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Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
4,793
1
0
I had TONS of problems with my Seagate Laptop drive!!! It died, after 1 year!!! It got rrreeeallly slow, so i ran dskchk, too many bad sectors to count, it kept getting bad sectors until it said not enough free space. I'm like WTF. I unplug, plug back in, and then, cannot read disk, press ctrl+alt+del to restart. Over and over and over and over and over. I did the freezer trick, and it worked, but I had to reformat, there goes 2 months of schoolwork down the drain (yeah i know i'm stupid, i didn't back up), and then after installing windows XP, the click of death, and then i restart, and after that, cannot read disk, press ctrl+alt+del to restart. That was about 2 months ago.

EDIT: I can't really blame seagate though, drive went up to 70C, and after I took it out, there was a melted piece of metal. (I was running all sorts of spyware scans, with pressure on the drive, and no ventilation underneath, I learned my lesson)
 

Greg04

Golden Member
Jun 11, 2004
1,224
1
76
Originally posted by: Crescent13
I had TONS of problems with my Seagate Laptop drive!!! It died, after 1 year!!! It got rrreeeallly slow, so i ran dskchk, too many bad sectors to count, it kept getting bad sectors until it said not enough free space. I'm like WTF. I unplug, plug back in, and then, cannot read disk, press ctrl+alt+del to restart. Over and over and over and over and over. I did the freezer trick, and it worked, but I had to reformat, there goes 2 months of schoolwork down the drain (yeah i know i'm stupid, i didn't back up), and then after installing windows XP, the click of death, and then i restart, and after that, cannot read disk, press ctrl+alt+del to restart. That was about 2 months ago.

EDIT: I can't really blame seagate though, drive went up to 70C, and after I took it out, there was a melted piece of metal. (I was running all sorts of spyware scans, with pressure on the drive, and no ventilation underneath, I learned my lesson)

I hate to blame the victim crescent...oh wait, no I don't...you gotta expect problems with heat :) in any drive.

 

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Just goes to show that die hard fanboys are not always right. So stop giving maxtor a bad reputation, they dont deserve it just becase someone else is selling low quality counterfiet drives under their name.
 

Greg04

Golden Member
Jun 11, 2004
1,224
1
76
Originally posted by: Googer
Just goes to show that die hard fanboys are not always right. So stop giving maxtor a bad reputation, they dont deserve it just becase someone else is selling low quality counterfiet drives under their name.

Huh?
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
Originally posted by: Greg04
Called Seagate.

After 4 of 5 of my PATA 300GB drives failed after running hot and clicking like an iomega zip drive, Seagate finally acknowledged that they had a "slight issue" with the chip that is marked "smooth" not running so smooth. It's the smallest chip on the circuit board and has the honor of being the hottest. If it gets really hot, you get a nice error message.

They said to cool the chip using a fan or other means and xfer all the data from the affected drive to another drive. Nice.

Anyhow, all the drives are being RMA'd. Just thought you guys might want a heads up.

The drives I had were the 300GB PATA 7200.8 version.

My purchase date was 10/29/05. I bought them from OUTPOST.com and the full description is

ST3300831A-RK 300GB RTL ULTRA DMA RETAIL KIT

More satisfied customers at Amazon

bad drives

Try the online diagnostic test to see if you are among the lucky

Seagate online test

From StorageReview.com
ugh
According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 is more reliable than 9% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.

For you non-math majors, if you were in the lower 9% in school you probably can't read this.

On the same page you'll see that the 7200.7 is way better (87%)


UPDATE: Today the last one went. Seagate as GOT to be kidding with these things.
On the plus side, you get a 400GB as a replacement (more space to lose data)

the seagate online test only checks if the drives already begun to fail or not ..not if its got the faulty chip right?

oh anyone know the model numbers ofr these drives? so many outpost/frys sales gah.. mines st3300631a-r but thats not listed as a 7200.9 or .8 on storagereview.com hmm

k found it on the seagate website in the baracuda datasheet. i guess its the current one:p so thats what? 7200.10? http://www.seagate.com/products/personal/barracuda.html
 

KamiXkaze

Member
Nov 19, 2004
177
0
0
I've own several Seagates and they are still ticking. Sorry that you went through all of that trouble.

KxK
 

Tiamat

Lifer
Nov 25, 2003
14,068
5
71
My seagate 7200.8 400GB has always made intermittent "churn crackle churn crackle churn noises". Bothers the hell outta me - it does it like every 15 minutes for 10 seconds. It has been relegated to External drive duties now.
 

ncage

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2001
1,608
0
71
i bought my 300GB pata around the same time and never shut my computer down. Its running perfect for me.
 

ncage

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2001
1,608
0
71
You will hear bad things about EVERY HD manufactorer. Look at the reliability score of seagate on www.storagereview.com. Its one of the best. Like there people who BASH maxtor and ive had nothing but good luck from them. Also there are people who BASH hitachi for a error ibm made with one drive a LONG LONG time ago. Actually hitachi is my favorite by far. To tell the truth the only HD maker i don't like is WD. Do i bash them no because its my own opinion but ive had every one i ever bought fail at least once. I have a 100GB drive in one of my systems that failed after 2 months of use but the refurb has been going strong for about 2 years.

