Please Read This Before Buying A Maxtor DiamondMax Hard Drive

[Pecos]

Please read this article if you are in the market for a Maxtor DiamondMax
hard drive. My experience was with the 6L250S0 DiamondMax 10 SATA I 250GB
model, but may also apply to other DiamondMax series drives.

Read the whole article:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html

Cut to the chase:
http://www.mindspring.com/
~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html#NotHardDrive

Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[kony]

Please read this article if you are in the market for a Maxtor DiamondMax
hard drive. My experience was with the 6L250S0 DiamondMax 10 SATA I 250GB
model, but may also apply to other DiamondMax series drives.

Read the whole article:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html

Cut to the chase:
http://www.mindspring.com/
~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html#NotHardDrive

Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

1) Everyone hates popups.

2) Beware of "Open Box", it's cheaper for a reason. Some
items, if they work 100% when received are a deal, others
are not.

3) You lose credibility for running Vista on any serious
system use. It's still a beta, DRM laden, toy OS.

4) You lose credibilty for putting the OS on a striped
volume, as the OS does not need higher througput, it needs
lower latency if anything. A Raid0 array of same drives
won't give you that.

5) I don't feel you "learned the hard way to export my
EMails occasionally" because the prudent measure is a full
backup of the array volume, not just one select set of
files. This is reasonable with a single drive but even more
important when a RAID0 increase chances of loss. While I
realize you wanted more performance, if you ignore the risks
you are gambling with any drive, let alone a refurbed set
used for RAID0.

6) "RAID arrays can be very particular about the type of
hard drives you mix and match" is false. You could random
buy any drive of same or higher actual capacity (if they
round off "250GB", some might be slightly too small if still
selling as "250GB" but any equal or larger would suffice.

7) "Open box" is just a category, a catch-all for anything
that is not brand new, untouched merchandise. It is
unfortunate you didn't realize the difference, and "maybe"
some blame can be placed on Newegg if they didn't
prominently display notification of this, but in the end it
is buyer beware when not buying normal, new stock items.

8) For future reference, they don't open boxes for no
reason. ALL of the "open box" items have been already
diverted from regular new/retail stock for some kind of
reason. I'm not necessarily faulting your
misinterpretation, but for future reference, they have no
reason to open a new product (thus devaluing it), these
items are subject to an uncertainty factor, a gamble in what
you receive. FWIW, I have bought refurb'd (the newegg
category used to be called refurbished instead of open box)
that continue to work fine over 2 years later (a hard drive)
but I've also bought refurb'd that had faults and had to be
returned promptly. IMO, the key is you have to beware that
there may be a problem and vigorously test an item, and with
HDDs, never get a refurb for any important data storage.

9) If the data is important, dont use a motherboard
integral raid controller for anything except RAID1.
Otherwise, if the board fails (which is, IMO, significantly
more likely than having a seperate card fail) you are stuck
having to buy a board with same RAID chipset to use that
array. If you have a seperate backup of it, proven working,
it is much less important, but personally I prefer a PCI
card even accepting the penalty of running one from PCI bus,
just so it is removable, and I also buy a 2nd card, same
chipset, for any array that holds important data.

10) A large part of your problem was the basic
misunderstanding that you needed to get an indentical drive.
You didn't, could have instead bought any 250GB drive, and
if it happened to be slightly smaller, copied the data onto
it first, then defined it as a member of a new array, then
after confirming data intact, take the other original drive
and delete the array it was in (different array) and assign
it as a member of the other newer array the new drive with
the data, is in. It might not even be necessary to do this,
if the new drive is at least as large in true (stated on
label) capacity.

11) SATA2 supports NQC. But it doesn't matter. You only
needed two drives supported by the controller to get the
array working. That includes SATA(1) drives that don't
support NCQ.

12) While your webpage was informative as some detailed
information about your situation and the cusotomer support
you received, it isn't necessarily the kind of information
that is as useful as a guide or review as a warning "don't
do this".

Especially with moderate sized drives, today it's as well to
buy whatever is on sale or has a rebate unless you're
shooting for highest performance with a certain model.
Certainly a Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 isn't one of those
models.

I didn't mean to be harsh above, I do have sympathy for
your situation, but it seems that by a few questionable
choices combined with bad luck, your result is worse than
most will achieve.

 

[Pecos]

1) Everyone hates popups.

I don't hate pop-ups. I simply ignore them. Nonetheless, it is time for
my pop-up experiment to come to an end. Pop-up removed.

