***WARNING - BB WD 60gb dying after 4 days

[OS]

kind of funny, every couple of weeks you run into one these "my XXX brand hd is dying" threads. Every single brand dies. IBM, maxtor, WD, seagate, quantum, etc., I've seen all of them die. Just make sure you back up your data, buy from a manufacturer that gives you good support and nothing is lost.

 

[badluck]

el locko

 

[Bob151]

<< You bought a WD. Of course you are going to have a problem with it. Kind of like buying a Yugo and being surprised when something quits working. >>


Right on. I got burned by their 4 and 8 MB drives too many times when I did desktop support years ago and never bought them since. I've not had any of my Maxtors die since 1992. I've been on Maxtors solidly since. Last purchase was the 40GB+USB ZIP combo last thanksgiving at Staples.

Edit: 4 and 8 MB?! thats wrong, infact it was in '96 that I stopped using them. Probably 850MB and 1.2GB drives.

 

[Praxis]

I tend to agree about the shoddy quality of Western Digital hard drives. I have a 853 MB one that just developed its first bad sector today. But the 540 MB Samsung it is paired with is still going strong! I Ghosted them both to CDs just in case they crap out altogether.

Actually, Best Buy has a kind of lousy return policy. I believe it is 30 days or less for some things, though I don't have one of their receipts handy.

WD has a line of budget drives with a 1 year warranty, but the 60 gig BB specials come with the industry standard 3 year warranty. I wouldn't touch the 1 year drives, personally.

 

[RgrPark]

What a stupid post. You make it sounds like every drive bought from BB is going to be defective. So you got a bad drive. That doesn't mean everyone else got a bad drive from BB. LOCK! Definitely NOT a HOT DEAL...more like moan and whine

 

[ucb2001]

I have 3 45 gig 5400 rpm drives from WD. They work great. When I got my 60 gig, I started to have problems transfering data from my drives. It would give me an error "unable to write to drive x: data may be loss" or somthing to that effect. I read the noticed that came with the box, "Win 98/95 have problems with large hd drives" so I installed Win XP and the problems stopped.

 

[BlackNinja]

hmm seems like everyone were b*tching about WD.. well here's another one.. I have 4 broken WD HD sitting right here .. so try to stay away from it.. right now IM using the maxtor 20 GIG and it was older than all 4 of the WD..

 

[Buzzman151]

Why exactly are you warning us???? Just b/c you got ONE that died after 4 days doesn't mean that everyone elses will..... and even if they did.... ITS TOO LATE.... sorry to burst your bubble buddy

 

[grandmasterk]

I have several WD drives:
I have 2 4.6G( both died within a month and were replaced)
I have 1 5.1gb( died within 2 months and was replaced )
I have 1 6.4gb( works fine)
I have 2 X 80gb bought at Frys running in RAID ....2 months, no problems yet.
Also, I have 1 Micropolis and one maxtor 8.4gb( that died 6th months into use)

 

[andrew123]

Is a 5400 RPM 20 gb drive a lot slower than a 7200 RPM? My WD 20 gb 7200 RPM drive just died 2 days ago after over a year, I temporarily put a 20 gb Maxtor 5400 RPM in my comp and it works great, but is it going to be a lot slower than another WD 20 GB I will be getting in the mail? I don't have them side by side to compare. Also, it looks like 7200 RPM drives go defective more easily than 5400 RPMs, is this true?

 

[XFreebie]

i've had a wdc drive die after 8 months, i dont buy wdc anymore.

 

[Stefan2000]

<< (mods please don't lock)

My WD 60gb started clicking just now as I was unraring a large file. It sounds really bad, like it's doing major damage. I did a quick search on google groups and WD's support site. TONS of people report clicking noises just before their drives crap out! After a few weeks or a few months. Some people report replacement drives dying sooner than the first ones.

I already sent in my UPC so I don't think I can exchange at BB, but I'll probably try BB first, then RMA with WD.

