3 bad Maxtor drives in 4 months?

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rbarr110

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2003
Messages
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I have purchased 2 new harddrives within the last 4-5 months to replace an 80gig maxtor that had the same problem as the new drives. The new drives i bought were 160gig, and 120gig maxtor drives that all get bad sectors and I lose data and get an unstable system.

I have reformated and reinstalled a clean XP install on all three drives over the months of corruption. When the 80gig started to go I backed up alot of data and did a reinstall. I put some of the backed up data on the new "clean" system and shortly after started losing misc files making some programs unusable, I would run chkdsk and it would show that I had some bad sectors.

I think that some of the backed up data may have been corrupted and when I put it back on my harddrive it is causing the bad sectors, so this last time I reformatted the 120gig drive and installed XP. I did not put any of the backed up data on the harddrive but am still getting bad sectors and loss of data.

So WTF is going on, are the hard drives toast? Is there a way to map the bad sectors so WIndows wont use them?

I have run chkdsk /f as well as chkdsk /r. The /f command does all three steps, but the /r command locks up at step 4 of 5 (hangs at 0% complete, left it for 2 hours and was still at 0%).

Any suggestions?
Thanks
 
I've heard Maxtor having lots of faulty harddrives. You should stick with WD from now on.
Thats what i'm doing.
 
bimmer01 said:
I've heard Maxtor having lots of faulty harddrives. You should stick with WD from now on.
Thats what i'm doing.
Click to expand...
I'm all for Western Digital, but thats the most fanboyish post i've seen in awhile

Almost any company has their moments, i've had my share of 3-4 bad WD's
While I cannot say one company is better than the other, if you are worried about your drives dying you might wan't to take a look into Seagate drives as it seems they have one of the lowest fail rate.
 
I have already figured I would replace the drive with a new WD or Seagate drive, but is there a way to salvage the Maxtor drives? That is alot of storage (360 gigs) to toss in the garbage.
 
could be a bad IDE cable causing it if it is kinked or bent beyond a 90 degree angle maybe a wire is nearly broken and hanging on by a thread in one spot or something....also check out the heat inside they don't like to goet too hot, those MAXTOR drives, I found.
 
If your having that many failures that quickly, I would look at either how your handling the drives, the quality of your power supply and cables, and that you have enough airflow over the drives. While Maxtor isn't the most reliable there is, all of mine have lasted 4+ years.
 
I rma'd my 160gb maxtor got it back june 11th. Guess what... it just died today! If you put your ear up next to it and sorta move it it squeaks, yay! USPS and UPS must love me because of all the times I've had to send back maxcrap harddrives. Before you go buy a 200gb hd for $40 amir remember they can sell it so cheap because they cut corners.
 
Check you Power supply - is your voltage is out of spec (too high or too low) this could be killing your drives.

Also,
Is you PC getting bounced around while the drive is running ?
Do the drives run hot ? You might need more air flow to cool the drives.
How about vibrations ? I once had a noisy CDRom drive (it worked) that caused so much vibration in the case, that I started getting read errors on the harddrive mounted below it.
 
Gruntled Employee said:
could be a bad IDE cable causing it if it is kinked or bent beyond a 90 degree angle maybe a wire is nearly broken and hanging on by a thread in one spot or something....also check out the heat inside they don't like to goet too hot, those MAXTOR drives, I found.
Click to expand...


Yeah it could be the cable or the powersupply which are known for this type of problem. Heat shouldn't be a issue (in normal circumstances these days). Also, if you wanted the best hd go for Samsung drives or seagate, Samsung offers 3 year warranty, heat and noise is second to none
 
Get more fans. Every Maxtor drive I've seen that doesn't have enough cooling died. When they're properly cooled, though they're decent drives. Kinda loud, but drfinitely cheap. Just make sure they stay *only* slightly warm to the touch and you'll be OK.
 
the who said:
You have a bad power supply that is killing the drives ;)
Click to expand...

would be a pretty good guess, but there are alot of other suspects

Corruption 101

what I seriously doubt is that it is the HDDs
and if by some chance it is, its not Maxtor that is to blame but your supply chain
environment or integration proceedure

rbarr110 said:
Is there a way to map the bad sectors so WIndows wont use them?
Click to expand...
Hard Disk Error Management and Recovery
effectively chkdsk /f :p

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

just read that 1st link and the links it contains
(which is a considerable amount of reading)
and test \ swapout components
 
Alright, I have a new Enermax 450watt PSU, WD 120GB harddrive, harddrive cooling bay/fans. If I end up with the same problem I will scream.

All the IDE cables are about a month old. The old PS was(is) a 400watt Enermax. The hard drive used to be in removable drive bays ( never really ever pulled them). I'll give the new equipment a try.

I ran CHKDSK /F every other day and everytime it would find bad sectors and I would eventually have to reinstall programs because a dll or other file would be lost to the bad sectors.

Thanks
 
have you run the manufacturers diagnostic?
do you have an error code on the HDD?
have you tested the RAM, what are your memory timings?
are you overclocked? you reloaded the busmaster drivers?
 