Ncage
 

Greg04

Golden Member
Jun 11, 2004
1,224
1
76
Originally posted by: ncage
You will hear bad things about EVERY HD manufactorer. Look at the reliability score of seagate on www.storagereview.com. Its one of the best. Like there people who BASH maxtor and ive had nothing but good luck from them. Also there are people who BASH hitachi for a error ibm made with one drive a LONG LONG time ago. Actually hitachi is my favorite by far. To tell the truth the only HD maker i don't like is WD. Do i bash them no because its my own opinion but ive had every one i ever bought fail at least once. I have a 100GB drive in one of my systems that failed after 2 months of use but the refurb has been going strong for about 2 years.

Ncage

Huh?
From Storage review:

According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 is more reliable than 9% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.

Or were you talking about Seagate in general?

Prior to this fiasco, I have never had a seagate fail since the old 9GB Barracuda.

 

EagleEye

Senior member
Nov 5, 2005
982
0
0
Damn, wish I would have seen this thread earlier. I just bought a ST3300831A-RK 300GB RTL ULTRA DMA RETAIL KIT at outpost.com.

Should I return it? Or just do the online check thing, and if it works, use it.
 

EagleEye

Senior member
Nov 5, 2005
982
0
0
Originally posted by: EagleEye
Damn, wish I would have seen this thread earlier. I just bought a ST3300831A-RK 300GB RTL ULTRA DMA RETAIL KIT at outpost.com.

Should I return it? Or just do the online check thing, and if it works, use it.

What do you guys think?
 

rancherlee

Senior member
Jul 9, 2000
707
18
81
I'm willing to bet there was a bad batch or something and all 5 of his drives are probibly close to each other in serial numbers. bad batches happen to every company at sometime or another.
 

hemiram

Senior member
Mar 16, 2005
629
0
0
My Seagate has no cooling, just what blows around from all the fans in my case and even after a DVD burn where it was cranking away for about an hour, it was about 34 degrees.

Idle temp is 29 C by the case display, 31 accoring to the fan controller thing I used to have before it died (The display CC light went dead about 2 days after warranty expired. .

My last Maxtor (that lasted more than a couple of hours) was pretty hot. You could leave your hand on it forever, but it was ret
 

LED

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,127
0
0
I'm curious to know what PSU the OP is using as voltage flux can destroy HD's...
 

Greg04

Golden Member
Jun 11, 2004
1,224
1
76
Originally posted by: rancherlee
I'm willing to bet there was a bad batch or something and all 5 of his drives are probibly close to each other in serial numbers. bad batches happen to every company at sometime or another.


Nope. The serials aren't even close and the manufacturer date is months apart.
And, you are ignoring the numbers at storagereview that say this drive series is a lemon.
 

Paulson

Elite Member
Feb 27, 2001
10,689
0
0
www.ifixidevices.com
well so far I haven't had any problems with mine, but I'll be on the lookout in the future if it starts acting up...

I've had lots of hard drives over the years and only 3 have failed on me and all of them have been western digitals... (of course I still buy a lot of western digitals but now I'm sticking with seagate)

Everyone's got their favorite brand and everyone has different drives fail, that's just the way it goes.
 

ribbon13

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2005
9,343
0
0
Originally posted by: Auric
Yeah, that's a tad extreme. HDD's are not designed to require active cooling (spec max aboot 60C). I think magnetic fields, electrical discharges, shock, and prolly a few other things are worse enemies than a few degrees above normal ambient temperature.

Originally posted by: johnnqq
strong magnets are much worse than heat for a hard drive...


Derailing the bullsh1t train
 

mutated

Member
Dec 4, 2005
85
0
0
I am about to get -

2x Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm, 500GB, 16MB, S-ATA 300
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm, 120GB, 16MB, S-ATA 300

Any reason to worry about these ones??????????????????????
 

aatf510

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2004
1,811
0
0
I am only aware that the 7200.9 is the absolute slowest 7200rpm newer drives money can buy...
 

Kwad Guy

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 1999
3,478
0
0
I have a Seagate 400GB drive in an external enclosure. It works great most of the time. But the time I tried to an extended write to the disc (basically writing 400GB in one fell swoop), I got the dreaded "delayed write" failure about 2/3 of the way through. All I had to do is wait a little bit and try again and the other 1/3 wrote fine, and the drive hasn't given me any problems since then. I guess it's OK for the type of modest use the drive gets, and from what I've read the "delayed write" problem only manifests itself when the drive gets too hot. But it's still annoying...

Kwad
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,771
7
91
Damn. I have a 250GB 7200.8 SATA drive, and lately I've been getting spontaneous reboots while doing nothing at all, like while I'm sleeping and my PC is idle. I wonder if this has anything to do with the drive, which is my boot/application drive. :(