Need hard drive advice for Dell Inspiron 8200

[Michael]

Hi All,

I am not a laptop user, and I have been asked to replace a hard drive that
appears to be failing (failed confidence tests in the Dell Hardware
Diagnostics--SMART reports possible impending disk failure). And the drive
seems to be failing (slow file access, some blue screen errors, etc.)

I am writing because when I called Dell, the technician said that the hard
drive was an IBM Cascade 30 GB. When I looked up the drive name in Windows
XP Home Device Manager, the drive is identified as IC25N030ATCS04-0 (0's are
the digit, not the letter.) On Hitachi's website, this is a Travelstar 40GN
drive, not IBM, and Hitachi's specs note that the drive is ATA-5. Dell's
"Configuration as shipped new" reads as follows: HARD DRIVE, 30GB, IDE,
2.5" FORM FACTOR, 9.5 MM, IBM-CSD with a part number of 0K727.

I can't open the case up myself because of physical limitations, but I would
like to recommend a hard drive that would work for my friend. I have been
told that any of the Hitachi Travelstars would work. My concern is that few
people make ATA-5 drives anymore, and I want to get her something that will
likely work the first try. Dell isn't talking--the system is exactly two
years old and one year out of warranty.

Would any Travelstar model work? Why is there confusion between the
Hitchachi Travelstar and IBM names. I would like to get good bang for the
buck, or best compromise among price, speed, features, and reliability.

I would love any input you could offer. Thanks much. She has 256 MB RAM,
running XP home.

 

[Pen]

IBM sold their drive business to Hitachi, hence the
name confudsion. Travelstars are also know as
Deathstars.

 

[Tom Scales]

IBM sold their hard disk group to Hitachi along with the Travelstar name.
So, the drive is both an IBM and a Hitachi, but any comparable drive, of any
brand, will work fine. 9.5mm height. That's about it.

Tom

 

[Christopher Muto]

you can use any 'ide' drive that has the 2.5" form factor drive and a
maximum height of 9.5mm. most notebook or laptop drives fit this
specification. you almost have to go out of your way to find something
different. these drives come with different storage capacities, not that
that makes them any bigger or smaller on the outside, just means they may
hold more or less than the 30mb that the current drive can hold. they also
come in different disk rotation speeds. basically the faster the disk spins
the better the overall performance and the higher the price. the drive it
self is fitted into a drive caddy that is specific to the laptop and then
the drive in the caddy slides into the side of the inspiron 8200 and is
secured by one screw. once you get the new drive you simply have to remove
the caddy with drive that is currently in the dell, remove the old drive
from the caddy, install the new drive into the caddy, and slide it back into
the dell. to be safe, shut down the laptop and then remove the a/c power
cord and battery and hold the power button for ten seconds before you remove
the drive. removal instructions can be found here for the inspiron 8200...
http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/ins8200/en/sm_en/hdd.htm#1084976

some drive suggestions...
30gb 4200rpm ibm/hatachi for $82
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100514
30gb 5400rpm ibm/hatachi for $83
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100523
30gb 4200rpm toshiba for $90
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101608 (out of
stock)
40gb 4200rpm fujitsu for $91
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100010
40gb 5400rpn fujitsu for $104
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100049 (probably
the best deal and bang for the buck).

your current drive is probably a 4200rpm, look up the specs to be sure. it
would make sense to get something out of this rebuild effort, like a better
performing system for just $20 more than going with the cheap drive that got
you in this trouble in the first place.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

All the other advice you've gotten is good except get this one as it'll be
much faster:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100526

 

[Thomas M. Goethe]

Or this one for extra space
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100519-1 I found
this to be a lot faster than the 4200 rpm that came with my Inspiron. Very
easy to change them on the I8200. The manuals are located on the support
site for taking the PC apart.

 

[Michael]

Pen,

Death Stars?!?! Sounds a little harsh. Why do you feel this way?

 

[J. Clarke]

Pen,

Death Stars?!?! Sounds a little harsh. Why do you feel this way?

He's misinformed. "Deathstar" is a play on "Deskstar", not "Travelstar".
Came about when what appeared to be an unusual number of failures occurred
with the 75GXP series--it's still not clear if there really were more
failures or if it's just that a few very vocal people experienced them.
There's a lawsuit in progress but whether it's going to go anywhere only
time will tell.

 

[Dan Foster]

He's misinformed. "Deathstar" is a play on "Deskstar", not "Travelstar".
Came about when what appeared to be an unusual number of failures occurred
with the 75GXP series--it's still not clear if there really were more
failures or if it's just that a few very vocal people experienced them.
There's a lawsuit in progress but whether it's going to go anywhere only
time will tell.

