My HD really dead?

dipstick · Jul 25, 2004, 08:24 PM

Okay, I'm running a single WD 160GB sata drive as a storage drive. Now sometimes when I go to access/copy/move a file it sometimes feezes up. I run scandisk, format, even low level format it and all seems good(except for a weird slowdown when formatting at about 65%). But I decided to run the WD utilities and when I choose to run the tests it stops immediately with the error: A few tests are below threshhold error level or something. Anyone have any ideas? I know I'm probably going to have to rma but I'm always up for a way to save the trouble if possible.
Thx

pr0digal jenius · Jul 25, 2004, 09:47 PM

run partition magic 8 and scan it for errors...if itduznt find anything and see if ti can correct them, also, try leaving the 1st and last 100MBs unformatted as a lot of time it is the edges of the platter that mess up 1st, so in PM8 you would format and partition in, but leave maybe 50-100MBs on each end RAW

dipstick · Jul 25, 2004, 10:14 PM

Thanks, tried PM8 but it freezes up on it. I will just have to rma it I guess. First HD to die on me

Necrosis · Jul 25, 2004, 10:21 PM

I feel kinda stupid asking this but you did try another cable? One of my drives would freeze up/ disappear but it only the SATA cable.

dipstick · Jul 25, 2004, 10:28 PM

Yep, one of the first things I did. Also tried different sata channel and another controller. But since WD diagnostics sees errors it must be toast.
Thanks

dipstick · Aug 12, 2004, 01:43 PM

Got a new replacement from newegg and it's worse lol. All I hear is the heads hitting something very-very loudly along with constant gargling noises. Never had a problem with the many WD drives I've had but maybe its time to look else where

Zelig · Aug 12, 2004, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dipstick

Got a new replacement from newegg and it's worse lol. All I hear is the heads hitting something very-very loudly along with constant gargling noises. Never had a problem with the many WD drives I've had but maybe its time to look else where

I wouldn't turn away from WD because of this, though if you wanted to try a different manufacturer, go ahead.

All hard drives by different manufacturers are pretty much equal in overall reliability, other than those with obvious design problems, such as some of the later IBM (not Hitachi) drives.

dipstick · Aug 12, 2004, 02:47 PM

Well, I can only replace this one with one of the same kind but to get two sealed defective drives is weird. Maybe newegg got a bad batch or its just getting kicked around too much during shipping. WD has never let me down before so it might just be my extremely bad luck with hardware this past few weeks..

Malus · Aug 12, 2004, 06:23 PM

My SATA Seagate drive has done me no wrong, maybe you could try that?

If you have to RMA more than once, it probably isn't worth it to keep trying to use that type of drive.

pr0digal jenius · Aug 12, 2004, 07:05 PM

i also am a seagate man

but on the other hand...my friend has 4 WD drives that give him no problems, and he had 2 in his old box as well...who knows

Zelig · Aug 12, 2004, 07:56 PM

I've seen about an equal number of defective drives from all manufacturers, except Samsung and Fujitsu... Samsung, I haven't seen many drives of, and Fujitsu stopped making consumer level drives.

My own drives are mostly WD, but I'm going to be buying Hitachi in the foreseeable future.

dipstick · Aug 12, 2004, 08:04 PM

I've heard nothing but good things about Hitachi and Seagate but I can only exchange for another of the same drive, newegg wont let me get another brand(they wont even let me get a refund but they do state this before you even buy the drive). Also I have to say that I have three of these drives and the two running in Raid have never given me any issues so they dont seem like bad drives overall, plus they're all sexy black lol. Hopefully the third one works

Thx

Vampyromaniac · Aug 12, 2004, 08:25 PM

can you RMA with Western Digital themselves?

No_Style · Aug 12, 2004, 09:34 PM

LOL DUDE... What are you doing to your PCs?!

Anyways, I'd try to get replacement drive, but a different manufacturer. I personally dislike Western Digital after my experiences with their drives

My first 60 GB from them died within a year and the "refurbed" replacement died within a month! I demanded a Maxtor replacement from the vendor and...well... here I am still cruising

*KNOCK ON WOOD*

dipstick · Aug 12, 2004, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyromaniac

can you RMA with Western Digital themselves?

I would but they'd just give me a used one whereas with newegg I get brand new sealed drives and they are very fast with the RMAs.

No_Style, what can I say? Someone's put a curse on me or something lol

Vampyromaniac · Aug 12, 2004, 09:54 PM

ah

swimtech · Aug 12, 2004, 10:08 PM

I hope Newegg is picking up the shipping charges on those RMA's since they won't let you get a refund...