2) Beware of "Open Box", it's cheaper for a reason. Some
items, if they work 100% when received are a deal, others
are not.

Good advice. I avoid refurbished electronic gear of any kind. I also
avoid computer hardware like motherboards, motherboard main memory and
graphic cards that can be overclocked. You never know what someone has
done to a previously owned item. I've always considered hard drives to be
relatively safe to buy 'Open Box' assuming of course that we are talking
items that have been returned for a reason other than failure. They can't
be overclocked and most hard drive failures occur in the first 30 days of
their life. In fact, hard drives are the only item besides maybe a
computer case that I would even consider buying 'Open Box' for a computer.

3) You lose credibility for running Vista on any serious
system use. It's still a beta, DRM laden, toy OS.

20 million copies of Vista sold in the first two months of 2007 does not a
toy OS make.
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+sells+20+million+Vista+licenses/2100-1016_3-
6170426.html?tag=nefd.top

I am not your average PC user. I seek out beta software. I was a beta
tester for the Microsoft Vista CPP (Consumer Preview Program) beginning
with the Beta 2 version. Later Microsoft kindly sent the RC1 version, so I
am quite familiar with Vista's shortcomings. It's expensive, it's buggy
(mostly due to vendor device drivers) but it still makes sense to buy it
with a new PC where the vendor is responsible for making sure it works with
Vista capable hardware and device drivers.

My take on Vista:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/Vista_Confusion.html#Editorial

4) You lose credibilty for putting the OS on a striped
volume, as the OS does not need higher througput, it needs
lower latency if anything. A Raid0 array of same drives
won't give you that.

It boots up faster - a little more than half of the time of a single
comparable drive. An OS and its apps are the only data that I *would* put
on a striped volume for the simple reason that I don't care if it's lost.
Just curious, but what kind of data would you recommend that someone put on
a RAID 0 volume?

Also, from my Foxconn review:
"The Vista Beta 2 performance rating of the 2 x Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250 GB
ATA Hard Drives model 6L250S0 is 3.8 and with a 400/33 GB Stripe/Mirror
RAID implementation, the Vista RC1 Performance Rating rises to an almost
unbelievable and totally awesome 5.9 rating!"

5.9 is currently the highest performance rating in Vista.

5) I don't feel you "learned the hard way to export my
EMails occasionally" because the prudent measure is a full
backup of the array volume, not just one select set of
files. This is reasonable with a single drive but even more
important when a RAID0 increase chances of loss. While I
realize you wanted more performance, if you ignore the risks
you are gambling with any drive, let alone a refurbed set
used for RAID0.

I fully understand the risks. My backup plan may not be *prudent*, but it
works for me. Others may or may not agree with my take on it, but the loss
of the OS is not a catastrophic failure.

The hard disk failure has also been an opportunity for me to find out how a
RAID failure occurs and how to recover from it. I would never ever
recommend that anyone use a refurbished hard drive, period, let alone in a
RAID array.

6) "RAID arrays can be very particular about the type of
hard drives you mix and match" is false. You could random
buy any drive of same or higher actual capacity (if they
round off "250GB", some might be slightly too small if still
selling as "250GB" but any equal or larger would suffice.

I did some homework before I decided that I should buy the same make/model
hard drive. I looked for a statement like you claim on various websites
and could not find one that said it was OK to mix and match. What I did
find:

It depends on the RAID controller
Often overlooked issues like different block sizes on two different drives
can lead to RAID issues
Even if two different drives will work, the lowest drive capacity
determines the total RAID space available
Eg: a 250 GB drive and a 300 GB drive will yield 2 x 250 GB or 500 GB
total
Generally speaking it is *not* a good idea to mix different makes/models of
hard drives in a RAID array

I didn't feel like experimenting. The *prudent* thing for me to do was to
avoid any compatibility issues and buy what I had. For most people who
don't know whether or not they can mix and match drives, why take the risk
if you can buy what you already have?

ASUS says on page 5-16 that for their P5WD2 motherboard with the same ICH7R
Southbridge as mine that identical drives are required for RAID 0 or RAID 0
+1:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5WD2/e2035_P5WD2.pdf
(warning 2.6 MB pdf file)
Page 323 and 368 of this hard disk super guide says that all RAID levels
work best with the same make and model and the same make and model should
be used to maximize performance and maximize storage efficiency (warning 6
MB)
http://www.tjhardware.ir/download/hardware/Hard-Disk Basics.pdf

So the answer seems to be, maybe you can and maybe you can't mix and match
drives. If you can, there is the liklihood of decreased performance and
storage efficiency.