They were indeed very real failures due to design. They fixed these via
later firmware revs which tweaked certain parameters (vague
recollection). It was so bad for a while that dealers actually pulled
the 75GXP from their shelves and sold the 60GXP in its place.

IBM fixed these 75GXP issues a few years ago, well before they sold the
disk storage division to Hitachi... but you know how people are -- burnt
badly once, twice shy. Can't say I blame them. So the 75GXP failures (as
with any spectacular failure) has a rather long shelf-life, apparently.

Failure modes with hard drives are, in general, not unusual... that's
why firmware upgrades for server class drives are so critical.

For instance, with a new drive array (not 75GXPs)... the vendor called
us and requested we upgrade to latest firmware because it adjusted key
thresholds for bad blocks before onboard controller considered a drive
to be failed -- threshold was previously too (unrealistically) high.

Also, the PFA (predictive failure analysis) on the drives were too
twitchy and often led to large numbers of false positive ( = RMA
returns) so they disabled PFA entirely and used other means to more
accurately monitor for developing health issues.

The 75GXP was just infamous because its failure mode happened far too
soon and essentially led to loss of all data on the drive. If you have a
drive that does _that_ even once, you're left with an extremely dark
impression of the manufacturer and their engineers, and often folks vows
to never buy anything from them again if they experience that. I still
remember the Zip Drive's 'click of death'.

-Dan

 

[chrisv]

He's misinformed. "Deathstar" is a play on "Deskstar", not "Travelstar".
Came about when what appeared to be an unusual number of failures occurred
with the 75GXP series--it's still not clear if there really were more
failures or if it's just that a few very vocal people experienced them.
There's a lawsuit in progress but whether it's going to go anywhere only
time will tell.

There is no well known and reputable website nor news source that
confirms any kind of problem with IBM Deskstar HDs. It's just a few
web wackos making bogus claims.

 

[chrisv]

They were indeed very real failures due to design. They fixed these via
later firmware revs which tweaked certain parameters (vague
recollection). It was so bad for a while that dealers actually pulled
the 75GXP from their shelves and sold the 60GXP in its place.

There are generally no problems with the Deskstar 75GXP. There are a
few attempting a smear campaign.

IBM fixed these 75GXP issues a few years ago, well before they sold the
disk storage division to Hitachi... but you know how people are -- burnt
badly once, twice shy. Can't say I blame them. So the 75GXP failures (as
with any spectacular failure) has a rather long shelf-life, apparently.

Utter nonsense. The 75GXP is very relaible and a few wackos have a
posting history of such anti-IBM slime like you.

Failure modes with hard drives are, in general, not unusual... that's
why firmware upgrades for server class drives are so critical.

All possible and could even explain a few multidrive failure reports.
BUT othing supports an kind of mass failures that the wackos are
claiming. Basically the 75GXP and 60GXP are fast and reliable HDs and
there isn't the slightest evidence to suggest otherwise.

For instance, with a new drive array (not 75GXPs)... the vendor called
us and requested we upgrade to latest firmware because it adjusted key
thresholds for bad blocks before onboard controller considered a drive
to be failed -- threshold was previously too (unrealistically) high.

It'll be fine and have few problems just like the 75GXP.

Also, the PFA (predictive failure analysis) on the drives were too
twitchy and often led to large numbers of false positive ( = RMA
returns) so they disabled PFA entirely and used other means to more
accurately monitor for developing health issues.

The 75GXP and now 60GXP are reliable and fast drives and there is NO
reputable information suggesting otherwise.

The 75GXP was just infamous because its failure mode happened far too
soon and essentially led to loss of all data on the drive. If you have a
drive that does _that_ even once, you're left with an extremely dark
impression of the manufacturer and their engineers, and often folks vows
to never buy anything from them again if they experience that. I still
remember the Zip Drive's 'click of death'.

And like other members of the slime cult, you'd like to make the
number of IBM failures look much larger than it is. Get a life.

 

[Dan Foster]

Utter nonsense. The 75GXP is very relaible and a few wackos have a
posting history of such anti-IBM slime like you.

That's pretty funny because I've got a fixed 75GXP in my main
workstation (where I'm composing this), and the servers that I run are
49% IBM-based... figure about 500-600 IBM drives? My co-workers also
sometimes accuse me of being way too pro-IBM.

My 75GXP drive in this workstation:

# smartctl -P show /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.26 Copyright (C) 2002-3 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Drive found in smartmontools Database. Drive identity strings:
MODEL: IBM-DTLA-307075
FIRMWARE: TXAOA50C

For the server class HDs that I have, the longevity is about the same
amongst the various manufacturers I have, IBM included -- typically
about 5-6 years for the 10K RPM server class SCSI drives that I have...
but we weren't discussing *these*.