I've used WD and Seagate and Maxtor - good experience with all of them.

Hope the third time for you is charmed...

dipstick · Aug 12, 2004, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by swimtech

I hope Newegg is picking up the shipping charges on those RMA's since they won't let you get a refund...

I've used WD and Seagate and Maxtor - good experience with all of them.

Hope the third time for you is charmed...

I only have to pay the shipping to them which is about $6, they cover the return shipping. But they do give fair warning before you buy the drive that you can only exchange it. I think its because its an OEM drive and not a full retail package. I too hope this will be the last lol

Jul 25, 2004, 08:24 PM	#1
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	My HD really dead? Okay, I'm running a single WD 160GB sata drive as a storage drive. Now sometimes when I go to access/copy/move a file it sometimes feezes up. I run scandisk, format, even low level format it and all seems good(except for a weird slowdown when formatting at about 65%). But I decided to run the WD utilities and when I choose to run the tests it stops immediately with the error: A few tests are below threshhold error level or something. Anyone have any ideas? I know I'm probably going to have to rma but I'm always up for a way to save the trouble if possible. Thx

Aug 12, 2004, 06:23 PM	#9
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	My SATA Seagate drive has done me no wrong, maybe you could try that? If you have to RMA more than once, it probably isn't worth it to keep trying to use that type of drive. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

Aug 12, 2004, 08:25 PM	#13
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	can you RMA with Western Digital themselves? __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Aug 12, 2004, 09:34 PM	#14
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Dipstick... You again?! LOL DUDE... What are you doing to your PCs?! Anyways, I'd try to get replacement drive, but a different manufacturer. I personally dislike Western Digital after my experiences with their drives My first 60 GB from them died within a year and the "refurbed" replacement died within a month! I demanded a Maxtor replacement from the vendor and...well... here I am still cruising KNOCK ON WOOD __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Aug 12, 2004, 10:08 PM	#17
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	I hope Newegg is picking up the shipping charges on those RMA's since they won't let you get a refund... I've used WD and Seagate and Maxtor - good experience with all of them. Hope the third time for you is charmed... __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Jul 25, 2004, 09:47 PM	#2
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	run partition magic 8 and scan it for errors...if itduznt find anything and see if ti can correct them, also, try leaving the 1st and last 100MBs unformatted as a lot of time it is the edges of the platter that mess up 1st, so in PM8 you would format and partition in, but leave maybe 50-100MBs on each end RAW

Jul 25, 2004, 10:14 PM	Thread Starter #3
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Thanks, tried PM8 but it freezes up on it. I will just have to rma it I guess. First HD to die on me

Jul 25, 2004, 10:21 PM	#4
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	I feel kinda stupid asking this but you did try another cable? One of my drives would freeze up/ disappear but it only the SATA cable.

Jul 25, 2004, 10:28 PM	Thread Starter #5
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Yep, one of the first things I did. Also tried different sata channel and another controller. But since WD diagnostics sees errors it must be toast. Thanks

Aug 12, 2004, 01:43 PM	Thread Starter #6
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Got a new replacement from newegg and it's worse lol. All I hear is the heads hitting something very-very loudly along with constant gargling noises. Never had a problem with the many WD drives I've had but maybe its time to look else where

Aug 12, 2004, 02:47 PM	Thread Starter #8
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Well, I can only replace this one with one of the same kind but to get two sealed defective drives is weird. Maybe newegg got a bad batch or its just getting kicked around too much during shipping. WD has never let me down before so it might just be my extremely bad luck with hardware this past few weeks..

Aug 12, 2004, 07:05 PM	#10
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	i also am a seagate man but on the other hand...my friend has 4 WD drives that give him no problems, and he had 2 in his old box as well...who knows

Aug 12, 2004, 07:56 PM	#11
Zelig HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 3,187 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	I've seen about an equal number of defective drives from all manufacturers, except Samsung and Fujitsu... Samsung, I haven't seen many drives of, and Fujitsu stopped making consumer level drives. My own drives are mostly WD, but I'm going to be buying Hitachi in the foreseeable future.

Aug 12, 2004, 08:04 PM	Thread Starter #12
dipstick HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3,609 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	I've heard nothing but good things about Hitachi and Seagate but I can only exchange for another of the same drive, newegg wont let me get another brand(they wont even let me get a refund but they do state this before you even buy the drive). Also I have to say that I have three of these drives and the two running in Raid have never given me any issues so they dont seem like bad drives overall, plus they're all sexy black lol. Hopefully the third one works Thx

Aug 12, 2004, 09:54 PM	#16
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	ah