Samsung has finally failed me

[Sphexi]

Ordered up all my parts for a new C2D box, including a nice Spinpoint 320GB SATAII harddrive. I've used Samsung SATA drives for a few years now, never had a problem, got a few 110GB ones running in my current box.

Well, I get the parts, throw em together, and boot it up, and I get a "Disk Read Error". Obviously, with no OS, I didn't expect it to boot, but I expected something like "No Operating System" or something like that. I put in my XP install disc, it loaded up and asked me where to install. The weird thing was, the drive showed a full partition already, so I picked it, and the installation program informed me that there was already a Windows folder on the disc, and I'd have to install into another folder or delete it.

So I restarted, deleted the partition, and remade it/formatted it from scratch. Copied all of the installation files to the harddrive, but upon a reboot, it still failed to load. I pulled out the drive, plugged in a spare SATA drive, it booted perfectly, with no changes to the BIOS settings, no changes to the cabling, nothing.

RMA'd the drive last week, just found out today that the place I ordered from is having issues getting stock from Samsung due to production problems, so they offered me a Seagate instead, basically the same drive but with a longer MFG warranty.

Oh well, I still get a nice new drive, just not the Samsung I wanted.

 

[hardcandy2]

Sounds like you either;
1. Ordered a recertified/used drive by mistake.
2. The retailer shipped the wrong drive. They sent a returned drive instead of a new one.
Newegg, Zipzoomfly, Ewiz, Chief Value (Newegg 2), Directron, Mwave, Microcenter would be my choices in ordering from now on.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Sounds like the Samsung was an RMA drive the place sold to you as new, hopefully by mistake.

I had a 160 GB spinpoint fail on me last year, but it was almost 2 years old and in use 7 days a week. I'm still buying spinpoints since almost all drives die eventually.

 

[Sphexi]

Oh I don't doubt it was a returned drive, whether it was the retailer who sold it to me like that, or Samsung failed to repair an RMA'd drive and sold it back out again who knows, I didn't want to waste time trying to figure it out. I'll still buy Samsung in the future, this was just the first one that I've ever had a problem with, out of the two dozen or so I've used in the past few years.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I have yet to have a samsung fail on me *knock on wood* I've had several and they've all been great drives.
I agree with the others, you apparently got a returned drive considering it already had a windows folder on it and everything.