CompressorX

So my Maxtor 250GB just died so im left with a samsung 120GB HDD only ..
Im going to buy a new HDD tomorow so what do you recommend :
1.Samsung
2.Western Digital
3.Maxtor
4.Something else ?

I dont like maxtor since thats the second one that died on me and they make a lot of noise while samsung (old as the dead maxtor) hasnt made a sound yet.
Never had a WD or any other HDD so please recommend what you think is best.

Thanks

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temeteus82

I would say that Seagate or WD. They both make good hdd's in my books. I have two Seagates SATA Barracudas and they have served me well. And they got 5 years of warranty.

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CompressorX

Thx man

Ill check out what they have tommorow and decide than but it will surely be one of those two you have mentioned

Thx again

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RoyBatty

I have a Maxtor 250 GB (6B250S0) too. What model was yours and were there any symptoms before it died?

mkk

I'd recommend the Samsung SpinPoint T166 HD501LJ (500GB) for it's superb price/performance/noise value. It doesn't make much sense to buy a smaller drive today but if you're on a strict budget the 320GB HD321KJ should perform similarly.

CDsDontBurn

i would say WD or Seagate. I find both brand of drives to be very good for their performance and space to price ratio.

however, the only thing i've heard bad about Seagate is that their customer service blows monkey balls. i don't know if that would be a deciding factor for you. haven't heard anything about WD's customer service though.

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Judas

I'm thoroughly impressed with seagates 7200.11 series hardrives, extremely fast, extremely queit.... the works

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CompressorX

I dont know the (*******) number if thats what you mean and its already gone from my hands (to the dumpster) .. It was Maxtor 250GB 7200 8MB ATA/133.

The symptoms were :
1.Windows runs Check Disk by itself after reboot and writes out a lot of stuff about "recovered orphaned file" etc.
2.Couldnt run boot time defragmentation . It goes up to 9% and boots up xp.
3.Some archives that were not corrupted the day before yesterday were corrupted yesterday ("corrupted or incomplete").

After all that it worked a little while longer and than after reboot .. disk boot failure. Thank god iv kept all my music/images on this samsung hdd but still i had to delete whole "setup" with all the programs and some pictures from the partition where my system is now but no big deal

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CDsDontBurn

did you ever try to do a low-level format on this drive before tossing it?

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Judas

yeah... download the seatools from seagate... try doing a low level format (write 0's to entire drive)... this CAN in some cases, resolve the issues and basically make the hardrive pretty much new.... after a low level format, run a thorough full check using the same tool.

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CompressorX

Pf.. no i didnt blah do i feel dumb now ...............................
I wasnt even aware that there was such a tool.. pf......

Tossing it was probably the dumbest thing i could have done without asking around if something could be done.. Does that low - level format by any chance fix bad sectors ?

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Judas

theres a chance....

if there is any physical damage at all though, no..... but of course with physical damage.. typically you get a whole lot more issues usually...

only one way to find out and it's to try it... some people have gotten lucky.

i know i did with one hardrive i came across, someone had disconnected it in a machine i had in, they said to take it out and throw it away or do whatever i wanted with it. They said it was barely used and didn't ever seem to work right.

plugged it in, updated the firmware on it, did a low lvl format... and then turned around and sold the drive as 2nd hand. 80gb sataI for free..... can't complain. And yes, i loaded windows on it and used it in my main rig for a good period of time to make sure it was working.... so far there has been no complaints from the buyer

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CompressorX

Ok thanks once again to everyone .. i gues iv learned my lesson and wont just toss stuff out when they stop working .. i just lost me some money by tossing that HDD , that is if it was fixable , but i gues ill never know As they say nothing hurts more than humiliaton and a little money loss

Anyhow thanks once again guys

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PangingJr

for something like this, there is nothing to be humiliated about, since it's your first about this problem, you have learnt something new from it, and that's about it.

Judas

you'd be serprised how many times i've turned around and regretted what i had done.... if only if i knew then what i learned and now know now...

humilation... no.... now doing it twice...

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PangingJr

lol Judas

procupine14

I love my Samsungs at first when i bought them i was skeptical....but to be honest my WD caviar (main OS drive) makes more noise than my samsungs and that WD cost me quite a bit more money. (Basically My Samsung drives have never made a sound while the WD thats the same age (1 year) is clunking away

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HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU

GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU

Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

CompressorX

Thanks again guys

I went out this morning and since there were no samsungs or seagates got a WD Caviar 400GB 8MB 7200rpm for a little over 100e. Only other options was to wait a week for a samsung or seagate or get a maxtor or some hitachi or something like that

Anyhow thanks once again to everyone

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CompressorX

One more question guys ..

Is there a tool like this seatool for WD and/or samsung ?

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temeteus82

yeah there should be. look WD's and samsung's sites

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CompressorX

Found nothing on samsung site but i found some lifeguard on WD site and found an article on wikipedia about it but theres nowhere even a mention of low-level format so im not sure if thats it.

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procupine14

i say just use the one from seagate if you can

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HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU

GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU

Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

jp306

You can do a low level format with the WD lifeguard boot disk. I think they call it writing 0's to the drive, rather than a low level format.

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"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."
Rodney Dangerfield.

CompressorX

Thanks jp306

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jp306

You're Welcome...I'm glad I could help

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"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."
Rodney Dangerfield.