not very happy with Western Digital at the moment

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cannondale06

[H]F Junkie
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I bought my parents a brand new Compaq pc a little over a year ago and the hard drive is already going out. for the last month or so my mother kept telling me she was getting an error message from time to time that mentioned the hard drive. I finally get a chance to look at when I go visit for xmas and sure enough the hard drive is damaged. I ran hdtune and several damaged blocks showed up without me even finishing the check.

this is ridiculous for a hard drive that is only 15 months old. it wasnt from heat because I go over there every few months and blow out all the dust. heck I even had put a rear fan on there the day I bought it even though it wasnt necessary. it a very basic pc with just a 65 watt cpu 2gb ram and onboard video.

its funny because if I built the pc myself that same hard drive would have had a 3 year warranty. maybe I should be mad at HP/Compaq but to me its the Western Digital that made the hard drive. sure I can go buy another one from newegg for 50 bucks but that defeats the whole point of buying them a $300 pc in the first place.
 
HDDs fail and this is a fact. Face it. Replace with a new one.
 
cannondale06 said:
I bought my parents a brand new Compaq pc a little over a year ago and the hard drive is already going out. for the last month or so my mother kept telling me she was getting an error message from time to time that mentioned the hard drive. I finally get a chance to look at when I go visit for xmas and sure enough the hard drive is damaged. I ran hdtune and several damaged blocks showed up without me even finishing the check.

this is ridiculous for a hard drive that is only 15 months old. it wasnt from heat because I go over there every few months and blow out all the dust. heck I even had put a rear fan on there the day I bought it even though it wasnt necessary. it a very basic pc with just a 65 watt cpu 2gb ram and onboard video.

its funny because if I built the pc myself that same hard drive would have had a 3 year warranty. maybe I should be mad at HP/Compaq but to me its the Western Digital that made the hard drive. sure I can go buy another one from newegg for 50 bucks but that defeats the whole point of buying them a $300 pc in the first place.
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Mass produced computers have cheaper parts in them. Fact of life, get over it.
 
Its not the same quality as say a western digital black. When I worked at best buy I saw hard drives fail at under the year mark.
 
hmz said:
HDDs fail and this is a fact. Face it. Replace with a new one.
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I have never had one fail and I even have a couple of comps from the late 1990s. years ago my parents did have a Seagate go out after 3 years in a Dell but it was clearly because of hit as they never cleaned out the dust the whole time they owned it. I didnt live near them at that time and didnt know much about comps then either.
 
maverick0817 said:
Its not the same quality as say a western digital black. When I worked at best buy I saw hard drives fail at under the year mark.
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well yeah but again the same exact hd can be purchased separately and comes with a 3 year warranty.
 
cannondale06 said:
I have never had one fail and I even have a couple of comps from the late 1990s. years ago my parents did have a Seagate go out after 3 years in a Dell but it was clearly because of hit as they never cleaned out the dust the whole time they owned it. I didnt live near them at that time and didnt know much about comps then either.
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Still don't get why you are pissed. I mean, any drive can fail and this is exactly what happened. You can pick it a drive for $20 here on forum. I am sure your parents don't really need a big drive.
 
maverick0817 said:
Its not the same quality as say a western digital black. When I worked at best buy I saw hard drives fail at under the year mark.
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Those boutique PCs have different HDDs, but not all of them. I bought some emachines, compaq's for family and they all had weird model #s on on them that were not available on egg.
 
hmz said:
Still don't get why you are pissed. I mean, any drive can fail and this is exactly what happened. You can pick it a drive for $20 here on forum. I am sure your parents don't really need a big drive.
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well because having to go out and buy a $45 hd for a pc that I only spent 300 bucks on to begin with defeats the whole point of getting an entry level pc. I am also aggravated because if I would have bought this hd separately it would have had a 3 year warranty. plus I have to find the recovery disc or spend more money getting those. not to mention having to drive all the way there and spend hours reinstalling everything for them after changing it out.

I am certainly not buying a used hard drive. I will just pick them up a brand new one with a 3 year warranty for 45 bucks.
 
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I don't think your situation is sufficient justification for disliking the manufacturer of the part. You don't really know how well the drive was treated when the machine was put together, for example, so it's not necessarily WDs fault. If you had bought 5 drives from WD and all had been bad, maybe you'd have a point.
 
