View Full Version : new raptor lasted a whole 45 minutes...
So my computer has been down for about two weeks since my WD800JB croaked because I had to work some OT to get a new drive. I finally get my raptor 74 gig in and everything goes good for a system with a sata hdd/pata hdd/ and pata cd drive. The windows install recognizes it and it boots windows from it with no probs....
so after doing a restart from installing a few drivers i catch a faint smell of burnt electronics...so i say the following words: shit, fuck, and uh-oh. I didnt hear the raptor spin up. When the power turns on the raptor just sits there and gets smoking hot. Damn now I get to sit and wait a couple of more weeks to get an RMA'd drive.
the third bad WD drive I have had in a year...
edit...at least WDs RMA process is uber easy. all online and no foreign speaking chump to talk to on the phone.
Summoner
11-08-2004, 10:58 PM
If youve had 3 bad drives, i would check your PSU just to be 100% you arent killing them with bad volts.
starhawk
11-08-2004, 11:28 PM
seconding the bad psu call... post the voltage range on here so we can see.
The first drive was one my linux machine with an antec 300w(the drive was uber old anyways), the second one was on my enermax 350w, and the new raptor was one my new enermax 420W. When I can find a hard drive laying around to get my junk up and running ill post them up as the other drive I have for my system has everything I did in college and whatnot so I dont want to format that one.
So all three drives were on different PSUs so I think its my bad electronics luck as always...:(
if i had thought the power supply killed the hard drives I wouldnt have RMA'd them...
starhawk
11-09-2004, 07:50 AM
hmm... 3 bad raptors in a row? seems unlikely somehow...
you got pics of the fried drive(s)?
Ice Czar
11-09-2004, 09:31 AM
well poor power is certainly a possibility (drop by the PSU forum (http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=93) and I'll scare you silly :p )
then again 800 pound gorillas disguised as UPS drivers and stockboys are as well
and then there is the enduser and the environment
http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=BrandMostReliable
With the exception of a few models with outright design problems (the IBM 75GXP for one) or the odd bad batch, most hard drives from all manufacturers are similar in reliability when they leave the factory. There is no point saying Maxtor is more reliable than WD or Seagate is more reliable than Maxtor unless you have used hundreds of hard drives and have a sufficient sample to draw from. Most people drawing on their experience with a dozen drives will come to a completely biased conclusion because their sample is not even remotely representative of the population.
The most common cause of HD failures is mishandling/abuse during shipping/storage and integration (*1). If you think about it, there are so many opportunities for this kind of mishandling/abuse to take place once a drive leaves the factory: shipping/sorting from the factory to national distributors, storage/handling at the national depot, shipping/sorting to local distributors, storage/handling at the local distributors, shipping/sorting to the retailers, storage/handling at the retailers, handling/integration by the retailer or consumer.
If you have ever seen couriers playing soccer with your packages, you will know how shipping can damage a drive. If you have ever seen packages tumble down conveyor belts into sorting bins at a courier's sorting facility, you will know how sorting can damage a drive. If you have ever seen how some distributors and retailers pour drives out of a box onto a table and stack them 20 high on top of each other, you will know how handling at the distributor/retail level can damage a drive. If you have ever seen how some people install drives into a PC, you will know how integration can damage a drive.
It is not right to say Brand X drives are unreliable because the vast majority (>99% usually) of hard drives from any manufacturer leave the factory in a perfectly reliable state. If you want to blame people, look at the rest of the marketing channel downstream from the HD manufacturer. Of course, if a particular brand of drive is consistently unreliable in your area, it could be symptomatic of a careless distributor or shipping company that deals exclusively with that brand of drive — I guess the only solution would be to avoid buying that brand of drive. But to broadcast it on the Net that this brand of drive is unreliable is misleading.
-I forgot to add this point: (Sep 25/03)
(*1) That said, non-operating shock tolerance could be a determining factor in the reliability of a drive because it may allow the drive to survive indelicate handling by couriers, distributors, retailers, and consumers. It follows, then, that FDB equipped drives, which generally increase the non-operating shock tolerance of a drive, are potentially more reliable than their ball bearing equipped counterparts.