This could be a major suck.

search for "clicking" >>



Well, the 60Gb 5400RPm drive I got on sale last week is still in the box. So, I can't really comment on it. However, I have used quite a few Western Digital drives over the years as well as a few Maxtors and I can say that so far I've had very good results with Western digital drives. I've had fairly decent results with maxtors as well although I did have a Maxtor start dying on me last week. Anyway, all harddrives can fail and all harddrive manufactures ocassionally have bad drives. Often these drives have some flaw in them from the beginning. Other times the failure may be the result of the drive being subjected to shock during shipment. Even things like the quality of your power supply can affect harddrive reliability. Anytime somebody has a harddrive fail the very first thing they do is usually log onto the internet and start telling everyone how that particular brand of harddrive is crap and how if they've got one they better be weary. So, you can't put alot of stock into it everytime you see someone on the internet belly aching about how a certain brand of harddrive is so awful because at one point in their lifetime they just happened to get a bad one. As for the comments about replacement drive failing there's a reason for that. It's because Harddrive manufacturers (ALL OF THEM and not just Western digital) generally replace defective drives sent in under warranty with refurbished drive. Now, if you know anything about harddrives you know sometimes they don't just fail outright but instead start to get flakey and have intermittent problems. That means sometimes these flakey drives that are sent back sometimes don't show the problem whenever they test them. So, then they think the drive is okay and just send it back out to someone else as a replacement. That's how these stories of people getting bad drives as replacement drives come about. You should note that this is the way it works with ALL harddrive manufacturers and NOT JUST WESTERN DIGITAL. So, stories like that can happen no matter what brand of harddrive you buy.

As for you returning the drive to bestbuy, I believe you can indeed. It doesn't matter that you sent in for the rebate. You will have 2 choices. You can either get a replacement or you can get a refund less the amount of the rebate. Either way you'll still get the rebate back. That's genreally the way they handle this. Anyway, it's the way they handled it a few years ago when I bought a wintv-d card from them that had a rebate on it. I too had already sent in the UPC code and rebate form. They didn't have anymore of the cards in stock and the one I had was begining to fail. So, they gave me a refund for the amount I paid less the rebate and then I got the rest of my money when the rebate came back. That kinda sucked as I couldn't get a replacement card and had to wait for a rebate for an Item I wound up not even having, but nonetheless I got all the money back in the end. In your situation you may not have this problem as I suspect they may have other drives or maybe they can get some and you can just get a replacement. If it does work out that way you'll actually be lucky that the drive failed sooner rather than later and you were able to return it to bestbuy and get a good one and not have to deal with RMAing it for the reasons I mention earlier. Anyway, i think that will be your best bet. Just take it back to bestbuy and tell them it's defective and you've already sent in the rebate. If they have anymore you can get a replacement. If they don't at least you'll still get your money back. I think returning it to bestbuy is preferable to RMAing it.

 

[splice]

Hah, this is funny stuff.... As if the ones from BB are any different from the ones sold at CompUSA or NewEgg. QC is never going to be 100% for any company. I'm not saying that some aren't better than others, but eventually you are going to buy a bum component.

 

[spdfreak]

Right-So I guess since I have had 2 Maxtors die on me and no problem with any of my 5 WDs, I should assume all Maxtors are crap. Most people think that IBMs are good drives, but they have a class action law suit pending against them for drive failure rates far higher than Maxtor or WD. It all comes down to statistics, and no one here seems to have any except "My (insert manufacturer) died on me, so they are all crap". BTW, I bought 2 of the WD 60G drives, and if they die, I guess I will have to buy Samsung since I will have run out of manufacturers based on my personal extensive statistical data.

 

[chrisbest01]

I don't know about your guys. I been using WDC drive since my first 1+ gig drive over 5-6 years ago. All of them run flawlessly. Only one die on me is the one I dropped on the floor. They had great support, and ez RMA replacement. All of my friends use WDC, and we don't have any problem.

 

[krackato]

I swore off Western Digital after my 30gig drive died 3 times, but $50 for 60gigs? You had to jump on that deal. Besides, I'm sure the vast majority of WD harddrives work fine. Still, it seems it's best to go with IBM or Maxtor and make sure you've got a 3 year warranty. I understand that Maxtor has pretty fast RMA service. Western Digital's RMA service was decent... except they kept sending me broken hard drives.

