If you've bought a drive in the last 8 mths there is a good chance it's gonna fail unless you update it's firmware pdq, sadly the first I knew of it was when I came down and found it rebooted with drive not found message, if you need to check your model go to Seagate and there is a checker, drives effected are Diamondmax 22's and most of the ST Seagate ones.

Edited 6 March, 200917 yr by Supurbia

Stopped buying Maxtors some time ago now.. got fed up of them failing. :thumbdwn:

Yeah i used to have Maxtors and every single one failed, but at least they had a decent returns policy, they would send you the new unit, then you sent the faulty one back in the same box FOC. Seagate changed it so you had to pay for packaging and posting, dissapointing.

I don't think I'll use any HDD apart from Western Digital again, never had a single one of them fail for me, including one thats over 10 years old. Can't say Iv'e ever had any problems with Maxtor either, but these problems seem to occur on particular models/batches

On the other hand, I recently bough two Samsung drives, and what a mistake that was. One 250GB had an electrical failure twice, and my 750GB become seriously screwed just before XMAS:mad: Fair enough, both were replaced under warranty but never again will I trust Samsung drives with my data

I Work for Fujistsu and wev'e just sold the HDD Division to Toshiba, it's a very competitive market right now

Never had significant problems with Maxtor drives. I've got a 5-6 year old 80Gb still running fine and I replaced about 150 IBM deathstars with Maxtors in a school. We had 1 DOA and a couple more go ping the first year but not too bad.

We had a bad run with fujitsu drives about the same time, I can't remember the reason, some manufacturing flaw.

Any drive can break, that's why IT bods are always muttering, "back up back up back up back up back up back up back up back up" in their sleep.

About 10 years or so ago go now I had issues with every single WD drive I had as did a few friends... started with developing bad blocks ended with drive failure.. Through no choice of my own a year or so ago I ended up with my first WD in 10yrs.. 6 months of use and that started acting up, sure enough bad blocks were found. :thumbdwn:

Never had a Maxtor or a Seagate fail on me, ever!

Samsung FTW imo.

The maxtors never failed on me but I have heard the horror stories.

Samsung FTW imo.

The maxtors never failed on me but I have heard the horror stories.

I hope so as I've put 2 Samsungs in SWMBO's pc...

I still have a few Maxtors in use here and there but the majority are long dead.

It's a strange one as I've never personnally had a drive go tits up on me (touches wood), and I've only ever seen about 3 go on my travels.

I've had drives fail from all manufacturers, there are good ones and bad ones out there. Certain series drives are/were notorious.

This Seagate firmware issue was made worse by them releasing firmware that guaranteed to hose the drive.

If you've bought a drive in the last 8 mths there is a good chance it's gonna fail unless you update it's firmware pdq, sadly the first I knew of it was when I came down and found it rebooted with drive not found message, if you need to check your model go to Seagate and there is a checker, drives effected are Diamondmax 22's and most of the ST Seagate ones.

I'd be extremely careful how you word that, check your facts regarding drives affected and the issue and reword your statement accordingly if I were you.

The ST designation is used on most Seagate drives and would include their high performance SAS drives which IME do not have the issue you're describing.

Also FWIW *if" there is a firmware issue, it would only affect a certain version or versions of certain firmware and would no doubt have been fixed past a certain version of said firmware.

You are aware that Seagate and Maxtor are the same company these days I assume?

Edited 6 March, 200917 yr by cheezemonkhai

I'd be extremely careful how you word that, check your facts regarding drives affected and the issue and reword your statement accordingly if I were you.

The ST designation is used on most Seagate drives and would include their high performance SAS drives which IME do not have the issue you're describing.

Also FWIW *if" there is a firmware issue, it would only affect a certain version or versions of certain firmware and would no doubt have been fixed past a certain version of said firmware.

You are aware that Seagate and Maxtor are the same company these days I assume?

I was expecting a reply like this, didn't expect it from you though.

So to clarify

IF YOU'VE BOUGHT A SEAGATE OR MAXTOR DRIVE RECENTLY PLEASE CHECK IT'S NOT EFFECTED BY THE FIRMWARE ISSUE AS IF IT IS YOU STAND TO LOSE ALL YOUR DATA AND THE DRIVE WON'T EVER START AGAIN UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW TO HACK IT WITH BOARDS AND BATTERIES ETC.

I'm trying to help ppl out here, I sometimes wonder why I bother.

