My 16/10/40x Plextor that I got from a great deal on hotdeals has died after a year of faithful service. It wrote a CD earlier today - but now it is dead. Nothing works. It can't read any cd. Windows XP still detects it - but that's all it does. I'm pissed - cause' I didn't bump it or anything. I'm really sick of RMA'ing crap. Shouldn't at least 99% of electronics work for a few years without dying!? It seems like 20-30% of all my electronics fails - despite whether or not I take super-special care of them.
At least my Aopen 6x slot-load DVD (which I paid $129 for) still works great... though I beat the hell out of it.
I think I've RMA'd at least one of every component of personal computers, car stereo, dvd player, speakers, mouse, and other random crap.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is EVERYTHING WE BUY IS FVCKING CHEAP! Corners were cut somewhere always! What the hell is up with $2000 laptops with flimsy plastic casing? or flimsy consoles on $20,000 cars.. or shoddy components in a $280 cdr?
All my electronics that are 10 years old or so still seem to work good as new - like my Magnavox 19" television. Something tells me that if I were to buy a 19" Magnavox today, it wouldn't last near 10 years.
All of your $2000 HDTV's and super-expensive electronics are gonna fail too - because of some stupid corner that was cut too short.
It's not just in electronics - look at today's power tools.. My dad has an electric Skil brand drill that he got from his dad (more than 45 years old) - it still works perfectly - cause' it's made out of METAL. Nice heavy metal. Since then, my dad has gone through 3 different brand power drills that have all overheated or died - cause' they were plastic.. I mean come on - these things are supposed to be tough and then they melt when they're stirring paint. At least when the metal Skil drill overheats, it just stops for a while and you wait for it to cool off - then it works again.. The newer plastic drills all just melt when they overheat.
Are there any brands that have good build quality with a REASONABLE price? NO..
sorry, luckily I'm getting medication for ADD
UPDATE: HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!!
Called Plextor today.. the guy tells me he's fairly certain that my drive is corrupt. Then he tells me to do a couple things just to test it further - plug in the plextor while the computer is on without the ide cable plugged in to see if the disc spins.. Okay.. so the ide cable is unplugged while my computer is in the process of booting XP.. I plug a cd in the drive then it doesn't spin.. so I pull it out.. BOOM!! Blue screen of death.. windows tells me that my hard drives are corrupt and I should try running 'CHKDSK /F' ...
I ignore the blue screen and figure I'll fix it later - so I turn the computer off..
Then the guy asks when I bought the plextor.. I told him I wasn't sure and that it was manufactured in January 2001 so it should be under the two-year warranty (which it clearly says on the website)... Then he tells me that it has passed the 'ONE YEAR' warranty period and that it will cost $100 plus shipping to fix. So I go into all my damn files and find my Staples receipt after about 20 minutes of searching.. Guess what?! I purchased it on 4/10 last year!! So it failed one day before the warranty expires.. little fishy to me..
Anyway.. so then he tells me to fill out the RMA form on the internet...
So I turn on my computer.. oh yea.. blue screen of death..
Okay.. so now I have a bad CDR and a fvcking crapload of work to do to reinstall all my stuff on my hard drives - oh .. and to try and recover the nearly 50GB of stuff that I lost. I try rebooting into XP's version of a command prompt.. but I get the same blue screen of death.. so then I put the xp cd in the drive and get to a command prompt.. 'CHKDSK /F' .. /F IS AN INVALID PARAMETER..
If /F is an invalid parameter, then why the hell did XP tell me to try /F?!? So now I'm more pissed than normal.
Thanks Plextor for failing.. Thanks XP for corrupting on a whim.
BTW, if anyone has any idea on what to do to fix my partition, pleast let me know.. It's a RAID stripe partition with two 40GB Seagate drives and 64kb sectors..
Anyway.. now I'm typing on an XP installation on one of my spare hard drives.. this is so frustrating..
At least my Aopen 6x slot-load DVD (which I paid $129 for) still works great... though I beat the hell out of it.
I think I've RMA'd at least one of every component of personal computers, car stereo, dvd player, speakers, mouse, and other random crap.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is EVERYTHING WE BUY IS FVCKING CHEAP! Corners were cut somewhere always! What the hell is up with $2000 laptops with flimsy plastic casing? or flimsy consoles on $20,000 cars.. or shoddy components in a $280 cdr?
All my electronics that are 10 years old or so still seem to work good as new - like my Magnavox 19" television. Something tells me that if I were to buy a 19" Magnavox today, it wouldn't last near 10 years.
All of your $2000 HDTV's and super-expensive electronics are gonna fail too - because of some stupid corner that was cut too short.
It's not just in electronics - look at today's power tools.. My dad has an electric Skil brand drill that he got from his dad (more than 45 years old) - it still works perfectly - cause' it's made out of METAL. Nice heavy metal. Since then, my dad has gone through 3 different brand power drills that have all overheated or died - cause' they were plastic.. I mean come on - these things are supposed to be tough and then they melt when they're stirring paint. At least when the metal Skil drill overheats, it just stops for a while and you wait for it to cool off - then it works again.. The newer plastic drills all just melt when they overheat.
Are there any brands that have good build quality with a REASONABLE price? NO..
sorry, luckily I'm getting medication for ADD
UPDATE: HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!!
Called Plextor today.. the guy tells me he's fairly certain that my drive is corrupt. Then he tells me to do a couple things just to test it further - plug in the plextor while the computer is on without the ide cable plugged in to see if the disc spins.. Okay.. so the ide cable is unplugged while my computer is in the process of booting XP.. I plug a cd in the drive then it doesn't spin.. so I pull it out.. BOOM!! Blue screen of death.. windows tells me that my hard drives are corrupt and I should try running 'CHKDSK /F' ...
I ignore the blue screen and figure I'll fix it later - so I turn the computer off..
Then the guy asks when I bought the plextor.. I told him I wasn't sure and that it was manufactured in January 2001 so it should be under the two-year warranty (which it clearly says on the website)... Then he tells me that it has passed the 'ONE YEAR' warranty period and that it will cost $100 plus shipping to fix. So I go into all my damn files and find my Staples receipt after about 20 minutes of searching.. Guess what?! I purchased it on 4/10 last year!! So it failed one day before the warranty expires.. little fishy to me..
Anyway.. so then he tells me to fill out the RMA form on the internet...
So I turn on my computer.. oh yea.. blue screen of death..
Okay.. so now I have a bad CDR and a fvcking crapload of work to do to reinstall all my stuff on my hard drives - oh .. and to try and recover the nearly 50GB of stuff that I lost. I try rebooting into XP's version of a command prompt.. but I get the same blue screen of death.. so then I put the xp cd in the drive and get to a command prompt.. 'CHKDSK /F' .. /F IS AN INVALID PARAMETER..
If /F is an invalid parameter, then why the hell did XP tell me to try /F?!? So now I'm more pissed than normal.
Thanks Plextor for failing.. Thanks XP for corrupting on a whim.
BTW, if anyone has any idea on what to do to fix my partition, pleast let me know.. It's a RAID stripe partition with two 40GB Seagate drives and 64kb sectors..
Anyway.. now I'm typing on an XP installation on one of my spare hard drives.. this is so frustrating..
nice post
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