Concentric said:
I don't think your situation is sufficient justification for disliking the manufacturer of the part. You don't really know how well the drive was treated when the machine was put together, for example, so it's not necessarily WDs fault. If you had bought 5 drives from WD and all had been bad, maybe you'd have a point.
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I dont dislike them as a whole and all I said was that I was a little unhappy with them at the moment. and really are you actually saying the drive could have been mishandled by workers at the Compaq factory a year ago and now thats why the drive now has defective blocks? so if the one I have in my pc starts failing should I blame UPS or newegg? lol, come on man Western Digital made the drive and it just happened to be one of the few that just dont survive very long. unfortunately for me that small chance of failure coming true will now cost me money and time. sorry but I do have reason to be a little peeved at whoever made the drive. but thanks for letting me know that I would have to have 5 hard drives failing to have a point.
 
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hmz said:
HDDs fail and this is a fact. Face it. Replace with a new one.
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This. As many hard drives as you may have worked with, unless you're talking large data center, the sample size is simply too small to immediately discount a hard drive company based on one failed drive. Now if you had 5 drives all go bad that would indicate either a bad batch if they were all from the same group....or just amazingly bad luck.

It's a fact that drives will fail. Keep backups of important data, replace the drive and continue on :)
 
Even Black drives can fail in a short period of time.
I had a brand new 1TB Black fail after 9 days, but that didn't stop me from ordering 2 more.
 
Zepher said:
Even Black drives can fail in a short period of time.
I had a brand new 1TB Black fail after 9 days, but that didn't stop me from ordering 2 more.
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Just curious....did it come from newegg and was it packed properly?
 
anyway I will just suck it up I guess. its still a huge pain in the ass because besides the 45 bucks for a new hd, its a lot of time and aggravation. the whole reason I bought them a brand new pc was so I didnt have to fool with working on it. oh well odds of it happening again should be pretty small now. :D
 
Neb said:
Just curious....did it come from newegg and was it packed properly?
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Came from Dell and was packaged great. Foam insert with the drive in it.
Dell sent me a replacement overnight when I called to complain about the drive failing on me.
 
Zepher said:
Came from Dell and was packaged great. Foam insert with the drive in it.
Dell sent me a replacement overnight when I called to complain about the drive failing on me.
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Ah, so you were just straight up unlucky ;)
 
if you had a good backup plan with imaged based backups it should take you under an hour to replace the hdd and have everything back to how it was.
 
cannondale06 said:
anyway I will just suck it up I guess. its still a huge pain in the ass because besides the 45 bucks for a new hd, its a lot of time and aggravation. the whole reason I bought them a brand new pc was so I didnt have to fool with working on it. oh well odds of it happening again should be pretty small now. :D
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i think u went through all the shit we all have at least once... but normally it only takes one OEM experience and youll start doing things yourself (and enjoying it!). its not like cars... with computers the OEM parts are many times much worse then aftermarket.
 
Try working in a corporate environment supporting desktops ;) The hard drives are the #1 failure point on systems I have to support from both Dell and Compaq. When I worked at 1 facility, I would estimate that the number of drives I replaced on 1000 PCs in a year was around 20-30, ranging from WD to Seagate to Maxtor.

As for home use, I've had to 3 500 GB WD RE drives die on me in the last 2 years, as well as 2 Seagate 80 GB drives. Thankfully they were all purchased as single OEM drives and were still under warranty, but my point is that drives fail.

Part of the low cost of "entry level" computers is that you sacrifice some warranty and support on certain things, hard drives being one. If I purchase a Dell system, the hard drive is listed as OEM and just try calling up the hard drive manufacturer and get an RMA... it can't be sent back to the hard drive manufacturer for repair. The computer manufacturers purchase large numbers of hard drives in bulk and assume "replacement" responsibility to keep the overall system price down for end users.

That is one of the benefits of building your own systems. You get to purchase whatever hardware you want and you can look for products with the best warranty options. Then when something still breaks, you can deal with the hardware manufacturer for that one specific part to get it replaced or repaired.

