3TB Harddisk sale

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 12:56:24PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> I think that all disk drive manufacturers have problem drives.  Some
> are related to just a particular drive, sometimes a drive design.
> Then there is customer service/support.
> 
> So all we know is superstition: based on too small a sample size.
> That being said, I superstitiously avoid Seagate.  Not boycott, avoid.
> 
> I had a Seagate drive go last week.  It was a 7200.11 drive, one that
> originally came with a ticking time-bomb in the firmware.  But I fixed
> that when they announced it (badly) a few years ago.  So that isn't
> what hit me.
> 
> (That bug did hit my son.  He had a 7200.11 drive that came in a
> Gateway computer.  I checked the serial number with Seagate's tool,
> and it said all was well.  Lies.  So he did end up with have a locked
> up drive.  Unfortunately, Seagate said that this was Gateway's problem
> but Gateway would only replace, not repair the drive.  I built and
> sent him a TTL-level serial cable and he did the delecate operation to
> re-vivify the disk.  He then copied the drive to a replacement and
> won't use that drive again.  Horrible.  I count this too as marks
> against Seagate.)
>
> My 7200.11's failure mode was that it would go through this sequence
> when powered up: spin up; click 11 times (i.e. seek hard to
> recalibrate the head position); spin down.  The consensus on the web
> is that this is a head failure -- not to be fixed by firmware or even
> PCB replacement.  So I sent it in the Seagate and expect a replacement
> in a week or so.

My wife's laptop drive clicked (almost sounded like a beep).  I read about
it and determined the spindle was unable to spin up and probably stuck.
So since it was backed up and not a concern, I opened it, and the
head was stuck against the platter with the two heads facing up bent.
Once the head was removed from the platter it was able to spin again,
but those heads will never read a disk again.

> I have to pay shipping one way (just under $9 (including tax) via some
> Canada Post service, with $100 insurance and tracking).  I could have
> used their premium option: US$10 for them to ship you a replacement
> and a prepaid mailing label with which to return the drive.  Normally
> that would be a better choice.  One reason: this way you get a box
> suitable for shipping a drive before you have to ship it.
> 
> Contrast that with Lenovo.  I had a problem with my new Think Pad
> Android Tablet.  They shipped me a shipping box (I had to sign for it
> at the door!) with prepaid label to return it.  No cost to me.
> Because they made a mistake the first time (new machine was US and had
> half the flash), the procedure was repeated.
> 
> I have to say that the Seagate support person was pleasant and
> experienced.  He was in Oklahoma City and had been working for Seagate
> for about 15 years (including time at Imprimis, which Seagate took
> over).
> 
> I bought the 7200.11 in 2009, just before the warranty on Seagate OEM
> drives was to be reduced from 5 years to 3.  We always wondered if
> that was a sign of Seagate's confidence in its own drives.  Mind you,
> WD's similar drives only had 3 years warranty at that time.  A 3 year
> warranty would have been up by the time the drive failed.

I think a lot of that was just money.  Once one of them did it, they
all did it.

> I did have trouble with an old (10 years old?) WD drive last week too.
> A 40G IDE drive.  I was able to get all the contents with ddrescue.  I
> only noticed the problem when I was doing a straight dd of the whole
> drive that failed 3/4 of the way through (repeatable).

I have had WD drives fail, but always with intermiddent issues first
that gave me warning that it was failing, and often cooling the drive
would let me read all the data.  They don't usually seem to just turn
into bricks.

I once had an 80GB maxtor turn into a brick 4 hours after it came out
of the original packaging.  Barely started copying data to it.  One of
those lovely diamond plus drives where most of the 40 and 8GB drives
failed spontaneously within a couple of years use.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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