Received a 36GB WD Raptor DOA w/SMART events...

[freecableguy]

The damned thing showed up and immediately showed SMART errors from the Intel ICH5R BIOS screen as well as failure in Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools (for DOS). I tried to load a Windows XP image on it using RAID 0 with the other Raptor I got at the same time. No use. Always crashes during the install at the same point...even tried another XP image to load. I was pissed....now have to wait for another drive to show up....always waiting.

[Poop]

That stinks, but hey, it's Western Digital.

SMART events are retarded, I usually disregard those, although it might be bad karma.

[Ice Czar]

SMART is good to track gradual degredation from wear
its useless for catastrophic failure prediction
(headslap, power event ect)

the drive was probably perfect when it left the factory
and was drop kicked by a gorilla in transit
the due diligence of every person handling the drive from there to your door is really the question


reliability (http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=BrandMostReliable&PHPSESSID=71e781f4e0237a7b679678fc01649366)
handling (http://www.seagate.com/training/properhandling/munitintro.html)

think of it this way, your lucky, there was no data to loose :p

I dont trust a drive until it has served a 4+ month period in a redundant array (normally 5), past that if it hasnt developed problems I figure it wont with a good environment and care
then I'll trust it as a single

[freecableguy]

It showed MASSIVE Raw Data Read Error problems. Pretty sure it FUBAR. And yes, I agree, most likely due to the transit from Newegg to here.

[Ice Czar]

I assume you checked the connections and swapped out cables

[freecableguy]

yep...dead as a doornail...