You ever looked at the 75GXP firmware fix list? Any of them look like
direct responses to the observed issues?

I don't think dealers would be pulling a product off their shelves (at
the time) for a non-existent phantom issue. It's not a bad product per
se, just had real teething problems for a while... eventually the issue
got straightened out. I've got no issues in buying new 75GXPs today, as
you can see from the fact that I have one in this machine.

Before IBM sold the disk business to Hitachi, they would come out with
frequent revisions to disk firmware -- I'd apply updates to the server
class drives that I had. I didn't take it to be a negative issue; the
problems they fixed were mostly minor, or the occasional major one that
wasn't easy to trigger in normal conditions. The 75GXP issue was
different in that it was apparently pretty easily triggered for many.

IBM makes pretty good stuff, but they're not immune to the occasional
goof. That's just a fact of life in engineering, for most any consumer
product.

I have no agenda, other than to point out my honest recollections. I'm
too busy running several hundred servers and supporting tens of
thousands of users to have time for silly agendas, sorry.

I also have no affilitation with any storage vendor other than as a
customer.

-Dan

 

[Michael]

Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here! And really the Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion. I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive. I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good. But I am a newbie here with laptops. Am I
safe buying from zipzoomfly? And apparently they sell at really good
prices. I just wonder about buying a "bare" hard drive...is this safe...is
it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

Also, in general, should I be able to return a drive that doesn't work due
to compatibility reasons...or is buying such drives more like buying
RAM--once you buy it, you own it?

Mike

 

[Vince McGowan]

Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here! And really the Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion. I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive. I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good. But I am a newbie here with laptops. Am I
safe buying from zipzoomfly? And apparently they sell at really good
prices. I just wonder about buying a "bare" hard drive...is this safe...is
it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

No guarantees, of course; but I bought a 60GB 7K60 HDD (7200RPM) HDD
from zzf for my ThinkPad. You don't need a "retail" kit, the new HDD
just replaces the existing one. If you want to see the doc, just go to
the Hitachi Web site. The new HDD made my laptop noticeably faster
(replaced a 60GB 5400RPM HDD).

ZZF used to be Googlegear, which many posters on this NG recommended
over the years.

As always, YMMV

 

[Thomas M. Goethe]

Mike,

I don't have the url, but if you go to the Dell support site for the
I8200, look in the reference, manuals area. You should find a manual that
will give you all you need to strip the Inspiron down to a pile of parts and
put it back together. Changing out the hard drive is pretty easy. You will
need to be up to backing up your data and reinstalling all your software and
OS.

You can also pickup parts so you can use the old drive in the modular
drive bay.


--
Thomas M. Goethe

Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here! And really the Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion. I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive. I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good. But I am a newbie here with laptops. Am I
safe buying from zipzoomfly? And apparently they sell at really good
prices. I just wonder about buying a "bare" hard drive...is this safe...is
it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

Also, in general, should I be able to return a drive that doesn't work due
to compatibility reasons...or is buying such drives more like buying
RAM--once you buy it, you own it?

Mike


apparently.

That's pretty funny because I've got a fixed 75GXP in my main
workstation (where I'm composing this), and the servers that I run are
49% IBM-based... figure about 500-600 IBM drives? My co-workers also
sometimes accuse me of being way too pro-IBM.

My 75GXP drive in this workstation:

# smartctl -P show /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.26 Copyright (C) 2002-3 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Drive found in smartmontools Database. Drive identity strings:
MODEL: IBM-DTLA-307075
FIRMWARE: TXAOA50C

For the server class HDs that I have, the longevity is about the same
amongst the various manufacturers I have, IBM included -- typically
about 5-6 years for the 10K RPM server class SCSI drives that I have...
but we weren't discussing *these*.

You ever looked at the 75GXP firmware fix list? Any of them look like
direct responses to the observed issues?

I don't think dealers would be pulling a product off their shelves (at
the time) for a non-existent phantom issue. It's not a bad product per
se, just had real teething problems for a while... eventually the issue
got straightened out. I've got no issues in buying new 75GXPs today, as
you can see from the fact that I have one in this machine.

Before IBM sold the disk business to Hitachi, they would come out with
frequent revisions to disk firmware -- I'd apply updates to the server
class drives that I had. I didn't take it to be a negative issue; the
problems they fixed were mostly minor, or the occasional major one that
wasn't easy to trigger in normal conditions. The 75GXP issue was
different in that it was apparently pretty easily triggered for many.