You think that is bad, try supporting family that lives 8 hours away with their computer problems :p I set my dad's system up with Acronis Trueimage and an external drive used specifically to make backup images of the system (full system images like Adidas4275 mentioned). I can walk him or one of my other family members that still live near home through replacing the hard drive and then restoring from the backup. Throw in a remote support software (I just use Microsoft's RDP for this) and I can fix most of his problems without leaving my couch :)
 
A hard drive is a mechanical part that spins at 7200 RPM, it generates heat, like the rest of the computer. OEM machines generally have very bad cooling (especially in the hard drive area), and as such they can fail without warning. I have see western digital drives last 5 years, and I have seen some last one year.

Hell I have a dell computer at home where the CPU HSF vents heat RIGHT ONTO THE HARD DRIVE.
That sucker gets hot, the original drive in the system failed after a year and a half (it was a seagate if you care), currently it has a hitachi in it, and the power supply died a few months ago, but now the machine is up again.

Hard drives as stated by farscape are the #1 failing point in a computer, followed shortly by Power supplys/cooling fans because fans are also a mechanical part.

Tell me how often do your parents clean the dust out of the INSIDE of the computer? Never I bet. Dust exagerates the problem and makes it worse.

Sorry, but that hard drive inside there is not the EXACT SAME model, if you look at the sticker side by side with a drive you purchase you will see the differences.

Shortest hard drive failure ever for me was 24 hours for full failure. This was for a computer I was building for a client at my old job.
(and this is why i never order HDDs from newegg, but thats not the topic here)
Right out of the box I had issues with the OS, i figured it was ram or something, so i did a reinstall, then i had issues installing games. I come back to work the next day and it has the click of death.
That was a hitach 500gb HDD.

I have seen every manufacturer of HDD die, and while here there, i've seen swathes of the same drives, its just whatever the companies bought at the time.

I personally prefer WD for quality, but i almost always buy seagate due to cost. I have.. 5 seagate HDDS, 5 WD hdds, and 1-2 Hitachis between my systems.



If you think its ridiculous that a HDD fails after 15 months, then don't ever buy an emachine, nearly every emachine dies after a year where the powersupply fails for whatever reason, and in at least 80% of cases (I saw them nearly daily for 4 years, so I know what I'm talking about), it takes the motherboard, and/or in an extreme case the cpu and ram with it. Its not in 100% of cases because I've seen a handful where that wasn't the case.

But again, HDDs can fail without warning, thats why you should always back up any important data. Also, $300 for a computer is incredibly cheap, that should say something about the overall quality. Even HDD companies have to make money, so I'm sure that drive was from the lowest level of QA above non-functional.
 
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HDDs fail more or less at random - the fact that it failed is unfortunate but was ultimately inevitable. The fact that it failed 'early' is irrelevant.
 
Yup. 7200 RPM mechanical device, that needs to track at the accuracy required for the track density of modern consumer drives, some of them are going to be less than long lived. Toss in the fact that the 300 dollar PC manufacturer is gonna get the schittiest drives that they can install a booting OS on, evidenced by the oddball model number assigned to them, and you have a recipe for data loss. And an incentive to have a robust backup mechanism.

Dustin
 
OmegaAvenger said:
If you think its ridiculous that a HDD fails after 15 months, then don't ever buy an emachine, nearly every emachine dies after a year where the powersupply fails for whatever reason, and in at least 80% of cases (I saw them nearly daily for 4 years, so I know what I'm talking about), it takes the motherboard, and/or in an extreme case the cpu and ram with it. Its not in 100% of cases because I've seen a handful where that wasn't the case.
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Ditto! I have had entire shelves of Emachines with blown power supplies that took out motherboards etc. They use the cheapest components known to man, and mistreat the components badly. What exactly do you expect for the price they ask?

Rule #1: You get what you pay for.

As for the hard drive being the same model number he could have bought off the egg, even if it was (and it probably wasn't) they way they treat their components has a lot to do with things. I went to one place that kept their components in an outside metal container that had to get over 200 degrees in the summer. They bought in bulk when they could get a deal and kept the stuff in that container until they needed it. They had to take stuff out and set it outside to cool off during the summers before they brought them inside, huge failure rates.

Nothing wrong with getting a "good deal", but there is ALWAYS a reason something is cheap.

Allan
 
Those older hard drives and in fact alot of those older components in general are more robust because they aren't as complicated. the CPUs and chipsets made less heat, had less transistors. The HDDs had far lower densitys and the designs were more primitive. I've seen 50 year old refrigerators still working.

