should I RMA this drive?

[timswim78]

I have a Maxtor ATA 100 15GB drive. It has worked flawlessly, but I am afraid that it is going up, and I hope that you can give me some advice.

I have run Windows on it for a few months, and I recently formatted it and did a clean install of Windows and MAndrake for a double boot. After about a week of double-booting it started to make a really loud clunking sound. My feeling is that there is a physical problem with the drive, but I wanted to see if the noise could be attributed to the new partitioning?

I have taken it out of commission and plan to hook it up tonight to back up my files.

 

[dxkj]

Im not an expert on hard drives, but clunking is bad.... if it still has warranty, definitely RMA it, especially since you have a backup there to use in the meantime.

 

[bsauerbr]

Definitely send it back. You can check on their website to see if it's still under warranty by entering some info from the drive. I just got done rebuilding my system after a 60GB Maxtor reported SMART errors and started making clunking noises.

Maxtor will ship you a drive in advance if you supply a CC number. You have to get the bad drive back to them within 30 days.

Good luck.

 

[timswim78]

I just did an advanced RMA with Maxtor. It was very easy. I just entered the serial and model number, the nature of the problem, and my credit card number. They said that they will ship it within two days!

 

[alyosha]

I just noticed that two of my Maxtors started to make a high pitch wining noise, though no errors reported and smart is ok. Can I rma those drives (still under warranty)?