Maxtor drive goes under - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

16 Jan 2003

After the experiences my company has using Dell desktops with Maxtor drives,
as well as some personal experiences (below) I wouldn't have either a Dell
computer *or* a Maxtor drive anywhere near my personal system.  

Dells today are the "Acer's" and "Packard Bells" of the current
day - cheap,
not easily expandable, and quick to wear out.  And here, we're replacing
Maxtor drives daily.

OTOH, the oldest drive in my home network, now revered and used as a zip
file storage drive,  is a WD 720 "Caviar."  That 720MB drive, small by
current day standards, survived a house fire last year that melted the case
it lived in.  The frame, all the drives (3), and even my "ancient" AMD
450Mhz CPU chip survived.  The box, however, is slag.  I think I'll stay
with WD.  

My current home *custom built) system boasts an AMD 1.1Ghz chip, 1 WD 8Gb
system drive, 2 WD 80GB personal account (6 family members) and application
drives, and the 1 old WD as a storage drive (aren't Promise cards
wonderful?!).

Cheers!

Ed Tillman
Store Automation Tech Support Specialist
Valero Energy Corporation
San Antonio, TX; USA
Phone (210) 592-3110, Fax (210) 592-2048
edward.tillman(a)valero.com <mailto:edward.tillman@valero.com>

...
   -----Original Message-----
 From: 	cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org@PEUSA   On Behalf Of "J.C.Wren"
 &lt;jcwren(a)jcwren.com&gt;
 Sent:	Wednesday, January 15, 2003 11:51 PM
 To:	cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject:	RE: Maxtor drive goes under

 	All drive manufacturers have particular models that have had
 problems.  For
 instance, you'd have to pay me a damn lot of money to stick anything that
 says "Western Digital" in my systems.  I've been running Maxtors for
 years,
 and I recently had a 60GB D740X toast itself.  First time ever.  OTOH,
 I've
 had WDs belly-up left and right.  I used to be a big fan of IBM drives,
 until the DeathStar 60GXP and 75GXP debacle.

 	www.storagereview.com is a good place to get comparisons of HDs.
 And you
 can contribute your experiences to the database.  The database covers a
 lot
 of drives, but was initially started because of the 60GXP and 75GXPs.  IBM
 was claiming there was no problem, the rest of the world proved them
 horribly wrong.

 	Personally, I'll stick with Maxtors.  I've got 10 Maxtors HDs
 currently
 spinning here (ranging from 27GB 5400 RPM to 80GB 7200 RPM drives), and
 this
 D740X is the first bad one.  And Maxtor has (or had) a damn good warranty.
 There's been some talk about Maxtor and WD going from 3 year warranties to
 1
 year.  Something about getting too expensive, since HDs rarely stay in
 service 3 years (in the real world.  Don't start talking here about how
 we're all still running drives from the '70's yada yada yada.  We're not
a
 real cross section of the market).

 	--John

  -----Original Message-----
 From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org
 [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]On
 Behalf Of Cameron Kaiser
 Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 00:34
 To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject: OT: Maxtor drive goes under

 I believe Sellam was cursing at a Maxtor drive a couple
 months back, and
 now I know why.

 The 60GB ATA/133 DiamondStar in my Power Mac 7300 (connected
 through a Sonnet
 Tempo Trio) this evening made several hiccup-like noises and
 the computer
 froze up. On the next power cycle, it didn't spin up and just
 sat there and
 clicked. I suspected stiction (well, I prayed it was
 stiction) and tried
 reorienting it and a few gentle taps. On the next power
 cycle, it didn't even
 click anymore and made occasional soft grinding noises, and
 now it doesn't
 even do that.

 So, I'm typing this on my Power Book 1400, which I guess will
 be my desktop
 system for the time being.

 Any suggestions for ways to get it to spin up, one last time?
 Anyone know
 what happened? I thought it had been a power problem because
 it made some
 sounds like this a few weeks ago and replacing the power
 cable did seem to
 cure it, but I'm mystified as to why it would die so fast.
 The drive was not
 especially hot and it has plenty of ventilation.

 I guarantee you my next drive will not be a Maxtor.

 Sorry for the OT -- just looking for any desperation
 suggestions before I
 make a new hard drive platter wall clock.

 --
 ----------------------------- personal page:
 http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
  Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University *
 ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
 -- Son, God's going to use you. Until He does, take this
 pill. -- Mark Lowry --  