NEVER BUY A MAXTOR HARD DRIVE

[Barry]

Hi just a quick not to warn you about the crap after sales service you
get from Maxtor.

I brought a brand new Maxtor diamondmax10 at the beginning of march,
it lasted a few months and then windows started to complain about it.
The drive would freeze, freezing the whole computer in the process,
whatsmore it also started to get very noisy and started to make clunky
noises. Bad clusters developed on it too.

I took it out of the machine and contacted Maxtor and asked about a
replacement, as it was still under guarantee I was told it was "no
trouble and one would be sent out to me in 2 - 3 business days". Great
I thought as I need the disc space for work.

So I waited and waited for my replacement drive to arrive. A week
passed and no drive so I checked the status on the web site and found
that it hadn't even been dispatched. So I then contacted Maxtor by
phone to ask what was going on.

Apparently my drive is out of stock here in Europe, there aren't any
in the stock room so I am going to have to wait until new drives
arrive. So I'm not going to be getting a replacement drive until mid
July at the earliest, that's a 6 - 7 week wait. I think that is
disgusting. I need that hard drive space, without it my computers
pretty much useless for what I want it for but now I have to wait two
months because of Maxtor's pretty shit after sales service. Thanks
Maxtor.

Next time I buy a hard drive I WON'T be buying Maxtor, next time
someone asks me to recommend a hard drive manufacturer it WONT be
Maxtor

Pissed Off

Barry

remove the "spamtrap" to reply

 

[old jon]

Maxtors are that good they are selling like hotcakes, that`s why they are
out of stock. Don`t worry there`s another ship full on the way..J

 

[Barry]

Maxtors are that good they are selling like hotcakes, that`s why they are
out of stock. Don`t worry there`s another ship full on the way..J

I pity anyone who develops a problem with their hard drive, You'll
have to wait MONTHS for a replacement

 

[Odie Ferrous]

I pity anyone who develops a problem with their hard drive, You'll
have to wait MONTHS for a replacement

Great - and all just to receive another pile of nonsense that's bound to
fail just as quickly.

Seagate. Why the heck anyone is still buying Maxtor.... Exceptionally
good for my business, but not good for the users.


Odie

 

[Quaoar]

I pity anyone who develops a problem with their hard drive, You'll
have to wait MONTHS for a replacement

If you have a complaint about replacements, complain to your government
about the import duties and taxes applied to imported materials.
Companies manage their business to manage costs and import duties and
taxes are a major component of those costs. It makes no sense to import
a large quantity of material unless and until that material is needed
because import duties and taxes are a large portion of the landed cost
of that material that must be booked before the first sale is made.
Older, non-current, slow selling stock suffers the most.

Q

 

[Pelysma]

Hi just a quick not to warn you about the crap after sales service you
get from Maxtor.

So what you've offered is one example of a Maxtor that failed,
plus the observation that they're pretty slow about getting a replacement to
you in Europe.

I'd be interested to know if there's any widespread pattern of failure by
brand or type. I've personally returned a defective-in-the-shrinkwrap 80 GB
Hitachi drive (bad data pin) recently, and a couple of years ago saw the 2.5
Fujitsu I'd used for several years just sorta fall to pieces. I also have a
3.2 GB WD drive that works fine singly but won't accept another drive on the
same cable as master or slave. So, counting just yours and mine, there are
four anecdotal failures of four brands of hard drives. There are quite a
few posts in this newsgroup by people looking for help after a drive has
failed, and I really haven't noticed any particular pattern in those.

About the only pattern I have noticed is that lots of people here say nice
things about Seagate.

 

[kony]

So what you've offered is one example of a Maxtor that failed,
plus the observation that they're pretty slow about getting a replacement to
you in Europe.

I'd be interested to know if there's any widespread pattern of failure by
brand or type. I've personally returned a defective-in-the-shrinkwrap 80 GB
Hitachi drive (bad data pin) recently, and a couple of years ago saw the 2.5
Fujitsu I'd used for several years just sorta fall to pieces. I also have a
3.2 GB WD drive that works fine singly but won't accept another drive on the
same cable as master or slave. So, counting just yours and mine, there are
four anecdotal failures of four brands of hard drives. There are quite a
few posts in this newsgroup by people looking for help after a drive has
failed, and I really haven't noticed any particular pattern in those.

About the only pattern I have noticed is that lots of people here say nice
things about Seagate.

Not so fast! The last two drives that failed here were
Seagate and Samsungs. I still give Samsung credit for
providing a 5 year warranty on their low-end drives though.
The disappointing part was that their RMA replacement was
older than the one that had failed... which was only ~ 45
days old. So it seems buying a new Seagate means you may
get an older once-RMA'd already replacement. At least the
last two times I've RMA'd Maxtors the replacement received
was brand new, and the advanced replacement policy didn't
require a fee unlike with the Seagate. It's a mixed bag, a
shame there isn't a clear winner in the service and support
category.