If you can find a reputable website that supports your claim for Intel
Matrix RAID, I would greatly appreciate seeing it.

7) "Open box" is just a category, a catch-all for anything
that is not brand new, untouched merchandise. It is
unfortunate you didn't realize the difference, and "maybe"
some blame can be placed on Newegg if they didn't
prominently display notification of this, but in the end it
is buyer beware when not buying normal, new stock items.

Sadly you are correct. I went to the Newegg website and looked for their
policy/definition of 'Open Box' I had to search their FAQ's page. I
searched and found *one* item that mentioned that 'Open Box' may be
refurbished by the manufacturer. I would hardly call that prominent.
Perhaps I missed their prominent definiton stating exactly what an 'Open
Box' item is.

Nor do I believe that I am alone in thinking that 'Open Box' means an item
that was purchased by a customer who returned it because it was
incompatible or just didn't want it for some reason. The reliability of a
returned working item is vastly different from a returned non-working item
that may or may not be remanufactured to the original manufacturers specs
as I mentioned on my webpage. A remanufactured piece of electronic
equipment should be clearly marked as such, maybe even in bold letters:

WARNING! This item has been refurbished!

As it stands, 'Open Box' advertised items delivered as "Refurbished' can
only lead to ill will with their customers. Why would any online vendor
want that?

Knowing this now, I just purchased my last 'Open Box' item from Newegg.

8) For future reference, they don't open boxes for no
reason. ALL of the "open box" items have been already
diverted from regular new/retail stock for some kind of
reason. I'm not necessarily faulting your
misinterpretation, but for future reference, they have no
reason to open a new product (thus devaluing it), these
items are subject to an uncertainty factor, a gamble in what
you receive. FWIW, I have bought refurb'd (the newegg
category used to be called refurbished instead of open box)
that continue to work fine over 2 years later (a hard drive)
but I've also bought refurb'd that had faults and had to be
returned promptly. IMO, the key is you have to beware that
there may be a problem and vigorously test an item, and with
HDDs, never get a refurb for any important data storage.

OK - I get it. But answer me this. Why did Newegg change the name from
'Refurbished' to 'Open Box'? And why didn't Newegg customer service point
out to me in my communications with them that per official Newegg policies
'Open Box' included 'Refurbished'? Their question to me was why I waited
seven months to inform them that I had gotten the wrong item. They could
have simply sent me a webpage link with this official policy (*the fine
print*) and ended it there, but they didn't.

9) If the data is important, dont use a motherboard
integral raid controller for anything except RAID1.
Otherwise, if the board fails (which is, IMO, significantly
more likely than having a seperate card fail) you are stuck
having to buy a board with same RAID chipset to use that
array. If you have a seperate backup of it, proven working,
it is much less important, but personally I prefer a PCI
card even accepting the penalty of running one from PCI bus,
just so it is removable, and I also buy a 2nd card, same
chipset, for any array that holds important data.

The Intel Matrix RAID solution has some distinct advantages for most
everyday PC users:

It is widely available, making a replacement motherboard easy to find
It is reliable
It is cheap

Though I would recommend that if someone wants to go the Intel Matrix RAID
route, invest in a reliable motherboard. I didn't skimp on my motherboard
and expect it to be working long after my *next* set of Maxtor hard drives
fail.

10) A large part of your problem was the basic
misunderstanding that you needed to get an indentical drive.
You didn't, could have instead bought any 250GB drive, and
if it happened to be slightly smaller, copied the data onto
it first, then defined it as a member of a new array, then
after confirming data intact, take the other original drive
and delete the array it was in (different array) and assign
it as a member of the other newer array the new drive with
the data, is in. It might not even be necessary to do this,
if the new drive is at least as large in true (stated on
label) capacity.

11) SATA2 supports NQC. But it doesn't matter. You only
needed two drives supported by the controller to get the
array working. That includes SATA(1) drives that don't
support NCQ.

I don't want to mix a non-NCQ (Native Command Queuing) drive with a NCQ
drive. That would slow overall performance of the RAID 0 volume. The
SATA1 DiamondMax *does* support NCQ. I made sure of that before my initial
purchase. I would also mention that the I/O Controller Hub (Southbridge)
needs to support NCQ, which my ICH7R does.

12) While your webpage was informative as some detailed
information about your situation and the cusotomer support
you received, it isn't necessarily the kind of information
that is as useful as a guide or review as a warning "don't
do this".

