WD HD crap!

I am scared of Hitachi also, since they are just rebadged IBM's for the most part, and after the 75GXP series I don't want to go back.

Overall the most reliable drives I've seen are probably Samsung and Seagate.

Modern hitachis have nothing to do with IBM and haven't since not long after they took over IBMs DeathStar. THey were smart enough to realize that it was a POS and redesigned it from the ground up. Unfortunately, they still carry this stigma.