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Western Digital 80gig, going going--

B

Bloefield

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 29, 2001
Messages
1,483
Just got an rma to replace a 7 month old WD 80/8mg drive.
A few weeks ago I heard a noise that I can best describe as a car trying to start up in the Arctic and the battery is almost dead.
Not clicking and not whirring but like it's chugging.
It boots up into XP in the same time[5.5 passes of XP's progress bar] but it doesn't sound right.
It only does this on a "cold" start. Not on restarts but after it's been off overnight or for a long period, overnight being the longest period of inactivity usually.
When I described this to Western Digital and gave the s/n they responded quickly saying,"the drive is defective and needs to be backed up and replaced immediately"
I was surprised at how fast they deemed the drive defective and isssued an rma.
It passes their diagnostic quick tests but if they think it's defective and want to replace it it's fine with me.
Anyone else ever have the same noise, symptoms?
 
They were right in issuing that backup/RMA recommendation. Clicking is not normal, and should be dealt with at once. Clicking is a warning sign that a drive is ready to die. Back it up and RMA, your data is not worth the risk. WD is good about their RMAs.
 
DeepFreeze said
uhm, this wasnt one of those WD 80GB drives from Office max was it?
Click to expand...

Yes, I got it at Office Max right around Christmas.
Is there some known problem with this batch or [shudder] did you get one there too?
 
Bloefield said:
DeepFreeze said


Yes, I got it at Office Max right around Christmas.
Is there some known problem with this batch or [shudder] did you get one there too?
Click to expand...

i got 3 of those. one is my current OS drive right now.
1 is going to be my fiance/gf OS drive next week. whats going on?
 
Deep
I don't know if my 80 gig is an isolated failure or what, sure hope so.
While my drive has passed all the diagnostic tests from WD, the noise it makes on COLD startups only, is NOT a clicking sound and NOT a whirrring sound.
It's like it has a hard time turning over. Like a car who's battery is almost dead.
First thing I did was check all my fans: 2 front intake, 1 side intake, 2 exhaust. The Antec 430's True Power's 2 fans and cpu, video and Abit Northbridge fans.
All are good. I even disconnected the case fans and the floppy and cd just to make sure it was the hd not some other hardware and not the ps.
Western Digital response kind of surprised me because I used their online tests and they are aware of it passing them.
Leads me to think they know something I don't regarding those particular drives or simply they feel that noise is a symtom of immenent failure.
Her's a link to WD's Data Lifeguard Tools. Easier, imo, to use than floppy tests. Good Luck
http://support.wdc.com/dlg/
http://support.wdc.com/download/
 
Model WD800JB-CRA1

S/N WMA8E8796087
Made in Malaysia

Bought it at OfficeMax in Enfield,CT when the West Springfield, Ma. store was sold out and they gave me a raincheck.
My warranty is good until December 25, 2004.

Good thing about WD is they didn't need a receipt just the S/N.
They then told me it was still under warranty until 12/25/04
They have two kinds of rma: 1: you send them your defective drive [in specific packaging] and they send you the repacement drive or 2: You do the advanced rma where you give them a credit card # and they send you the drive right away. You send back the defective drive in their packaging within 30 days and there is no charge to the credit card.
I'm going with #2. I want the new drive asap plus I don't want to screw around with the right way to ship the thing of which they're very specific.
They give tracking your rma status too which is good.
 
first they have over $60 rebate on an 80GB 8mb cache hard disk. then they dont give you a hard time? lets be real. something is up.
 
Well I got my replacement drive today.
Took 2.5 days from California to Mass. Not bad Western Digital.
Drive was made 31/June/2004.
Model is different from the old one,
new=WD800JB-00DUA3

old=WD800JB-CRA1. Was made end of October/03
I'm now tweaking new format!
This drive isn't making any noise---yet. :)
 
hope this doesnt happen to the batch of 160's compussr sold for 80 bucks a while back.
 
Thanks the replys guys!
Kind of makes you wonder about some of these wicked deals.
At least WD is making good here though.
Hope I'm the only one that has a problem.
I sent back my drive fully loaded with completed Vietcong, Far Cry, and Painkiller games, etc and a pile of pictures.
Hope Western digital enjoys! :)
 
Just returned the same drive today :(. Manufactured about the same time, different failure type though. It would boot fine, but after 10 minutes of use it would start clicking as it tried to unsuccessfully perform a read operation. I didn't lose any data, the trick is that as soon as it does anything out of the ordinary, make your backups while you still have the chance.
 
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