xbox, what if the hard drive gets bad clusters/dies?

[BrunoPuntzJones]

with the xbox having an 8gb hard drive, i was just wondering what will happen if it goes bad. who is making the drives? hate to generalize but consoles arent taken care of as well as pc's (being moved around a lot, taken over to others houses, etc.). if this is just a normal hard drive there are lots that are bound to be bad. nothing like sending in your new xbox and having to wait months while they fix it...or will they do advanced replacement? or can you just take the drive out and send it off? anyone have any info on how microsoft will handle it? what about being able to "hack" the xbox like a tivo and add more drive space?

 

[medic]

Hmmmm good question..

I would hope they would use HD's with very high shock resistance such as in some Notebooks.
I was wondering if they will have built-in utilities...after many months of saving game data, deleting it ect. I would think it would get quite fragmented. Maybe at a set 10% or so it would automatically go into a diagnostic mode and run a version of scandisk and defrag...?

 

[Gunbuster]

My bet is it will use Quantum (Tivo king) or the new Maxtor line that lifts the heads from the platter when parked.

Will it come with a software restore disc for if you really fux up the software?

Will they allow 2nd or 3rd party servicers to work on broken Xboxes? how long will the warranty be? 90days, 1 year?

 

[SerraYX]

Microsoft isn't stupid, they'll have all this info worked out soon, and it'll be really long and detailed, you can count on that.

 

[dowxp]

a war against ps2 is worth alot. they have thought of everything. have faith.

 

[Rand]

I thought they were using IBM HDD's in it?
Could be wrong though...

 

[GFORCE100]

No. They will be using a western digital hard drive.

 

[LuciferHaze]

I don't think the HD'll be a problem. Most last a good 5-10 years and by then the xBox'll be replaced by something else. My 2.1 GB Fujitsu HD has lasted over 3 1/2 years now and not one bad sector or problem.

 

[Modus]

If a console has a hard drive, it's just a non-expandable PC with no monitor

Modus

 

[randomlinh]

that's exactly what it is. now only if we could buy one, and take it apart... $300.. an nv25, a p3 700, a 8GB HD..... damn integration! heh

 

[sygyzy]

I am always surprised when questions like this are posed. Or, similarly, the hot deal on the memory tester. I have been building/using computers for nearly 10 years and while that is not too long compared to you guys, I have never had a part die on me. I've had a friend's m/b that was DOA but that is a different story. Wait I take it back, my Yamaha burner crapped out and warranty fixed it. Anyways, no HD's, ram, etc. I have a 4GB that I use daily and it's manufacturing date is like 92 or something. That's 9 years and not a single bad sector, disk error, anything. You guys must have the worst luck to get all these problems. Either that or paranoid. Testing ram? Cmon!

Now to get back on topic - I am sure MS has taken this into consideration. I also don't see anyway this can happen unless the power goes out when it's saving a game or something.

 

[Judgement]

As a first timer in the console market I'm pretty sure Microsoft will have this kind of issue solved. I for one question how well it will do in the market though..considering its specs it should be extremely over priced when compared to the new Nintendo system. It will have lots of games for it I'm sure, but the major video game franchises that make Nintendo sell systems, and Sony sell systems will be absent from it, such as Squaresoft, Rare, and Nintendo's own first part titles. This leaves the Xbox as an over priced limited computer..able to play, for the most part, games already available on pc. With the prices of computers dropping... makes me wonder.

 

[rickn]

actually, Seagate was chosen for Xbox

 

[XMan]

The only HD's I've ever had go bad have been ones that I've dropped. I would think that the X-box would probably be subject to a normal HD failure rate (what, 1, 2%?) Will we able to 'hack' the X-box? Put in a bigger HD?

 

[Jeff H]

sygyzy and Xerox Man, go find some wood and knock on it, quick! You both have had extremely good luck w/ hard drives. I've not had back luck, I'd call it more normal luck w/ hard drives.

I had a WD 1.2G get real flakey on me, and WD replaced it, no questions asked. Then a year ago last Christmas I had an IBM 22GXP accelerate its whirl - click behavior, to the tune of six times in one day. A call to IBM and my VAR got me a new drive, that continues to purr along today.

My most recent drive episode was w/ a WD 2.1G drive, that proceeded through a Win98 install fine, only to freeze after a drive swap. The drive would not be recognized by the BIOS, and a faint zheep-zheep-zheep sound emanated from the drive, along w/ the circuit board being abnormally hot (for a 5400RPM drive).