 

[Stefan2000]

I might add that if you notice some of these people who are making comments about how "bad" Western digital drives are, are talking about 20MB and 1 or 2 GB drives. Obviously those are antiquated drives. So, basically these people managed to get ahold of a bad drive many years ago, just out of random luck, and now all these years later are still bad mouthing Western Digital based on their one bad experience with them. I know how it feels when things like this happen to you and I know that it sucks to have a harddrive die on you. Your not just losing the drive but possibly losing data as well, not to mention going through all the hassle of replacing it and getting your system back up and running, but nonetheless, we have to remember that sometimes there are defective parts that get to the consumer no matter what brand you buy and it does necessarily mean that particular manufacturer is really that bad.

 

[Justincase]

A lot of people have commented on the fact that 'all brands have drives that fail'. Well, of course that's true. But some brands clearly have higher failure rates than others. And Western Digital is right up there at the TOP of the list...just as the Quantum Fireballs were, in their heydey. The tendency to fail is higher among these brands, and somewhat lower on other brands - IBM, Maxtor, etc.

Maxtors, overall, tend to be more reliable drives. Period. Sure, some of us wiill have Maxtors fail at some point, if we use them long enough...but having spoken to a man that has SOLD *and* REPAIRED *and* RECOVERED all kinds of drives over the past 20+ years, he only confirmed what I already knew about WD drives...I tend to trust a man with that amount of personal experience. Glad y'all are happy with your WDs, but when they break down, please post about it in OFF-TOPIC.

Personally - I have NEVER been unable to recover from a problem with any Maxtor drive - or at least to salvage the data and re-format and continue to use it. On the other hand, I have had a WD drive pass away after moderate use (ALL data gone), and a Quantum Atlas drive that died after 5 years usage (ALL data salvaged - Maxtor took over the company, and replaced the drive just before the warranty expired).

If I had a choice of 2 drives with identical specs and one was a WD and the other a Maxtor...I would choose the Maxtor even at TWICE the price any day...wouldn't trust my important data to anything less. Well, maybe certain IBMs, but then I'd need earplugs to go with them noisy lil buggers

 

[localfinesse]

I'll I use are IBM's

 

[Joony]

i didnt open mine yet, gonna stick it in a firewire enclosure...

 

[bizkit]

Please carry this on in the OT forum or Mod Lock this Thread

 

[chexi]

If BB won't take it back or doesn't have a replacement, call Western Digital. Tell them the problem and model number. Give them your credit card number. They will send you out a replacement drive tomorrow. Send back the bad one within 30 days.

I have 2 other 60 gig WD's that I got from Sam's Club earlier this year on the Sam's deal. Both are working fine. I have had 1 WD 20 gig go bad on me, that's how I became familiar with the RMA process. You ususally see it coming by the tell tale signs. Just back up your data or transfer it to a spare drive, and you are all set. Look on the bright side, at least you haven't had the drive long enough to fill it... probably anyway.

 

[Jwyatt]

Hmm...lets see. BB sold probably 10,000+ of those drives in one day. If everyone thats having problems with them posted you would see maybe 50-100? Then compare to the ones that arnt having any problems. Mines working flawlessly, doh guess I should install it to see first though

 

[Sepen]

<< I learned my lesson on Western Digital drives well over 10 years ago, when my WD 20MB drive died after a very short lifespan...I have a very astute friend that has been a dealer for well over 20 years and he tells me that WDs are no better now than they were then...worst brand among the 'big' names. I always go with Maxtors; been using them for 10 years with no regrets.

The post belongs in Brag and Moan, as you know...and will be locked anyway. >>



Well ya see there, to each there own I guess. In the last 6 months I have had two 30gb and one 20gb Maxtors go south on me. Bad luck, probably, bad manufacturing-maybe.

 

[Justincase]

>>>Look on the bright side, at least you haven't had the drive long enough to fill it... probably anyway.<<<

Yeah...unless he/she installed Windows XP on it :Q