Just received an RMA'ed HDD from Maxtor, dead within 4 hours.

[brinstar117]

Good day fellow AnandTech'ers!


I'm usually quite satisfied with Maxtor's RMA process, it's usually quick and easy to do.

This time it took a bit longer than usual (a little over a week, no big deal though), and this time I received a refurbished drive. I figured that it should be alright, since it has been certified and meets Maxtor's specifications. (I have RMA'ed drives to Maxtor twice before and received brand new drives of the same respective models)

I installed it into my file server. Specs are as follows:

Windows 2000 Server - service pack 3
P3 800EB
Asus CUSL2 rev 1.02
Onboard video
PC133 512MB
Enermax 351 Watt PS
Linksys 10/100

30GB Quantum Fireball LM (primary master, OS and storage)
120GB Maxtor D540X (primary slave, storage)

60GB Maxtor DiamondMax 60 (secondary master, storage) <---- RMA'ed drive
120GB Western Digital 1200JB (secondary slave, storage)


I installed the RMA'ed drive into my system (taking note of all precautions, kept myself grounded, had the machine unplugged, didn't jar anything around) and when I booted up, the OS detected a new HDD and I made it a dynamic disk, created a single partition for the whole capacity, and then formated it with NTFS with default cluster size, I did all of this through the disk manager. The system prompted to reboot, so I did so.

The Win2k loaded up again and the drive appeared in My Computer, however there were no capacities listed for it. I tried accessing it, and it said that I need to format the drive (I found this quite odd since I did it already the first time). So I quick formatted the drive with NTFS and rebooted my machine again. However, I had an appointment to keep and I got up and didn't come back for 4 hours.

When I came back and got on to the desktop error messages appeared, it said that the data on certain volumes were inaccessible and that they may have been lost. (the message was referring to drives on my secondary channel, where the RMA'ed drive was on) I shut down the computer and plugged in each drive one at a time inbetween powering up to see if the BIOS could detect them. The BIOS detected all drives except for the RMA'ed drive.

Next, I tried putting the RMA'ed drive by itself on seperate channels (changing jumper settings accordingly of course), however it was to no avail. The RMA'ed drive was not recognized no matter what I tried.

I have never had a hard drive die on me so quickly. (all my drives are actively cooled, and spin down when not in use). I'm just looking for input for what else I can do. I just hope that I don't have to waste time and eat more shipping costs because the drive that Maxtor sent me didn't work properly.

 

[Duvie]

Tough luck....I would have to say of late I have not been happy with some of the old school harddrive manufacturers....I mean if you told me 1-1/2 years ago that IBM would go to crap like it did and maxtor was starting to suck in comparison to WD and Seagate I would have said no way!!!! however WD has been the best HDD I have bought recently....very happy with them and less so with my 2 Maxtor drives...I actually going to sell those and get some more 40gig WD drives....

 

[Paulson]

Well, I've had to RMA 2 western digitals (a 40 gig and a 60 gig) and both didn't die on me right away (could back up my stuff) but had errors... well, the 2 that I got back run a lot better than the original, and I now have a 120 gig in my server...

I think western digital is on top of their game, although I did have a maxtor that lasted like 2 years with heavy usage, but that went to somebody with an old pc (lol)

oh well, I also liked quantum.. I've got 2 old school ones (6.4 and 2.5 gig) and they work great

I don't know, you just get lucky or you don't, and that's the case with them all except IBM...

 

[EKAtBzboyz]

well stuff happens

my maxtor 40gb is somewhat dying
sometimes after a cold boot it wont detect for quite a while, all i have to do is let it warm up i guess and badda bing badda boom it works lol

maybe its the same story with you
just let it sit with power to it for a while and then try (at least 20-30 restarts, it took mine that long once lol)

...i really should look into rma for my drive too lol

 

[teerex20]

I bought a 120gig WD,and it was doa right out of the box![click,click].I rma'ed it Oct 1.,i just got it back
Nov.1st!.1 whole month,and then it's a refurbished one none the less.Previous returned maxtors usually died within 5 months of getting rma's back.I know your pain.

 

[manko]

I got two 60gb/5400rpm WDs last fall. One died after 3 or 4 days. The second one died within 6 months, then I got a refurb back after I RMA-ed it. In the meantime, I replaced it with a Maxtor, but I'm afraid to use the refurbed WD for anything but secondary backup.

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: manko
I got two 60gb/5400rpm WDs last fall. One died after 3 or 4 days. The second one died within 6 months, then I got a refurb back after I RMA-ed it. In the meantime, I replaced it with a Maxtor, but I'm afraid to use the refurbed WD for anything but secondary backup.

I actually use my refurbed 60 gig drive as the main storage drive (yes I back up of course) and haven't had any problems what so ever...

I think the refurbs actually work better (go figure)

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: teerex20
I bought a 120gig WD,and it was doa right out of the box![click,click].I rma'ed it Oct 1.,i just got it back
Nov.1st!.1 whole month,and then it's a refurbished one none the less.Previous returned maxtors usually died within 5 months of getting rma's back.I know your pain.

A whole month? Wow, I had to RMA a drive to WD once (think it might have actually been my PSU unfortunately) and I had the new drive in a few days. I did the deal where you give them a credit card number and they send the drive right away; you install it, and send them the dead drive in the packaging they sent the replacement in. Yeah the replacement drive I got is refurbished, but it's still working perfectly to this day.

As for faulty hardware, there's the story I often tell of how I got 2 dead KT7's in a row from 2 different vendors. Bad IDE controllers - cost me 700MB of data lost to corruption - the file was still there, but it was empty. Finally got the replacements, one from the vendor, the other from Abit. They worked - quite well too.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: teerex20
I bought a 120gig WD,and it was doa right out of the box![click,click].I rma'ed it Oct 1.,i just got it back
Nov.1st!.1 whole month,and then it's a refurbished one none the less.Previous returned maxtors usually died within 5 months of getting rma's back.I know your pain.

Just out of curiosity, if you bought the drive new, which I'm assuming you did since you mentioned "a box", and it was DOA, why didn't you return it where you bought it for a new one?

 

[RanDum72]

Unless there's a pattern established (like the IBM 75GXP's), harddrives regardless of brand will fail. Some will die earlier than others. I got a WD 40gig drive from Newegg since a friend I'm building a PC for insisted on it. It started to die within two hrs. after installing WinXP, first by making loud noises and after that, it just 'disappeared' from the IDE channel. The replacement drive from Newegg died exactly the same way. So this time, I RMA'ed it to WD and guess what? It lasted a few hours longer and it suffered the same fate! All have different serial numbers so they are different drives. I RMA'ed it again to WD and the new one has been running since almost a month ago (crosses fingers). I also experienced the same thing with two retail Maxtor drives from CompUSA. I never had problems with retail Maxtors before and it was quite shocking. Their replacements, however, seem to be solid and have been reliable so far.