How to kill a hard drive for warranty?

[AndrewR]

Ok, now let me explain before people start jumping on me about abusing the warranty. My father had a Maxtor drive in his system which started to exhibit some very odd behavior. His Windows installation started flopping all over the place, and when I told him to run SCANDISK, it found bad sectors in a few places. From what I remember, there was one large section that showed bad sectors and one other one with a smaller area.

Now, I am worried that if I send this one into Maxtor, they will try to argue that it still works (much like monitor manufacturers consider even a group of four dead pixels "within manufacturing limits&quot and is not bad enough for replacement. However, judging from the way it started acting, it's only a matter of time before it dies completely, but I'd rather be assured that it will be replaced than relying on a corporate boob to make an arbitrary decision. The drive is useless right now because I am certainly not relying on it to keep any data since it tanked a couple documents for my father (he bought another -- tax write-off for him, I get the replacement).

Any recommendations? Only other drive I had die on me (Western Digital) was well out of warranty when it just died completely.

 

[medic]

If Scandisk found many problem areas, I would run Maxtors diagnostic utility (on their website) and run the full write test, it will destroy any data so Backup!
It will then give a code so you can RMA it.

 

[AndrewR]

Ah, didn't know they had something like that. Thanks -- I'll try their diagnostic.

 

[Shalmanese]

If you want to kill it, defrag it. copy files every which way and defrag again. repeat until dead

 

[RGN]

I had a drive that I could not nail down what the problems were. The diag software said the drive was fine. I called and spoke to a tech who thought that the problems were bad enough to RMA the drive anyway. Try it. If they refuse, tell them I told you so when the drive finally pukes.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

just tell them it had bad sectors, they will replace it without question. maxtor has awesome cs.

 

[Lore]

Whoa, hold on.

Maxtor won't even question it. You fill out the RMA request online and you get your drive in the mail (if you do the advanced exchange option). I don't know of any drive manufacturer that will bother testing the drive out and contact the customer if it still functions. I know they have a warning - more like a 'hint' - that a lot of times what customers think are signs of death really aren't so the customer should run the Maxtor diag program, but it really doesn't matter.

 

[jamarno]

In addition to Maxtor's own diagnostic, Seagate's SeaTools and IBM's Drive Fitness Test can also be used because they'll work on all brands of drives.
In a few cases, the manufacture's diagnostic cured my problems permanently.

You could just tell Maxtor that the drive sometimes makes a clacking sound because its head arms seem to be hitting something. This is a sign that a chip is failing, but it's almost impossible for the manufacturer to verify that everything is all right.

 

[The Sauce]

Yah, they usually take anything back. But really the best way to <cough> demonstrate <cough> that a computer part is not functioning properly is to shuffle around your carpet in your socks for a while and play with all the jumpers and resistors (just to make sure they are set ok and whatnot).

 

[sharkeeper]

Drag a piece of steel wool across the pcb while it's running! :Q

p.s. make sure the ide (data) cable is NOT connected to the mainboard when you do this!

Cheers!

 

[odog]

5 seconds in the microwave usually works

 

[sharkeeper]

<< 5 seconds in the microwave usually works >>



Yes it most certainly does! However, one must kill the oven QUICK once the magnetron comes on because the components on the pcb will start exploding and small traces will burn from the heavy currents! Too long in the radar range will make the thing look like it took a direct lightning hit or experienced an EMP from a megaton blast!

Cheers!

 

[odog]

<< one must kill the oven QUICK once the magnetron comes on because the components on the pcb will start exploding and small traces will burn from the heavy currents! Too long in the radar range will make the thing look like it took a direct lightning hit or experienced an EMP from a megaton blast! >>

i don't see the problem your suggestion is most likely a safer route.... mine of the other hand is much mroe fun

 

[randypj]

I returned (3) first gen 5400rpm Maxtors just using the codes I got from their diagnostic software. I had no reason to suspect that they were defective (cept the first gens were POS loud). I even told Maxtor that I hadn't had any problems, and suspected that it was the flakin' VIA crape chipset. I sold the replacements to my Dad.

If I wanted to kill one, I'd fully wrap it in something that holds heat in well, and run multiple full surface scans. I sort of did this by accident with a 7200 WD when I was cloning 3 drives and had them rubber banded together....forgetting that the middle one had no air circulation. When I took the band off, the middle drive was too hot to leave my finger on, let alone hold.
--Randy

 

[ucdnam]

Why don't you just shake it virgorously? It will probably misalign the head, cause the click-of-death, and then you can send it in.

 

[dowxp]

or just throw it out the window...

drive over it..

meet mr. water..

 

[Kp99]

I found when having bad sectors, sometimes low level formatting the drive fixes it, because sometimes the OS...scandisk marks the disk area bad when really it isnt...so low level formatting it wipes the drive with zeros...most of the time fixing your bad sectors.

 

[kehi]

Low level formatting finally killed my Wd 13.6 7200 drive the other day. It was making the clacking sound when she finally gave up the goes. I really wish I knew how many times I had fdisk'ed that drive

 

[gogeeta13]

i always like to ruote some power into the IDE pins, or light a smoke bomb on the pcb so it looks like it burned up!