Maxtor 120GB RMA

[stimpyman77]

Good day everyone..

Today I had an external usb Maxtor 120gb goto the proverbial pisser and die on me. sad thing is this would have been the 4th time I've ever powered it up, just use it to backup data from month to month. Drive stopped being recognized on all my boxes.. can't access any data.. Thank God I am a firm believer in redundancy and had a copy of all the data on another removable drive. In goes the call to Maxtor for the ole express RMA, only took 3 days! This is the second drive from Maxtor that has ever failed me.. in 8+ years and I have 15+ drives so I am not too mad.. but this time I have a problem with the "data" part. Last drive just got some bad sectors so before I rma'd it I directly edited the disk and wiped my information off of it.. this time I can't do that, as I can not get any system to use it, even my Fedora box told me to take a hike.. Should I be worried about sending the drive back to them, as it has "sensitive" financial and legal information on it..? Any way to clean it without opening the case and voiding my RMA?

I know I am just being a little paranoid but I hate the thought of it.. What do you guys think? any concerns?

Thanks !

Stimpyman <-- searches for a STRONG magnet out in the shop

 

[Arcanedeath]

if nothing can rec. the drive their is no way to erase your data w/out voiding your warrenty.

 

[Bad Dude]

Maxtor drives are horrible. I had 3 RMA drives failed 2 days after the warranty ends. I also had one WD failed recently too and it's out of the blue.

 

[magomago]

Depends...if that is your financial information is your financial information worth it enough to say "screw it" and go and buy another drive? Or are you willing to save 60 dollars and let them "have it". though in reality i doubt they would do much with it or even care...but even in that position i would rather bite the bullet of 100 dollars for a new drive then letting have people who i do not know look at it

 

[CraigRT]

maxtor sucks indeed.. but their warranty service is great.... at least they can get their people replacement drives back quickly because they fail so much.

luckily my supplier stopped carying them because they are so crappy... now all I get is Seagate! yay!!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
maxtor sucks indeed.. but their warranty service is great.... at least they can get their people replacement drives back quickly because they fail so much.

luckily my supplier stopped carying them because they are so crappy... now all I get is Seagate! yay!!

And they sent me a 250GB drive to replace a 200GB that I had which developed bad sectors.
But this is also not the first Maxtor drive I've had that's gotten bad sectors within a year of buying it.
I have had WD drives develop bad sectors, but they've usually say something in their SMART output that indicates read or write errors, or reallocated sectors.

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
maxtor sucks indeed.. but their warranty service is great.... at least they can get their people replacement drives back quickly because they fail so much.

luckily my supplier stopped carying them because they are so crappy... now all I get is Seagate! yay!!

I think the only way is to use a degausing magnet,,,, similar to a bulk tape eraser..... But I could be wrong.

 

[dcdomain]

Just to jump in here... I'm also a firm believer of Maxtor drives, I've had plenty of them over the years and this is the first drive in over... 7 or 8 years that has failed on me. I placed it in an external enclosure and lent it to a brother, and when I got it back it was all messed up. So it might have also had to do with how my brother handled the drive.

In any case, I ran Maxtor's utility and it stated the drive was failing. So before sending it back, I decided to do a low level format, and boom, all the bad sectors were fixed and when I ran the utility again, it stated the drive was good. Should I cancel my RMA or continue with it and drop the money on postage so I can be safe rather than sorry?

The drives Maxtor sends out are recertified drives...

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Bad_Dude
Maxtor drives are horrible. I had 3 RMA drives failed 2 days after the warranty ends. I also had one WD failed recently too and it's out of the blue.

You must be hinting segate or a hitachi then.

 

[imported_Phil]

Short of incinerating the platters in a blast furnace, there's no reliable way to guarantee that your data is gone.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Short of incinerating the platters in a blast furnace, there's no reliable way to guarantee that your data is gone.

Here's a sure way to make certain your data can't be acessed. Link.