Hmm... intresting.....
4 Maxtor drives is about the average of RMAs the computer store I work for does in a month as well.

I tend to stay the hell away from Maxtor HDDs, as I know their cheap and crappy. Spend the extra few bucks on a WD or Seagate, get a better HD with a longer Warranty. It's worth the few bucks.

I tend to stick with WD, I haven't gotten any problems in my life experience with WD drives. Same with Seagate. I just like WD better for some reason, maybe it's cause they offer good drives for a great price, ie. their 8MB buffer IDE drives and also offer wicked High End drives with their Raptors :D

Also one time I remember a customer buying a 80GB Maxtor IDE 2mb buffer HDD, brand new OEM. He came back to the store 4hours later and said his HDD didn't work. I took a look at the HDD, and I was like wtf? Finally I looked at the bottom of the HDD, and one of the Chip on the Board fucking fried completely burned out like it popped like a firecracker. I can't believe I ever seen something like that happening. And since the HDD was phsyically damaged, my Store doesn't cover RMA for that. So the guy had to do his own RMA. and we couldn't do a DOA cuz it's fried.
 
the computer store i work at does 4 in a week, we stopped selling them a yr ago becuase of this, and they are still dying
 
oh yeah, Ice Czar, maxtor demands you get their silly error code, otherwise they deny the rma.
funny how no other hard drive company requires this like wd or seagate. i questioned them on this once, they told me it was to lower the number of drives being returned....
 
well you cant get an error code if the HDD isnt recognized in the BIOS
and you cant run the ap :p

however if you can, and your not getting an error code
there are alot of other potential culprits
and just because something is new (PSU \ cables) dosent mean they are eliminated
you actually have to cross part them or test them
the link above gives you alot of information on how to go about that
to test the PSU do you have a multimeter?
have you had any crashes, or been doing hard restarts?
what kind of power conditioning are you running?
your utility could be under alot of stress this time of year,
there have been brownouts and blackouts all over the state here,
and even a good PSU in good condition can produce overshoots under certain situations

and even if you do get an error code on the HDD
that still doesnt necessarilly mean its the HDD,
until you eliminate the other suspects

would be a pity to RMA that, get another say Seagate, only to have the same issue
or maybe a slightly different one, with the same root cause

there are a few hundered ways to fubar your data
Im working on experiencing the last dozen :p
 
yeah i work in a computer store here, and them demanding an error code when the hard drive goes CLICK CHUNG WIRL, is a waste of my time, so i just tell them i cant get an error code and if they'd like me to get an error code, they can come up here and show me how to get it from a really dead drive. they normally back off
 
LOL

Morpheus256 said:
the computer store i work at does 4 in a week, we stopped selling them a yr ago becuase of this, and they are still dying
Click to expand...

^ that sounds like a gorilla in the supply chain

there are poorly designed HDD models (GXP75) that crop up now and then
but generally speaking its the supply chain or end integrator\user that fubars HDDs
one of the reasons that Seagate has such a good rep, is their packaging, supply chain and education programs (in the supply chain and with the integrators)

seen countless posts saying the same of most other brands \ models
but I dont see much of the Seagates, in part thats because they are underepresented on the board, and in part because of the above reasons

you likely have some idiot that likes to tumble boxes down a conveyor belt between you and Maxtor
 
Ice Czar said:
there are a few hundered ways to fubar your data
Im working on experiencing the last dozen :p
Click to expand...
LMAO Yeah Im catchin up to ya slowly :)
 
I have 8 Maxtor 160gb drives running in a 1TB Raid5 array. Bought 8, all 8 are working fine.
 
The thing about maxtors are, that there a few people, and I do mean a few as in a hand full of people can safely say they've never had a problem with Maxtors HDs.

I know just how bad these HDs are and I do stay the hell away from them, and stick with either WD or Seagate.
 
I have used Maxtor's and I can honestly say I have never RMA's a single one ... in the last five years, I've RMA'd three items ... a Belkin PSU, an MSI mobo, and a Gigabyte 9700 ... and this building an average 2 boxes/week ...

of course there are a couple of defective items because of FedEx/UPS deciding to test their wrecking machine on the box ...
 
OK - I just ran Maxtor Powermax program to see if it detected errors and within 60 seconds it failed the test and gave me an error code and said to contact RMA service. I wrote down the error and decided to use the same powermax program to format the drive.

I ran the powermax full low level format format, took approx 3 hours for a 160GB drive :eek: , and ran the error detection program again. The program ran for about an hour and said "Congratulations your hard drive is error free" WTF!

First I need to return it, now it's great, I think their program needs some fine tuning. I have had two 40GB drives for 2 years and they still run great, its just been the 3 new drives in the last few months that have all sucked ass!

I wonder what will happen if I RMA the drive that failed but now "passes".
 
It could have had some bad blocks or corrupted sectors. Normally zerofills will cause the drive to remap bad sectors and report good to go.
 
nope thats what i do with a lot of free drives im given at work, my JBOD array here is getting quite large
 
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