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Hard Drives, who makes good ones?

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  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    wait wait wait...

    Was the system *running* when you attempted that?!

    because that's certainly what it sounds like...
  • lol god no
  • What I think happened was when I unscrewed it I left it on top of my machine & made contact with the metal should have left it on some plastic. Good news is the warranty is still valid for another year.

    Gonna give it one more go then have it ready to send out tommorow.
  • Yeah its gone...tried switching it secondary IDE too but no luck. Its gotta be the drive it sounds like its hitting something, what I don't know.
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    how hard did you set it down? Sounds like it's doomed, though...
  • not to hard...Its only done this once before with the clicking but it detected it. Thought it might be conflicting but neither my cd-rom or the dvd-rw effects it. I also noticed the CMOS time reset itself...weird.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    Um...

    Make sure the IDE cable is in the right way (pin 1 to pin 1) (some cables don't have that nice little tab to align them right) - one time I accidentally reversed it and all the drive did was click. Soon as I reversed it it worked fine.

    --RC
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    You know, that reminds me. I had that happen earlier, but to a CD-ROM Drive. I felt so dumb. :D
  • [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Random Chaos [/i]
    [B]Um...

    Make sure the IDE cable is in the right way (pin 1 to pin 1) (some cables don't have that nice little tab to align them right) - one time I accidentally reversed it and all the drive did was click. Soon as I reversed it it worked fine.

    --RC [/B][/QUOTE] Shit RC I owe ya a drink .:indywink:


    Saved me some money on packaging.



    & the DVD-RW works superbly now i wait 2 months for the rebate. :indymad:
  • RickRick Sector 14 Studios
    I can attest to the quality of the WD Raptor 72 and the Seagate Barracuda (both SATA).

    I agree with avoiding Maxtor. They are using solder-on-gold bonding pads in their headstacks...not a good idea from an electrolytic standpoint.

    Not that I know *anything* about hard drives and how they are made (sic).

    -R.
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    *hugging his new hard drive*

    I love my little SATA barracuda, oh yes I do !!!

    okay, yeah.. its uhmm time for bed.
  • Just thought I'd post my views on this.

    I've noticed that the more space you have on a drive, the more likely it wants to fail. At least for me anyway.

    I've had my 20gb HD for 4 years or so and it's been steady as a rock.

    Personal preference for me has to go to WD because I've owned a 20gb drive from all the other companies and they quit one after another. Not my WD.

    That's just PP and experience remember. ^_~


    -Quigoni
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by The Cabl3 Guy [/i]
    [B]Shit RC I owe ya a drink .:indywink:


    Saved me some money on packaging.



    & the DVD-RW works superbly now i wait 2 months for the rebate. :indymad: [/B][/QUOTE]

    Glad it worked :)
  • What happened was i did put it in reversed before putting the red part opposing the power cord. Just to make sure I got it right I got my litle flashlight & noticed a few of the pins were bent, my snub nose took care of that & walla.
  • An ex-SquidAn ex-Squid Elite Ranger
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by CurZ [/i]
    [B]It's not quite stupid if it works, now is it? [/B][/QUOTE] Only until it [I]stops[/I] working...;)
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    I personally don't see what is wrong with a good surge protector (not the cheapy ones without any protection). While it doesn't stop all line noise it does stop spikes and surges. Thus it protects systems from the most common line problems with the exception of electrical storms and power outages. Electical storms even a battery backup won't save you from. Power outages (which can result in drive damage, but not other computer damage) will be saved by battery backup. Just make sure that your bios isn't set to "auto-restart" your system when power comes back on - that is a good way to have it damaged from surging and noise until the power system stablizes.

    The only protection from electrical storms is to unplug.

    Oh - and underground wiring doesn't help avoid electrical storm surges. As a story: we had lightening hit the gas cap (think manhole cover about 6" diameter connected to a pipe) about 15 feet in front of our house. Somehow the lightening jumped underground to the power system. It fried TVs in the home across the streat and next door on our right. It fried a laser printer next door on our left. We lost nothing (luckily - we had the TV on at the time). But if a computer had been plugged in...it likely would have fried it to.

    --RC
  • Vorlons in my HeadVorlons in my Head The Vorlons told me to.
    Picking a reliable ATA hard drive brand based on personal/percieved/read experience is about as effective as putting a blindfold on and sticking your hand into a stash of several brands and picking one out. The profit margin on IDE drives is EXTREMELY low. That means there is very little quality assurance on any brand and manufacturing costs are kept extremely cheap. Why do you think you can buy such massive sized drives for peanuts? Basically the vast majority of drives that make it to the market ar not even tested prior to being sold. As a matter of fact many of the drives you believe are made by one brand are actually made by another one as was the case of IBM making many of WD's drives a few years ago.
    In the last few years working for several major corporations with hundreds/thousands of PC's I see a LOT of disk failures and trust me no one brand is excempt. IDE drives can fail a lot. One of the biggest cause of failures in HD's is actually shipping damage. Remember the heads of a drive float above the disc in a cushion of air which is fractions of a millimeter. The actuator assembly is very delicate too. Why do you think manufacturers have put so much effort in the last few years into the development of better shock resistance on drives and special bulk packaging for shipping such as the "Seashells". The problem could easily be solved by shipping them individually in huge foam boxes but that would drive shipping costs out the roof and it would reflect on the pricetag. Its very likely that if your drive suffered a failure at some point in its life it was mishandled during shipping.
    The truth is if you want some REAL reliability you will have to go SCSI. Why do you think that even though almost every brand makes scsi drives, yet ALL of them have have near perfect reliability. it shows that every brand has the capability of making quality drives. Its justa matter of cost. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are SCSI. Its beause the primary market of these drives is servers, highend workstations, and in general applications were data integrity is at high stake. They spend a whole lot more money on higher quality manufacturing and parts and each individual sample tends to be tested.
    I remember some time ago in my previous job I got a a questionaire from Compaq/HP (the server supplier for my company at the time) with a shipment of drives asking several questions about shipping, among them asking what we though about having the drives shipped in bulk packaging with less foam protection even though it could possibly compromise the quality. Why did they ask this? Well when recieving 30 drives for a cluster array you'd figure its just a few boxes right? Wrong, when your dealing with critical stuff a bulk pack of a few drives can involve several crates that have to be fork lifted in because the drives are packed in large boxes of foam EACH. This should give you an idea of why the cost differential is so extremely high.
  • Vertigo1Vertigo1 Official Fuzzy Dice of FirstOnes.com
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by CurZ [/i]
    [B]It's not quite stupid if it works, now is it? [/B][/QUOTE]

    Nice of you to nitpick one point and totally ignore the rest. :rolleyes: You're completely missing the point here Curz. Ever hear of the concept of redundancy? Anyone with a lick of business sense will tell you that having something to fall back on is a DAMN good thing. See, what may work for you in Finland won't work for someone else in say....China where line conditions are just a TAD bit different. It gets even better when you factor in the added warranty you get from it (depends on the brand). My four year old APC Back-UPS Office 500VA has a $25,000 lifetime warranty on anything plugged into it. I've seen the newer models with a $30,000 lifetime warranty with twice the battery capacity. For under $100, you can get atleast an 800VA model with the same warranty. There is absolutely no reason (other than lack of funding, obviously) to not have atleast some kind of protection between your computer and the wall socket.
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