Maxtor 60GB 7200rpm HD failure in first 5 hours - any ideas?

[TELeast]

I just bought a new Maxtor 60GB 7200rpm ATA/133 hard drive along with a new system of the following specs:

ASUS P4S533
P4 1.6A
Inno3D GF4 MX440
SB Audigy DE
LiteON 16x DVD ROM
Internal Modem and network card

I did the normal FDISK into 2 partitions
FORMAT C: /s from boot disk a:

installed Win98se
installed the motherboard drivers, video drivers, sound, network, modem, DiretX8.1, IE 5.5...
did a little overclocking to 133FSB just to see it works

then I started to notice a few Windows Explorer Errors messages

so I took it back to 108Mhz FSB, the error messages still occured
then I took it back to default speed

same errors, and also SCANDISK cannot run, would return error messages, or even blue screen.

so I re-formated C: and installed the whole lot again.
and this time I was half way thru installing the drivers and same Windows Explorer Messages

then I started to hear some hard drive clicking noises, similar to the famous IBM HD clicks of death.
restarted a few more times and then INVALID BOOT DISK while booting.

booted from A: and FDISK couldn't find a instsalled hard disk either.

took the Maxtor out and plugged it in as slave on another system...took a long time for Windows to load, then I tried to to browse the Maxtor drive, can see the folders, but when I tried to expand the folders, that took forever and I had to reboot

Clicks of deaths also sounded while the drive was in the second system.

Any ideas people???
I have installed about 4 Maxtor drives recently and this is the first one to go wrong. but it's also the first 60GB drive I got, previously they are 20 and 40GB.

and I don't think it's due to overheating...coz I had air conditioning in the room the whole time to 21 degrees and open case...

could it have been the motherboard blew the hard drive? but I doubt this as it's an ASUS board and it's kind of hard to kill it gradually over a few hours...if the board did it, the drive would have just gave in the first 10 or 15 minutes I think.

anyway, I am taking the drive back 2morow to swap for another one. let's hope the Maxtor 60GB drives are not like the IBM GFX drives

BTW, I still have 2x IBM GFX75 45GB drives running smoothly now since I got them 16 moths ago (touch wood) ...My secret, direct 2x 80mm fans blowing at them...the run very cool.

 

[Adul]

when drives go bad they usually fail in the first 6 months. consider yourself lucky this one died quickly. either return it to the store for another on or rma it with maxtor. BTW I have the same harddrive with fluid bearings. nice and quite.

 

[NukemAll]

<< ... BTW I have the same harddrive with fluid bearings. nice and quite. >>



In the Automotive industry, "fluid" beaings are know as sleeve bearing. they work great inside the engine were oil is force under pressure between the sleeves. Back in the Seventies and early eighties, Sleeve bearing were also used on Alternators. Not having oil forced between the bearings, they did not generally last long.

 

[gunf1ghter]

As indicated previously you should be thankful that it failed immediately. As to cause of failure, it could have been anything, any capacitor or IC on the printed circuit board attached to the drive could have failed.... basically a certain percentage of hard drives are going to fail that way, fortunately that percentage is extremely low (probably .01%).

 

[mastabog]

I dought that hdd's with normal, piezoelectric motors, last longer than the ones with fluid bearing.
Normally, fluid bearing motors last longer if used in 24/7 environments.

Correct me if i'm wrong.

Cheers,
BoG