I'll leave that for others to decide. Your opinion is noted - see below.

Especially with moderate sized drives, today it's as well to
buy whatever is on sale or has a rebate unless you're
shooting for highest performance with a certain model.
Certainly a Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 isn't one of those
models.

I want to buy Maxtor for two reasons. My original Maxtor drive lasted 7
1/2 years under all kinds of temperatures and it was used on average at
least 8 hours a day. Remaining loyal to the Maxtor brand is my small way
to thank them for the drive that they sent me. This was well before I had
any reviews on my website, so I know they didn't send it to me because I
was an 'influential member of the mass media'. ;-) They sent it only
because I sent them an amusing 'Product Reliability Report' in the form of
an obituary for my poor friend Max.

I didn't mean to be harsh above, I do have sympathy for
your situation, but it seems that by a few questionable
choices combined with bad luck, your result is worse than
most will achieve.

No problem there.

Thank you for taking the time to read my website and for your thoughtful
reply. I think you have missed the whole point of my article. This was
not intended to be a RAID how-to. I only want to inform people that if
they want to buy a Maxtor DiamondMax hard drive, they need to be extra
careful what they buy. Do you have any comments about that part of the
article?

The only reason that RAID was discussed at all in the article was to
document how I got to the nut of the Maxtaken identity issue. If you want
to read my take on RAID, take a look at this that I wrote when reviewing my
Foxconn motherboard:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/Foxconn_975X7AB-8EKRS2H.html#RAID

Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[kony]

20 million copies of Vista sold in the first two months of 2007 does not a
toy OS make.
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+sells+20+million+Vista+licenses/2100-1016_3-
6170426.html?tag=nefd.top

Wrong. 20 million dupes do not make it anything but an
experiment.

Only an idiot would run anything important on Vista at this
time. After a service pack or two, it will be "possibly" as
viable as XP, just more bloated, less efficient, more
crippling of the system.

It's just a foolish OS to use.

I am not your average PC user. I seek out beta software. I was a beta
tester for the Microsoft Vista CPP (Consumer Preview Program) beginning
with the Beta 2 version. Later Microsoft kindly sent the RC1 version, so I
am quite familiar with Vista's shortcomings. It's expensive, it's buggy
(mostly due to vendor device drivers) but it still makes sense to buy it
with a new PC where the vendor is responsible for making sure it works with
Vista capable hardware and device drivers.

My take on Vista:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/Vista_Confusion.html#Editorial

I don't need to read your take on Vista, as written above
the qualification was "serious system use" vs "toy".
If you run it, you have a toy.

The rest was not worth repeating.

 

[Pecos]

Please read this article if you are in the market for a Maxtor
DiamondMax hard drive. My experience was with the 6L250S0 DiamondMax
10 SATA I 250GB model, but may also apply to other DiamondMax series
drives.

Read the whole article:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html

Cut to the chase:
http://www.mindspring.com/
~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html#NotHardDrive

<clip sig>

I am seeking advice from all of you experienced hardware experts out
there to write the final chapter in A Case of Maxtaken Identity.

I am still trying to replace my now defunct Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB
SATA I 1.5 GB/s 16 MB hard drive, one of two drives in my RAID array. I
now have several options. During a call to Seagate/Maxtor to get some
information about their Maxtor Maxline III models, I happened to ask them
if there was a warranty on my refurbished drive. The surprise answer was
that it was still under warranty.

I was very happy to hear this. After I received the email stating what I
needed to do to send the drive to them, I noted that they have a program
that would allow me to receive a hard drive via two day air before
returning the bad drive. They would also send the packaging needed for
returning the bad drive (which I need) and prepay for the return
shipping. This would cost $19.99.

I also noticed in the email that physical damage to the drive would void
the warranty. When I called Seagate/Maxtor back to cancel the original
RMA and sign up for the Advanced Replacement program, I was honest and
told them that after the drive had failed, I had taken it out and tapped
it on the floor to free any possible stuck heads. I knew this trick
sometimes worked with older drives. The support person told me that if
the drive was damaged internally, I would be charged for a replacement
drive. I also told her that the drive clicks five or more times during
POST, although I don't know if it did that before my 'last chance' risky
fix, that wasn't a last chance risky fix after all now that I know it had
a warranty. ;-)

I have two options:

Option 1:
Return the bad Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250S0 250 GB SATA I 16 MB NCQ drive
to Seagate/Maxtor for a replacement. The replacement drive will most
likely also be a refurbished drive.
Risk the additional cost of a replacement drive if the warranty has been
voided.
The warranty expires April 16, 2009.