 

[Freeder]

I had my Maxtor 250 GB External OneTouch crapped out on me too. Although the RMA service was fast, I lost all my precious animes/movies on that drive--pissed me the hell off because I only had that drive for just over three months. I'm planning to sell this RMA'ed drive on ebay and just backup on DVD+Rs from now on.

BTW hitachis are crap. I've used them, I had to return two of them back. Each time when they failed on me they start to "click-click-click..." to no end. On the shelf of Frys they have rows upon rows of returned hitachis--says something huh?

 

[Manzelle]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
maxtor sucks indeed.. but their warranty service is great.... at least they can get their people replacement drives back quickly because they fail so much.

luckily my supplier stopped carying them because they are so crappy... now all I get is Seagate! yay!!

I have never had a Maxtor drive crap out on me...

I did buy a 60GB WD drive a long time ago and it died like two weeks afterwards...it was brand new too; that sucked...

 

[Texun]

I would agree with what magomago said and ask yourself what it would cost to have piece of mind. If you can't be assured of total data removal and are still bothered by it, then cut your losses and get a new drive.

Regarding the crappy reputation that Maxtor has with some users, it is important to take a second and look at the market share that a drive manufacture has, or at least guess at it. Maxtor has been pouring out product like an M&amp;M machine over the past few years, so it is a safe bet that there are millions in use out there which increases the odds that when a drive fails it will be made by someone who has a strong presence in the market.

I have used several Maxtors over the years with no problem, but among some of the higher regarded drives like Seagates my luck has been abysmal. Three out of FIVE Seagates were either DOA or lasted no more than 7 months. I still think Seagate makes a good drive, they just never made a good one for me.

I moved from Maxtor back when they dropped the warranty to one year. Since then I have had decent luck with WD, although mine had gotten louder over time. I am currently using Samsung drives now, and while they may not be the fastest drive on the block, the ones I have are slicker than snot on a door knob and super quiet.

 

[dcdomain]

Originally posted by: Freeder
I had my Maxtor 250 GB External OneTouch crapped out on me too. Although the RMA service was fast, I lost all my precious animes/movies on that drive--pissed me the hell off because I only had that drive for just over three months. I'm planning to sell this RMA'ed drive on ebay and just backup on DVD+Rs from now on.

BTW hitachis are crap. I've used them, I had to return two of them back. Each time when they failed on me they start to "click-click-click..." to no end. On the shelf of Frys they have rows upon rows of returned hitachis--says something huh?

Freeder, just in case it ever happens to you again, you should look into a program called GetDataBack, it's on version 2.31, I used an older version and was able to get almost all my data back.

 

[Freeder]

Thanks for the tip dcdomain, but that darn drive didnt even bootup. When I switched the power on I got this wretched grating/whining spin over&amp;over&amp;over&amp;over&amp;over&amp;over.... u get the picture. :''''' ( my precious anime...

 

[stimpyman77]

Originally posted by: Budman

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Short of incinerating the platters in a blast furnace, there's no reliable way to guarantee that your data is gone.

Here's a sure way to make certain your data can't be acessed. Link.

LOL, Budman..

That would certainly take care of it!

Stimpyman77

 

[dcdomain]

Ouch... so it was the drive mechanism itself. I had a friend that once somehow fried the circuit board on his drive. Luckily I had the same exact drive, so he borrowed mine, swapped the circuit boards, got his data out and then swapped it back and RMA'ed. Too bad your problem was with the drive mechanism itself.

I just got my RMA'ed Maxtor back today, sending in a 160gb, got a 250gb in return! I did however do a low level format, and now it doesn't have any errors on my 160gb, I hope Maxtor doesn't ask any questions or whatever. I did get a failure code before doing the low level format.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i got a pile of 4 broken maxtor hard drives and 1 quantum fireball


they've all lasted to about the warranty limit then they end up not working anymore.
i got two western digital drives and might even go seagate for a future upgrade who knows