 

[kony]

Seagate and Samsungs. I still give Samsung credit for
providing a 5 year warranty on their low-end drives though.
The disappointing part was that their RMA replacement was ...

Oops, substitute "Seagate" above where I wrote "still give
Samsung credit...".

 

[John]

Oops, substitute "Seagate" above where I wrote "still give
Samsung credit...".

Yeah thats why everyone likes them 5 year warranty which is a
ridiculously long time. Ive also heard their rebates are a pain in the
ass. I see lots of complaints of rejects due to various reasons like
wrong serial number etc . They say its easily fixed but there are
complaints about having to call them and fix it and how long it takes
to get the rebates. Im still watiing for my rebate check. Im kind of
disappointed they give you RMAd ones for replacement Ive never done
one yet but I guess getting a replacement is better than getting no
replacement after the usual short 1 - 3 year warranty period.

Anandtech had a thing about Maxtor and others lengthening their
warranty service in response to Seagates 5 yr warranty. I havent
bought a Maxtor recently all the local sales have switched to WD ,
Hitachi and Seagate. I wonder if everyone has at least lengthened it
to 3 years now? Actually Im pretty satisfied with 3 years as thats
about the max time Id like to safely keep a HD running as one the
main HDs Id use a lot.

 

[kony]

Yeah thats why everyone likes them 5 year warranty which is a
ridiculously long time. Ive also heard their rebates are a pain in the
ass.

I did have to resubmit one and recheck another while
watching it change from invalid to valid due to their ???
mixups.

I see lots of complaints of rejects due to various reasons like
wrong serial number etc .

Exactly, that's what happened to one of mine that they
corrected without my having to contact them.

They say its easily fixed but there are
complaints about having to call them and fix it and how long it takes
to get the rebates. Im still watiing for my rebate check. Im kind of
disappointed they give you RMAd ones for replacement Ive never done
one yet but I guess getting a replacement is better than getting no
replacement after the usual short 1 - 3 year warranty period.

We'll see, the last RMA replacement I received was put
through the full diagnostics 5 or 6 times and will be only a
redundant backup drive.

Anandtech had a thing about Maxtor and others lengthening their
warranty service in response to Seagates 5 yr warranty. I havent
bought a Maxtor recently all the local sales have switched to WD ,
Hitachi and Seagate. I wonder if everyone has at least lengthened it
to 3 years now? Actually Im pretty satisfied with 3 years as thats
about the max time Id like to safely keep a HD running as one the
main HDs Id use a lot.

Me too, after a certain point they're just not worth
keeping, especially when one larger drive replaces two or
three older ones capacity-wise.

Funny thing about the RMA replacement Seagate though, I had
it set up last night and the box it was in was running Prime
95 torture test... beeping sounds were coming from the
drive, somewhat similar to inductor hum but definitely
coming from the drive. I've heard enough drives making
mechanical squeal-like beeps to know this was electrical
instead but it's still a bit disconcerting. I'll have to
reassess that drive, hopefully pinpointing the problem. I'd
suspected power but the power supply is a fairly good 420W
unit and the old box I"d hooked it up to for testing is
quite meager, an old Compaq all-in-one that only had a ~
120W PSU in it to begin with. Think it's not enough load on
12V rail but will have to probe around more.

 

[Michael C]

Next time I buy a hard drive I WON'T be buying Maxtor, next time
someone asks me to recommend a hard drive manufacturer it WONT be
Maxtor

Don't you buy from a supplier? I just take my faulty ones in and they deal
with maxtor. I fill in a simple web based form, they give me an RA number
and I get a replacement. If I post it I have to wait up to a week and a half
but if I need it quick I can rock up in person and get it replaced
immediately. If they don't have maxtors I can get a different brand or a
different size and pay the difference.

Michael

 

[digisol]

Interesting, I personally have about 10 or so 80Gb 8 Mb ultra thin
(1/2")maxtors, about is just that, I can't remember right now, all
have worked mainly in raid systems due to their size and none have
died or needed to be RMA'd as yet, and the warranties have long since
expired.

However several Seagate Barracudas and what at the time were top line
drives, the now old WD-JB 8Mb drives have died with no warning
whatsoever, allthough their after sales service and packing was
nothing short of brilliant.

I know by personal work and many aquaintances in the PC business that
have had nothing but trouble with these few items, Fujitsu drives,
Phillips monitors, 56X Aopen CDROM's, (that close faster than a
French guillotine usually on your most expensive program disks not
sitting square), great fun eh ? not, but many millions of the Aopen
52's work fine ?

