#$%*!@ WD HD crap!

[gonzo0815]

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

Well, Maxtors are doing fine with good PSu and good cooling. And they are fast.
Same i think for Hitachi, as IBM fixed the Deatstar problem before Hitachi has taken them over.
I most cases i use Samsung, but from time to time i mix some Hitachi into the bag.
Just to to stray the risk a little, you never know for sure, when things have changed.

[Topcat]

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

I have some IBM SCSI's that are 10yrs old, still cranking along. Seagate was the worst, followed by maxtor. I used to have a big box full of bad maxtor drives, until we took the out and used them for target practice one day. I had a pair of WD raptor SATA's, I was very disappointed in their performance. I parted with them before they could die on me.

[Maxxarcade]

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

Funny how some people have the complete opposite luck of others. I can get pictures of stacks and stacks of dead Maxtors and Quantums

I used to hate Seagate because they were a bit slower than the rest, but I haven't really seen too many quit.

Probably the reason people have seen so many dead WD's, is because there seems to be a lot more of them out there as opposed to the others.

[WNG]

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

Some good news....
the freezer trick worked. It spun up, although inaccessible by the OS, the manufacturer disk tools read the platters.
Ran their diag with no logged results. ?? But rebooting the PC had WinXP accessing it and ran scandisk on it. This repaired the MFT, with some file lost.
But most were readable in explorer. Copying them to C: as I type.
A happy ending to a minor crisis and PITA!

[Maxxarcade]

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

Get what you can off of it, and if it is still going, you can try running HDAT2 and see if it can recover any bad sectors. Then you may be able to get some lost files back.

The freezer trick has saved me before too, but not with a hard drive. Believe it or not, I had a burned data DVD that would only read when cold. Of course it warmed up within 30 seconds of taking it out of the freezer and wiping off the condensation, so I had to make many trips back and forth to the freezer. I then discovered I could sandwich it between two frozen TV dinners on my desk and it would work just as well. I got all the data back, but it took me a few hours

Why the hell would an optical disc read only when cold? I tried 4 different drives, so I know it wasn't that.

[Spacedye69]

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

My 36gb SCSIs are Seagate and my 18gbs are Fujitsu. All still alive. The only drive I've ever had die was a WD. I have a 80gb Maxtor PATA in the family PC that I bought new a few years ago. Not even a bad sector yet(though I'm counting the days untill my luck runs out).

[kc8adu]

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

My 36gb SCSIs are Seagate and my 18gbs are Fujitsu. All still alive. The only drive I've ever had die was a WD. I have a 80gb Maxtor PATA in the family PC that I bought new a few years ago. Not even a bad sector yet(though I'm counting the days untill my luck runs out).

ever look at the smart info?
there is a util on ubcd to do it.
by the time you see the first bad sector the drive is in really bad shape.

[Fizzycapola]

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

I think speedfan or dtemp have hard drive smart reports. If you have data worth anything at all then really are must have tools to warn of failure as long as possible before failure is imminent.

[Maxxarcade]

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

HDAT2 will let you view the whole SMART log. I use it at work all the time.

[WNG]

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

I downloaded and am running HDAT2 now on the WD and a dead Maxtor 120.
Boy, it takes a long time!

Nice app! Let's see what repairs it can do on these paper weights.

[hardwareguy]

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

I buy the WD Caviar RE and Seagate Barracuda ES drives. These seem to live up to their marketing as "enterprise grade".