Option 2:
Buy two new Maxtor Maxline III 7V250F0 250 GB SATA II 16 MB NCQ drives
with 3 year warranties.
Cost: $130 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is good
$50 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is void

This seemed like a no-brainer until I read about the possibility that I
may have voided the warranty.

So all of you esteemed hardware veterans out there - have I toasted my
old drive and will it have internal damage? Has this in fact voided my
warranty?

Please help me write the final chapter in my article:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html

I will tally up the votes for Options 1 and 2 and will update my webpage
with a summary of who voted and how you voted. I am doing this as a sort
of an experiment. Unless I have a really good reason not to, I am
letting you make the final(??) choice for me.

Voting ends 3 PM EST May 15 or until I place my order. Additional
comments/advice as to your choice is appreciated but not necessary.

Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[Pecos]

<snip all>

My apologies to the group. Please disregard my last post. It took a day
and a half to reach the servers and I have already made my choice.

http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html#Update

Alan Norton

 

[Joel]

it on the floor to free any possible stuck heads. I knew this trick
sometimes worked with older drives. The support person told me that if
the drive was damaged internally, I would be charged for a replacement
drive. I also told her that the drive clicks five or more times during
POST, although I don't know if it did that before my 'last chance' risky
fix, that wasn't a last chance risky fix after all now that I know it had
a warranty. ;-)

I used to work for company making hard drive (way back in 70's) and this

I have two options:

Option 1:
Return the bad Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250S0 250 GB SATA I 16 MB NCQ drive
to Seagate/Maxtor for a replacement. The replacement drive will most
likely also be a refurbished drive.
Risk the additional cost of a replacement drive if the warranty has been
voided.
The warranty expires April 16, 2009.

I have had lot of problem with Maxtor HD way back to early 80's, and I
finally switched to WD after 6-7 maxtors failed within 4-6 months (they
replaced without question asked, but the dribe got smaller and smaller to
worth the trouble) and they used to cost $500-600 (can't remember) for
100-300MB HD then.

So to me Option #1 = No Maxtor

Option 2:
Buy two new Maxtor Maxline III 7V250F0 250 GB SATA II 16 MB NCQ drives
with 3 year warranties.
Cost: $130 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is good
$50 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is void

Then in 2006 I thought after around 2 decades of developing the newer
Maxtor should be better thn older Maxtor so I gave Maxtor another chance,
and I bought the 250GB. Again, it failed after around 3-4 months, and I got
the replacement which failed about 1 month later. And I didn't bother to
get the replacement

So to my Option #2 = I believe I don't need more lesson

This seemed like a no-brainer until I read about the possibility that I
may have voided the warranty.

So all of you esteemed hardware veterans out there - have I toasted my
old drive and will it have internal damage? Has this in fact voided my
warranty?

That's me, but I don't know about you.

 

[kony]

I am seeking advice from all of you experienced hardware experts out
there to write the final chapter in A Case of Maxtaken Identity.

I am still trying to replace my now defunct Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB
SATA I 1.5 GB/s 16 MB hard drive, one of two drives in my RAID array. I
now have several options. During a call to Seagate/Maxtor to get some
information about their Maxtor Maxline III models, I happened to ask them
if there was a warranty on my refurbished drive. The surprise answer was
that it was still under warranty.

I don't understand what the problem is. The drive fails,
you get the RMA, and ship it to Maxtor. They send the
replacement. End of story, except for packing material
which I mention below.

I was very happy to hear this. After I received the email stating what I
needed to do to send the drive to them, I noted that they have a program
that would allow me to receive a hard drive via two day air before
returning the bad drive. They would also send the packaging needed for
returning the bad drive (which I need) and prepay for the return
shipping. This would cost $19.99.

No you do not need to buy more packing material. When you
get the replacement drive cross-shipped in advance, you can
take the packing material from THAT drive and use it to pack
your failed drive. I have done this many times (every time
I could, actually) without problems. So the cross-ship
means you have a limited time (think it's 30 days) within
which to send them the failed drive or else you are billed
for the replacement drive at that point. Your only cost is
postage to return the failed drive to them.

I also noticed in the email that physical damage to the drive would void
the warranty. When I called Seagate/Maxtor back to cancel the original
RMA and sign up for the Advanced Replacement program, I was honest and
told them that after the drive had failed, I had taken it out and tapped
it on the floor to free any possible stuck heads.