I personally use and sell only LG or Pioneer CD / DVD or combo optical
drives and WD for myself and Seagate for both sale or keep, all good
stuff IMO.

Same with motherboards, video cards (and real good ones) those that
are top end gear at the time worth a fortune that you just have to
put in the game box, you know the ones they last 3 months and getting
them RMA'd takes 3 months or so having to send em overseas to a
non-english speaking country.

All components die, some faster than others some from overclocking, (I
say bad luck there), and many of the same thing will last for years,
problem is that most old stuff still works fine while the new gear is
lucky to last the warranty then the magic warranty chip cuts in and
your component dies usually a month after the warranty ends.

Have lots of PC's and stress in large amounts, ever lost 3 top end
PC's in the one day ? I have, the cause, a damm virus not found by
NAV2004, (I use AVG now), and having many systems networked it took 3
to the grave before I figured the system files that were literally
dissolving taking hardware with it was not a coincidence, I did not
turn on # 4 and onwards, before dissconecting the network cable and
finding the problem.

Ain't it fun ?

 

[kony]

Don't you buy from a supplier? I just take my faulty ones in and they deal
with maxtor. I fill in a simple web based form, they give me an RA number
and I get a replacement. If I post it I have to wait up to a week and a half
but if I need it quick I can rock up in person and get it replaced
immediately. If they don't have maxtors I can get a different brand or a
different size and pay the difference.

Michael

Many of the people with the Maxtors were able to take
advantage of very steeply discounted prices due to sales and
rebates, for personal use. Only buying in very large
volumes would be as cost-effective.

I don't find Maxtor's RMA procedure all that bad. If you
have to "take your faulty ones in" that's not all that much
better than just posting them to Maxtor at your convenience.
They will cross-ship a replacement so there is minimal
action needed until the replacement arrives, plus having the
shipping container from the replacement is handy too,
reduces the numbers of old boxes one has to keep.

 

[Barry]

Don't you buy from a supplier? I just take my faulty ones in and they deal
with maxtor. I fill in a simple web based form, they give me an RA number
and I get a replacement. If I post it I have to wait up to a week and a half
but if I need it quick I can rock up in person and get it replaced
immediately. If they don't have maxtors I can get a different brand or a
different size and pay the difference.

Michael

Yes I brought it from dabs.com, they had a 3 month guarantee policy
after that they want you to send the drive back to them and they then
send it back to the manufacturers, quoting 6 weeks as the amount of
time it normally takes to get you a replacement. They recommend
contacting the manufacturers yourself as it's suppose to be quicker

 

[Intiglietta SoloLinko]

Next time I buy a hard drive I WON'T be buying Maxtor, next time
someone asks me to recommend a hard drive manufacturer it WONT be
Maxtor

I reccommend you to buy a Seagate, a Western Digital or a Hitachi Hard
disk. Those aren't very cheap but very reliable.
--
Intiglietta -- SoloLinko !!!
"Io a me pero' non cello' a quella cosa !"
(e-mail address removed)
Togli la sottiletta -- www.retrotecnologia.tk
francy72100.interfree.it -- retro2k.interfree.it -- inti2.interfree.it

 

[Bob]

I reccommend you to buy a Seagate, a Western Digital or a Hitachi Hard
disk. Those aren't very cheap but very reliable.

I recommend 7200 rpm 8 MB cache WD SE Caviar drives.

I wouldn't have a Seagate if you paid me. Anything from Seagate is
complete crap. Shugart went bankrupt for a good reason. Too bad he
found backers to start back up.

Best Buy has a 7200 rpm 80GB Hitachi on sale - $29 after two rebates.
I did not look into it, but I bet it is ATA33 and has no onboard
cache.

I can get a 7200 rpm 80 GB 8 MB cache ATA100 WD Caviar drive for $60
at Directron. Saving $30 for a second rate drive like that Hitachi
with all the hassle of trying to get two rebates out of crooks is not
worth it.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Michael C]

Yes I brought it from dabs.com, they had a 3 month guarantee policy
after that they want you to send the drive back to them and they then
send it back to the manufacturers, quoting 6 weeks as the amount of
time it normally takes to get you a replacement. They recommend
contacting the manufacturers yourself as it's suppose to be quicker

Well there you go, you should be complaining about your supplier not maxtor.
For a retain company to treat you like that after only 3 months is complete
shite. That's the whole point of their existance is to deal with the
manufacturer on your behalf and provide you with an interim replacement. I'd
be jumping up and down demanding a replacement immediately from dabs.

Michael