The more complex a device becomes, the more prone to failure it is. Especially if it wasn't built with reliability in mind to begin with. There are some many things that can kill a HDD, its no wonder so many people cant wait for SSDs to drop in price. Not that SSDs don't wear out, but the HDD is the most fragile part of any computer.
 
WD is a fantastic manufacturer. Having had contact with hundreds of these drives, and having owned over 92 (or so) of them personally I can say that the reliability and endurance these drives have is incredible.

I have only had three failures in the last 9 years.

Most failures occur during the first 3 months to 1.1 years. Consumer level drives tend to die off after or around 3.5 years.

Google made a lovely document highlighting this, every fact from real-world testing is in there: Google Disk Failures
 
Canon, did you check the warranty status on the hdd or not? OEM hdds have warranties, I've turned them in before.
 
pissboy said:
Canon, did you check the warranty status on the hdd or not? OEM hdds have warranties, I've turned them in before.
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from a prebuilt pc like Compaq? I thought those hard drives would have a sku or serial number that would indicate they had to be warranted through the pc maker.
 
cannondale06 said:
from a prebuilt pc like Compaq? I thought those hard drives would have a sku or serial number that would indicate they had to be warranted through the pc maker.
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They are, but only to make sure you RMA it in the country it was sold in.
 
pissboy said:
They are, but only to make sure you RMA it in the country it was sold in.
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well I guess I will look into it then. not sure how to even set up an RMA for something when I have proof of purchase. I assume if they know its from a Compaq pc then they will tell me to contact them...
 
pissboy said:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/index_end.asp?lang=en

All you need is the hdd serial number, check the warranty, and if its still good, RMA it.
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yeah I had checked that a few minutes after my previous comment. I will have to wait to the next time I go visit before I can get the serial number though as they are 60 miles away. I do have hdtune on their pc but it wont read the serial number and they are too old to try and physically look at it for me.
 
I thought all WDs carried a 3 year warranty regardless of who initially buys them. I know I sent in one that died inside of an enclosure I had. Just enter the serial online, it will tell you.
 
I wouldn't blame WD for this either. Mechanical hard drives fail its just how it is.
I recently just had a WD 750GB drive fail on me after two years. I Advanced RMA'd the drive and they send me back a 1TB Black edition. That is only the second WD drive that has ever failed on me in 10 years of using them. And I will very well be going back to them with the excellent RMA services they provide.

And I still agree with the other guy, if you are on this site you should be building the computer for them not buying prebuilt. Most OEM's machines are junk and they often put sub par parts in them.

Good luck with the RMA.

*Recycled response since this was posted on Anandtech, where the poster got the same answers from everyone there, are we catching on yet?*
 
I bought two Velociraptor 300 GB drives a year and half ago. 5 year warranty. The drives have failed and are now just sitting around. I did start an RMA for the drives. I even did the advanced RMA where Western Digital will send you replacement drives while holding your credit card hostage. But...the RMA is only good if Western Digital has old drives to send you. Right now, there are no Velociraptor's in the RMA pool. So there is no warranty replacement. They expect you to wait. How long? The warranty states that Western Digital needs a reasonable amount of time. I have called each day for status. If you ask them what a reasonable amount of time is, they don't know.
 
I received three doa WD RE3 drives in a row, and prior to that I had been running a 160GB WD drive for like 4 years with zero issues. Sometimes you just get bad luck. WD is better than a lot of companies.
 
cannondale06 said:
well because having to go out and buy a $45 hd for a pc that I only spent 300 bucks on to begin with defeats the whole point of getting an entry level pc. I am also aggravated because if I would have bought this hd separately it would have had a 3 year warranty. plus I have to find the recovery disc or spend more money getting those. not to mention having to drive all the way there and spend hours reinstalling everything for them after changing it out.
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Wait... Are you mad at the manufacturer because you got a part that failed prematurely, or are you mad at yourself/your parents for the fact that your are their IT support guy?
I understand that you're not very happy, but it doesn't seem like WD's error. Hardware fails, this was going to happen eventually, it might as well have been the entire PC.

My recommendation as to how to fix the issue: Find a local guy to help your parents with their computing needs. Tell them it costs money, just like the plumber or electrician. It's no different.
 
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