1) Do not tap the drive.
2) When asking for an RMA, less information is better than
more. At this point I think you could have voided the
warranty andn possibly, rightly so.

I knew this trick
sometimes worked with older drives. The support person told me that if
the drive was damaged internally, I would be charged for a replacement
drive.

You are lucky they didn't tell you that the warranty was
void. Forget about the incident and just send in the drive.

I also told her that the drive clicks five or more times during
POST, although I don't know if it did that before my 'last chance' risky
fix, that wasn't a last chance risky fix after all now that I know it had
a warranty. ;-)

The CSR you contact is not a diagnostic technician nor the
designer, all that is required is to inform that the drive
doesn't work, and if they require you run the Diagnostics,
you do so.

I have two options:

Option 1:
Return the bad Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250S0 250 GB SATA I 16 MB NCQ drive
to Seagate/Maxtor for a replacement. The replacement drive will most
likely also be a refurbished drive.
Risk the additional cost of a replacement drive if the warranty has been
voided.
The warranty expires April 16, 2009.

Option 2:
Buy two new Maxtor Maxline III 7V250F0 250 GB SATA II 16 MB NCQ drives
with 3 year warranties.
Cost: $130 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is good
$50 more than Option 1 if the warranty on old drive is void

This seemed like a no-brainer until I read about the possibility that I
may have voided the warranty.

I recommend you stop making a simple thing into a difficult
one. Forget about all the issues you have mentioned thus
far, and I mean ALL of them.

Make a choice. Do you want to store your data on "possibly"
refurbished drives and if so, on a RAID1 array? If the
answer is yes, get the replacement sent and reuse that
packing material to send them your failed drive. You
already mentioned the tapping of the drive so don't go out
of your way to give them another reason to reject it.

If the answer is no, buy the new drives and use them for the
array or without an array, and use the packing material from
the new drive to repack the old one, plus put that retail
box inside of a larger shipping box padded on all sides.
Return the failed drive without getting an advanced
replacement, only waiting for their acceptance of the drive
and to send the replacement.

So all of you esteemed hardware veterans out there - have I toasted my
old drive and will it have internal damage? Has this in fact voided my
warranty?

Forget about this issue, see the two paragraphs I wrote
above.

Please help me write the final chapter in my article:
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/A_Case_of_Maxtaken_Identity.html

I will tally up the votes for Options 1 and 2 and will update my webpage
with a summary of who voted and how you voted. I am doing this as a sort
of an experiment. Unless I have a really good reason not to, I am
letting you make the final(??) choice for me.

You are out of your mind. This is a very simple process
which you are turning into a saga. Next time just get a
good repair shop to do it all for you, the whole process is
much easier and less time consuming than you have pretended
it is.

 

[Pecos]

I don't understand what the problem is. The drive fails,
you get the RMA, and ship it to Maxtor. They send the
replacement. End of story, except for packing material
which I mention below.


No you do not need to buy more packing material. When you
get the replacement drive cross-shipped in advance, you can
take the packing material from THAT drive and use it to pack
your failed drive. I have done this many times (every time
I could, actually) without problems. So the cross-ship
means you have a limited time (think it's 30 days) within
which to send them the failed drive or else you are billed
for the replacement drive at that point. Your only cost is
postage to return the failed drive to them.

I wrote in my statement that they would send the return packaging
(presumably in the form of the box and rubber foam used to send the
replacement drive). Was my statement unclear?

And you are right, I do have 30 days to return the bad drive.

With the Advanced Replacement option, the return shipping is prepaid, as
I stated above.

1) Do not tap the drive.

Now you tell me. But you are right. For modern hard drives it is
not a good idea to tap the hard drive as I did. For those who aren't old
enough to know, some hard drives built in the 1980's used a thin film of
lubricant on the platter that caused a problem known as striction. It
was a widely known problem at the time that these drives could fail to
spin up. The solution was to tap the drive on a hard surface, just hard
enough to free the heads and light enough not to damage the drive
internally. The spindle motor of these drives did not have enough torque
on power-up to overcome the striction between the heads and the platters.
Once spinning and, assuming you haven't damaged the internals, the drive
was fine - until the next time it happened.

I know this from experience. I am holding in one hand as I write this a
Plus Hardcard 40 model hard drive that fell victim to striction. It is a
hard drive/ISA card solution for adding storage. And striction is not
entirely unknown in recent times either:

http://www.crn.com/storage/18833112

The article says that what they call 'grunge' can build up from
"lubrication by-products" and "media particulates".