Never had a Maxtor issue either.

Had several WD's die though....

I've had several Samsung drives die lol

Seagate, Maxtor, IBM, WD, Fujitsu, Samsung - had them all, all have had failures. It happens :P

Key is redundancy and backups with verified restore ability.

Never had significant problems with Maxtor drives. I've got a 5-6 year old 80Gb still running fine and I replaced about 150 IBM deathstars with Maxtors in a school. We had 1 DOA and a couple more go ping the first year but not too bad.

We had a bad run with fujitsu drives about the same time, I can't remember the reason, some manufacturing flaw.

Any drive can break, that's why IT bods are always muttering, "back up back up back up back up back up back up back up back up" in their sleep.

Ah the IBM Deathstar!

Mine succumb the wrath of a rather large sledgehammer, shame it took 3 blows to smash the platters.

More durable than its electronics were, a low level format did get it working for a wee while though.

I've had loads of all the different manufactures over the years and seen pleanty of discs fail but I wouldn't say one is worse than the other, it all depends on what you or your company purchase.

As mentioned earlier so long as you make sure you have a backup of your data on ANY disc then why worry too much, I know its an inconvinience but if they get swapped under warranty it's not cost you anything.

@supurbia

If you find out about these things theres no harm in letting people know at the end of the day we all try to help each other out where we can.

Thanks

Thx Matt.

Right, anyone who now finds themselves with a blocked drive can use this for a solution The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs - MSFN Forums it's the best thread I can find on the subject, I've not tried it myself yet but once I've studied the thread inside out and got familiar with the process I'm going to do it, hopefully with a USB phone cable, I'm not prepared to send it back because to me that's like leaving your wallet on the bar and going for a wee, hopefully I'll be successful and the drive will operate once again.

And for the Seagate fanboys, I'm not saying Seagate/Maxtor are bad product's, this is what you could call a minor glitch that appears as something much worse, I've been a Maxtor user since computer's began and have always been very happy with the brand, but as I got caught out this time I didn't want other's to follow me into painworld if they didn't have to.

Must admit I'd prefer to keep the drive local too if that is an option

I've had drives from all major manufacturers, pre- and post-take-over by others, and every single one of them gets it wrong sometimes. A long(ish) warranty period can be a great benefit in that case

We had a bad run with fujitsu drives about the same time, I can't remember the reason, some manufacturing flaw.

Was that the 20GB ones? I remember that very well.

And for the Seagate fanboys, I'm not saying Seagate/Maxtor are bad product's, this is what you could call a minor glitch that appears as something much worse, I've been a Maxtor user since computer's began and have always been very happy with the brand, but as I got caught out this time I didn't want other's to follow me into painworld if they didn't have to.

As others have said, any drive can fail and all brands have problems. Anyone remember the IBM Deathstar^W Deskstar fiasco.

To be honest, for home I buy whatever's good value, and for work it's whatever the server manufacturer is shipping at that time.

As others have said, any drive can fail and all brands have problems. Anyone remember the IBM Deathstar^W Deskstar fiasco.

To be honest, for home I buy whatever's good value, and for work it's whatever the server manufacturer is shipping at that time.

I was one of the sufferers of the deathstar, i've always used maxtors before and after this particular drive. And i've never had a problem with them so far.

And for the Seagate fanboys, I'm not saying Seagate/Maxtor are bad product's, this is what you could call a minor glitch that appears as something much worse, I've been a Maxtor user since computer's began and have always been very happy with the brand, but as I got caught out this time I didn't want other's to follow me into painworld if they didn't have to.

FWIW I'm not "fanboi" for anybodies drives, but those who know what I do for a living will know why I said what I said.

I've seen the results of tens of thousands of failed drives, it's just one of those things that will happen and all you do is plan to deal with it.

Also, when there are issues, it's more likely due to a paritcular model of drives than a drive manufacturer themselves being bad. If they were consistently bad, they'd be out of business.

FWIW, I've had a load of IBM Deskstars and never had a single failure. I've had a load of Maxtor diamondmax 9 series drives and they have ALL failed.

I recently bought two Samsung Spinpoint 640GB drives, and they both failed SMART within days of being purchased.

But that's not to say that IBM make the most reliable drives if there was a fiasco with a series of deskstar / deathstart drives, nor Maxtor or Samsung have an issue despite me getting consistent failures.