What Did I do???

[SpeedFreak03]

In one of my boxes, I had a wdc 40GB hdd that developed some problems. So today I went out to best buy and bought a seagate ST380013A (Barracuda 7200.7 80GB 8MB cache ATA100). So I put it in, booted up with the seagate cd in (like the instructions said), and let it format. It got to like 60% and just locked up. No mouse movement, num caps and scroll lock buttons didnt work (like the lights didnt go on or off). So I let it sit for an hour, and still the same thing. So I hold down the power button till it shuts off, I wait a minute, then boot back up, but with a Win2K cd. Setup comes up. and after a little while it says "Starting Windows 2000" along the bottom. Guess what? Its locked up again! So, I put it in my other box with WinXP, and boot up. It takes FOREVER! But finally it gets there, and disk management doesnt see it, device manager sees it, but can't tell me the volumes on it (says unavailable), and partitionmagic locks up! So, I give up and exchange the drive for another one. This time, I just boot right into 2000 setup. It gets to formatting, 2%, and locks up! I let it sit for another hour, still locked. So, I think maybe my computer is fvcked so I exchange it again! This time, I put it in my other box, only to have the same issue (stops at 2% during format in setup). So I return this piece of sh!t seagate, buy a western digital WD800JB (80GB special edition), and guess what? It works fine! So do you seagate fans know what I did wrong, or are seagates just crap?

 

[stevennoland]

Seagates are probably just crap. I dunno. I have never owned one. Been a WD fan ever since. Get a new mobo that has SATA and get two WD Raptors. They fly!

 

[John]

stevennoland says:

Seagates are probably just crap. I dunno. I have never owned one.

Go back to lurking instead of offering your sound advice.

SpeedFreak03:

[*]how was the drive jumpered? Try alternate settings....
[*]did the bios properly recognize the drive?
[*]maybe you simply got a bad drive

 

[SpeedFreak03]

I had it as master in the first computer, then slave in my XP box, then i tried it as master in my XP box. Also, i tried cable select on both boxes, and had the same results. I tried new cables also, including the one that came with the drives. I could believe one bad drive, maybe even two. But three? One was even from a best buy at a different location (to possibly rule out a bad batch)! After the third drive, I though it must be my computers, so I bought the WD, but it works fine in both boxes!

 

[bozo1]

That's strange. We use Seagate exclusively at work and build about 20 systems a week with them and I haven't seen one DOA in the 4 months I've been there and only 1 or 2 failures later on. We use the 7200.7 drives in 20 40 & 80 gig flavors.

I've never been a big fan of Seagate IDE drives, but looking at the track record my company has had with them, I went Seagate when I purchased my first SATA drive for home.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Originally posted by: bozo1
That's strange. We use Seagate exclusively at work and build about 20 systems a week with them and I haven't seen one DOA in the 4 months I've been there and only 1 or 2 failures later on. We use the 7200.7 drives in 20 40 & 80 gig flavors.

I've never been a big fan of Seagate IDE drives, but looking at the track record my company has had with them, I went Seagate when I purchased my first SATA drive for home.

Yeah, that is why I can't figure this out! The drive gets great reviews and everything, so this leads me to believe it was a bad batch. But, I asked the guy to see if anybody else exchanged/returned these drives and he said no, so I really don't get it!