This article list the tricks to get a failed hard drive working again
including the 'tapping trick' (at the risk of total hard disk failure of
course):

http://www.handcraftedwebsites.com/newsletter/pctips/20040314.html
(search for 'lubricant')

The mistake I made was not removing the drive and checking to see if it
was spinning up during POST. My last ditch fix doesn't help if the drive
had already spun up.

2) When asking for an RMA, less information is better than
more. At this point I think you could have voided the
warranty andn possibly, rightly so.

So you are saying that my policy of 'full disclosure' is a bad idea. It
may be if you have something to hide. I don't.

It doesn't matter anyway. I also asked about my personal information on
the drive. I was told that all hard drives arriving for warranty
replacement go immediately through a process with a three or four letter
name that I missed. The drive is degaussed and inspected for internal
damage. Whether or not I told the support person about the tapping trick
I used, they will determine any damage done and make the a final
determination if I voided the warranty based on that information and not
on what I told the support person.

Also, the original drive you send in is not the replacement drive you
will receive. I think that the support person also said that refurbished
drives are also low-level formatted with zeros before shipment.

You are lucky they didn't tell you that the warranty was
void. Forget about the incident and just send in the drive.




The CSR you contact is not a diagnostic technician nor the
designer, all that is required is to inform that the drive
doesn't work, and if they require you run the Diagnostics,
you do so.

The support person (SP) put me on hold to get more information. After I
told the SP about the tapping incident the SP wanted to verify that I
could still use the Advanced Replacement option. The SP said that I
could but I could be charged for the replacement if I had voided the
warranty by damaging the drive.

I recommend you stop making a simple thing into a difficult
one. Forget about all the issues you have mentioned thus
far, and I mean ALL of them.

I don't like throwing good money after bad - hence my need to know
whether or not I had damaged the drive and the two options I listed.

If the drive was not damaged - choose option one.
If the drive was damaged - choose option two.

Make a choice. Do you want to store your data on "possibly"
refurbished drives and if so, on a RAID1 array? If the
answer is yes, get the replacement sent and reuse that
packing material to send them your failed drive. You
already mentioned the tapping of the drive so don't go out
of your way to give them another reason to reject it.

If the answer is no, buy the new drives and use them for the
array or without an array, and use the packing material from
the new drive to repack the old one, plus put that retail
box inside of a larger shipping box padded on all sides.
Return the failed drive without getting an advanced
replacement, only waiting for their acceptance of the drive
and to send the replacement.

That is very helpful advice. Thank you. I may end up following it. I
will have to wait and see if I am billed for the replacement drive. I
don't like running RAID with a refurbished drive and will have to
eventually buy two new drives anyway. Worst case, I have already proven
that RAID 1 mirroring works and if the refurbed drive fails, my important
data is still there for me to recover.

Forget about this issue, see the two paragraphs I wrote
above.



You are out of your mind. This is a very simple process
which you are turning into a saga. Next time just get a
good repair shop to do it all for you, the whole process is
much easier and less time consuming than you have pretended
it is.

I mentioned in my post that this was an experiment of sorts. The
experiment wasn't only to see if and how people voted (their recommended
choice), but also to see if people would carefully read my request and
respond with helpful advice. What I found is what I have suspected
happens far too often and seen for myself in forums like this. For the
most part people offering help and advice in these forums either don't
carefully read the original poster's (OP) plea for help or they don't
take the time to offer the help they are asking for. They simply give
their opinions.

I have been around far too long to have not seen may cases where the OP
is chided for not providing enough information for the *experts* here to
be of help. In many cases this is appropriate, but it is too often done
in a scolding, arrogant manner. What you call a simple process is not so
simple to the average person looking here for advice.

In my post I was careful to lay out all of the pertinent facts.

I noted that the hard drive was part of a RAID array of two drives.

I wrote the post in a way so that it could be easily criticized and it
was (i.e. the silly voting request).

I noted in the post that this was an experiment. If people reading my
post don't like that, they could simply decide not to participate.

I made it clear what I wanted the *experts* here to do but some of them
considered me out of hand to be a bafoon, a total idiot, or out of my
mind (that's the arrogant part) and tried to save me from myself by
offering Option 3, which wasn't on my list. Their intentions my have
been good, but *I AM* the original poster and I am telling you that their
advice wasn't helpful. It is not what I asked for. But of course, they
knew better.