IBM makes pretty good stuff, but they're not immune to the occasional
goof. That's just a fact of life in engineering, for most any consumer
product.

I have no agenda, other than to point out my honest recollections. I'm
too busy running several hundred servers and supporting tens of
thousands of users to have time for silly agendas, sorry.

I also have no affilitation with any storage vendor other than as a
customer.

-Dan

 

[J. Clarke]

Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here!

It's a religious issue for some. Like gun control, once the battle is
joined all signal becomes lost in the noise.

And really the
Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion. I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive. I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good. But I am a newbie here with laptops. Am
I
safe buying from zipzoomfly? And apparently they sell at really good
prices. I just wonder about buying a "bare" hard drive...is this
safe...is it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

Generally speaking a "bare" drive is fine. I've only bought from zipzoomfly
a couple of times--the produce arrived as expected and worked fine--don't
know how their returns are. You might want to check their rating at

Also, in general, should I be able to return a drive that doesn't work due
to compatibility reasons...or is buying such drives more like buying
RAM--once you buy it, you own it?

Depends on the store's policy and on whether the manufactuer guarantees
compatibility with a particular machine. <http://www.newegg.com> will
accept nondefective returns with a 15% restocking fee, and generally has
pretty good prices as well.

The particular drive you have is a UDMA/100 drive, which is the next to the
latest release of parallel ATA, so a current-generation drive should work
fine--the ATA interface is supposed to be backward-compatible and usually
is unless you're dealing with a pretty old machine that was built before
all the bugs in the interface standard got worked out. You _may_ hit a
32-gig BIOS limitation--that shouldn't cause problems, you just won't get
the full capacity of a drive larger than that size.

Do however check the drive specifications for power consumption--laptops are
especially sensitive in that area and you want a drive with about the same
power consumption as the old one.

According to froogle several vendors have the exact drive in stock, however
they're all used.

Also, don't know if anybody has made this clear--a few years ago IBM spun
off their drive division to Hitachi (the actual deal was more complicated
than that but that's the gist of it)--that's why your IBM drive is listed
on the Hitachi site.

 

[Michael]

Everyone,

Thanks much for the input. Only one issue remains for me--partitioning and
formatting the new drive. This sort of relates back to my bare drive
question ("Is it safe to buy a "bare" hard drive?") Assuming WinXP home is
going back on the box when done, and assuming I don't want to buy a copy of
Partition Magic (ok, I am trying to save money), this means I have to use
FDISK and FORMAT, I think, if the drive itself comes with no disks. The
only snag is it has been several millennia since I have used these
utilities.

And it seems like Windows XP lacks facilities for making a restore disk.
How does one handle the partition and format side of this problem?

Mike

Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here!

It's a religious issue for some. Like gun control, once the battle is
joined all signal becomes lost in the noise.

And really the
Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion. I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive. I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good. But I am a newbie here with laptops. Am
I
safe buying from zipzoomfly? And apparently they sell at really good
prices. I just wonder about buying a "bare" hard drive...is this
safe...is it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

Generally speaking a "bare" drive is fine. I've only bought from zipzoomfly
a couple of times--the produce arrived as expected and worked fine--don't
know how their returns are. You might want to check their rating at

Also, in general, should I be able to return a drive that doesn't work due
to compatibility reasons...or is buying such drives more like buying
RAM--once you buy it, you own it?

Depends on the store's policy and on whether the manufactuer guarantees
compatibility with a particular machine. <http://www.newegg.com> will
accept nondefective returns with a 15% restocking fee, and generally has
pretty good prices as well.

The particular drive you have is a UDMA/100 drive, which is the next to the
latest release of parallel ATA, so a current-generation drive should work
fine--the ATA interface is supposed to be backward-compatible and usually
is unless you're dealing with a pretty old machine that was built before
all the bugs in the interface standard got worked out. You _may_ hit a
32-gig BIOS limitation--that shouldn't cause problems, you just won't get
the full capacity of a drive larger than that size.

Do however check the drive specifications for power consumption--laptops are
especially sensitive in that area and you want a drive with about the same
power consumption as the old one.

According to froogle several vendors have the exact drive in stock, however
they're all used.

Also, don't know if anybody has made this clear--a few years ago IBM spun
off their drive division to Hitachi (the actual deal was more complicated
than that but that's the gist of it)--that's why your IBM drive is listed
on the Hitachi site.

 

[Nik Simpson]

And it seems like Windows XP lacks facilities for making a restore
disk. How does one handle the partition and format side of this
problem?

Assuming you have an XP CD, then just pop it in the CD-ROM drive and
install, XP will figure out that the drive is bare and give you the chance
to partition it during the installation.