Seagate Proper Handling Guide (http://www.seagate.com/training/properhandling/munitintro.html)
hmm... 3 bad raptors in a row? seems unlikely somehow...
you got pics of the fried drive(s)?
sorry for making that unclear. The newest drive was a raptor, the second was an wd800jb 80gig SE, and the third one was on old 40 gig that didnt matter that much...
starhawk
11-09-2004, 12:22 PM
pics of the dead drives?
Lazn_Work
11-09-2004, 12:55 PM
I would seriously consider a UPS with AVR for your computers, it sounds to me like you got bad power from the power company.
==>Lazn
pics of the dead drives?
you couldnt see anything physically wrong with them. besides they are on their way to WD in the hands of OPS..err i mean UPS.
As for bad power, I used to work for the local power company, they provide some good juice. :) but some kind of conditioner is not a bad idea.
I had two other drives on the system that have never had any probs, one is an IBM 120gxp and the other is another wd800jb that have no probs(knock on wood). I think I just had some bad luck. The first drive was just old and crashed prolly about a year ago, the 80gig WD just died one day three weeks ago(was moving files back and forth from drives when windows starts complaining about not finding sectors, restart and never boot again), and the raptor well just sounds like I got a bad one from the start. Im not bad mouthing WD in any way because I love their drives and just had a run of bad luck and still cant wait to get my new raptor from them...
starhawk
11-09-2004, 08:54 PM
lemme guess:
there was a pop noise and some smoke blew out the back of the psu. the smoke looked like cigarrete smoke and smelled like bakelite.
lemme guess:
there was a pop noise and some smoke blew out the back of the psu. the smoke looked like cigarrete smoke and smelled like bakelite.
nah..i wish the pop came from the PSU...its less expensive. The ic on the raptor smelled of yummy burnt electronics but there were no visible burn marks or anything...
now if I could just get battlefield to reinstall....grrrr
starhawk
11-09-2004, 10:56 PM
but there was a pop noise?
but there was a pop noise?
no, no pop that I could hear...
starhawk
11-10-2004, 07:48 AM
d***. that would have been an easy fix- a blown cap waiting to be replaced.
Caffeinatedsoap
11-10-2004, 09:25 AM
Wow I just had the same thing happen with a 200gb Maxtor. I plugged it in and oh its not working, then I smell burning and smoke is coming out of my case. I checked the voltages and it was running fine and I even plugged my old drive back up to it and it worked fine. Who knows?
starhawk
11-10-2004, 09:41 AM
sounds like a defective component.
probably not a chip, but one of those itty bitty resistors or caps that you see...
get a magnifying glass out and see what's charred. it may be easier to replace the fried item than to replace the whole drive.
Lazn_Work
11-10-2004, 12:04 PM
sounds like a defective component.
probably not a chip, but one of those itty bitty resistors or caps that you see...
get a magnifying glass out and see what's charred. it may be easier to replace the fried item than to replace the whole drive.
Actually it is easy to replace a drive.. call WDC and say "send me new drive" and you are done.. And you still have a warranty.
Replace a component is harder and you void your warranty.
==>Lazn
starhawk
11-10-2004, 01:55 PM
10min of soldering and a drive to radio shack is easier than forking over $20 to get shipping back to the manufacturer.
and if you don't want to do either, pm me for my mailing address, it'd make a nice decoration for my room.
10min of soldering and a drive to radio shack is easier than forking over $20 to get shipping back to the manufacturer.
and if you don't want to do either, pm me for my mailing address, it'd make a nice decoration for my room.
heh...ups ground was like 4.36 for each box...we use UPS for all of our shipping at work and get pretty good rates...I could have been dishonest and just not have told anyone that I shipped them and paid nothing...but....
getting and RMA from WD is uber easy...www.westerndigital.com and put in the serial number and [emeril voice on] BAM [/emerial voice off]...instant rma number.
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