Hard Drive Problems poll

HD reasons for RMA

  • Clicking or clunking noise while running

    Votes: 19 42.2%

  • Grinding or wobbling noise (or heavy vibration)

    Votes: 10 22.2%

  • Won't boot or spin-up... or a continual "attempt to spin-up" click noise

    Votes: 19 42.2%

  • Visible at boot-up, but disappears later while in OS

    Votes: 3 6.7%

  • Inexplicably doesn't work, suspect gremlins are thriving internally :eek:

    Votes: 18 40.0%

  • Any one of the above, but decided not to RMA (:confused:)

    Votes: 7 15.6%

  • Got too old/small/slow and now sits in a closet or was put to Viking Funeral

    Votes: 13 28.9%
  • Total voters
    45
  • Poll closed .
D

DrStrangeBrew

Gawd
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
Messages
764
What''ve been the symptoms or causes that have forced you to RMA a hard drive? Not overly concerned about the Mfgr, since it seems to affect all of them - many of us have data backed up on extra HDs, externally, or in Raid, probably from personal experience of drive failure..

I bet those 1500 domino-drives :) had their share of bad SE16s, 7200.11 & Raptors mixed in with ancient (& working) 6.4 GB deadweights.
 
I had one drive just quit on me. The other drive Vista said was going bad, so I got the Seagate tools and it failed the test, so back it went!
 
heh, it must have been totally shredded & burning metal if Seagate tools caught it :D

I've heard one of my drives (we'll just say... brand W .... D) clattering away, failing sectors w/ HD Tune, all the while it's supplied datalifeguard error check saying it was quite possibly the prime example of a flawless drive (or maybe it reported 'OK'), it wasn't a very aggressive test tho!

It's not a big deal as long as no critical data is lost, just another box in the mail
 
Yup, clicking, grinding, buzzing, all sorts of noises and no longer able to boot into windows or reinstall/repair windows. POST doesn't even seem to recognize it anymore.

What a joke, newegg lists it as having an average lifetime of 130+ years. And mine lasted for not even two!
 
I've had clicking, grinding, clunking, as well as a drive fresh from newegg with crushed drive electronics. That drive was my last straw with newegg and hard drives. Now I only order from ZipZoomFly for HDDs, they do a superb job at HDD packaging. Everything else, I still buy from newegg.
 
Amazingly true, as good as they are, I think Doritos have more care in their shipping methods than egg.

What really confuses me is that the drives are shipped to NewEgg by some means, I'd like to think foam or similar quality shipping. So why do they then dispose of the good/original shipping material, and dutifully toss it into a box across the room to no man's land... (HD says "wheeeeeeee" *crunch* )

I'm curious also to the OEM claims of 250 g's shock resistance, etc., ... are these things seeing the speed of light velocity brought to a halt <0.1 ms ? :rolleyes:
 
I bought a Seagate SATA 7200.10 at BB in October and it was noisy from the start. It sounded like popcorn popping. It died in December and I sent it in for RMA. Seagate sent me a 7200.9 IDE remanufactured drive as a replacement and when I complained they said I had to pay to ship it back.

I decided to keep the damn thing and when I plugged it in it won’t even format. Acronis says there are multiple read and write errors to sector 0.

I bought a WD AAKS and hope it is of better quality.
 
I know it's a hassle, but it's probably worth the $5-10 to ship the bad IDE back. I just paid $10 to send a bad USB hub, probably only worth $30-40 RMA to Belkin ... now that I think of it, it's been almost 2 weeks (hope they send me a new one :confused: )

PS How was the Seagate RMA process? get a #, send it off & display patience?
 
The RMA process was easy. Go to Seagate's support web site and do a warranty check by typing in the model and serial number and then if it is in warranty apply for an RMA number. I got an email with the RMA number and mailing instructions in minutes.

The IDE is going back for an SATA.
 
I've only ever RMAed one drive. I was being told by Windows that the Reallocated Sector Count was spiking through the ceiling, so I backed up, Advance RMA-ed and am currently happy with the replacement drive.
 
nice! good to hear it went smooth.

When you got the new drive, did you run any tests/diagnostics to try & be sure it was in good shape before putting data on it?

It sucks getting a drive that's noisy or junk out of the box, but at least you know it's not reliable.. it's those 'mostly' working drives that get you, spin fine for a few months then take a dump out of nowhere
 
I had a wd that worked perfect. One day it just decided not to show up in the os or bios. It still spins up just fine, just doesn't show up in the bios making it useless.
 
I've only RMA'd one drive, just because of SMART errors. I kept thinking about pre-SMART days when I would just repartition with different starting/ending blocks and see if I could still use the drive. I think I batted about 200 with that tactic.

I previously had one that I wanted to RMA, but, call me paranoid, but I had too much personal information on it, so it's a paperweight now. Now any personal information is kept on a pair of ancient drives and occasional DVD backup. If one personal HDD dies, another hand-me-down gets put in its place. Just had a 15-gig croak on me the other day. I just dug up a 2-gig to replace it with.
 
I service thousands of thinkpads, and the old clickity-clack-of-death is by far the most common HD failure. Aka failed-sector re-seeking.
 
130+ years :) Just wait for the competition to advertise their's for 185 years :p

They had a thing on TV last night that is funny & true... our 1 TB HDs, 9GB DVDs, 50GB Blu-Ray discs, they're all amazing & great - especially compared to floppy disks of just a few years ago..

but none of them have the long-term durability of a rock or stone tablet
 
DrStrangeBrew said:
heh, it must have been totally shredded & burning metal if Seagate tools caught it :D
Click to expand...

StrangeBrew- That was a much apprecraited laugh!

I have only RMAed a Seagate drive once for an occasional clicking sound in Vista. The new one did not click. I currently have 6 other Seagate drives, some of which have been going strong for 3+ years.
 
DrStrangeBrew said:
130+ years :) Just wait for the competition to advertise their's for 185 years :p

They had a thing on TV last night that is funny & true... our 1 TB HDs, 9GB DVDs, 50GB Blu-Ray discs, they're all amazing & great - especially compared to floppy disks of just a few years ago..

but none of them have the long-term durability of a rock or stone tablet
Click to expand...

lol, I saw that too. It was the Life After People show on the History Channel. Very interesting. :)
 
yep, looked like I am Legend after a few years, then all the buildings crumbled down.. then bridges, etc. and plant life sprang everywhere. You'd expect plants to do something more creative than just cover up steps & sports arenas, but they've got their own agenda :p
 
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