I suspect that many lurkers out there are too intimidated to post a
question or ask for advice in these public forums for this very reason.

And if you have happened to read my "A Case of Maxtaken Identity" article
you would have realized that this *IS* a saga and not of my making. I am
only trying to end it by asking for some simple advice on how best to do
that.

I would be remiss to note here the one person who provided me with the
information I needed to make a good decision. Rod Speed in the

comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage newsgroup helped me to decide that I had
most likely not damaged my drive. I opted for option one because of his
advice and because I couldn't get verification from an online vendor as
to the model name of one of their advertised drives. I don't want to go
down that 'order one drive and get another' road again - thank you very
much!

Oh yes, I thought you might also want to know that the instructions I
received for my return stated that you should let the Seagate/Maxtor
customer representative know *before* you return the drive if the drive
was part of a RAID array. That is so that they can make sure that you
will receive an *identical* drive. The support person I talked to, Russ,
told me that I should have no problem with this model, but that it might
require a firmware update.

I don't mean to be harsh or to aim these comments specifically at you. I
do appreciate greatly the time you took to write a thoughtful reply and
there really is some good advice in there.

I always ask myself before I click that send button if my reply to the OP
is helpful. I hope this reply is helpful to you. If not, perhaps it
will be to someone else.


Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[kony]

On Thu, 17 May 2007 21:00:50 GMT, Pecos

I wrote in my statement that they would send the return packaging
(presumably in the form of the box and rubber foam used to send the
replacement drive). Was my statement unclear?

You are suggesting paying for packing material and prepaid
shipping. It is an unnecessary cost. When they send you
the replacement drive in advance, that replacement drive HAS
packing material you can reuse to return the faulty drive to
them. There is no need to pay $19.99, only to pay the
shipping fee when you ship it which tends to be far less
(depending on your location, but in the US it is typically
about $6-8 via FedEx or UPS).

And you are right, I do have 30 days to return the bad drive.

With the Advanced Replacement option, the return shipping is prepaid, as
I stated above.

Yes, but there is no reason to pay $19.99 for this.
Recall that I have done as I described several times. They
didn't reject the return from use of their packing material
and they couldn't even reasonably argue that the packing
material _they_ use is unsuited for shipping the same thing
_to_ you that you are returning.

 

[Pecos]

On Thu, 17 May 2007 21:00:50 GMT, Pecos



You are suggesting paying for packing material and prepaid
shipping. It is an unnecessary cost. When they send you
the replacement drive in advance, that replacement drive HAS
packing material you can reuse to return the faulty drive to
them. There is no need to pay $19.99, only to pay the
shipping fee when you ship it which tends to be far less
(depending on your location, but in the US it is typically
about $6-8 via FedEx or UPS).



Yes, but there is no reason to pay $19.99 for this.
Recall that I have done as I described several times. They
didn't reject the return from use of their packing material
and they couldn't even reasonably argue that the packing
material _they_ use is unsuited for shipping the same thing
_to_ you that you are returning.

OK, I understand you. Unless I am missing something here, which is
entirely possible, Seagate/Maxtor *won't* preship unless you pay the
$19.99 for their Advanced Replacement program. Maybe someone can
follow-up here with a post if I am wrong about that.

Ideally, I would have just used the original box and packing foam that
the drive was shipped in to save a few bucks and sent it before
receiving a replacement. But the packing material that the vendor used
to ship my hard drive, which I still have, was Styrofoam peanuts and the
packaging guide clearly states that peanuts are unacceptable. I decided
that by the time I pay for shipping both ways and the *acceptable* foam
insert that I would have to find and buy up-front, I would be close to
$19.99 anyway.

I appreciate you trying to save me a few bucks though. Every little bit
helps. ;-) I will remember your tip for my next RMA and try to get the
item preshipped at no cost. Thanks.

Alan Norton
Reviews: ABIT AN8 SLI, ECS P965T-A & Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H Mb's
Choosing the Right Version Of Vista - Vista Confusion Article
Arizona Pics and Cute Animal Pics
http://www.mindspring.com/~anorton1/

 

[Pecos]

The above is not a signature. It lacks a sig mark, which is
precisely "-- " alone on a line. See below. Also read the
referenced URLs.

<snip>

Thank You for pointing out my non-standard signature. You failed to
mention that my signature was in violation of standard netiquette
guidelines that say the signature should be no more than 80 characters wide
and four lines long. You also failed to mention that there should be a
"white space line" above the sig mark.

It is also inappropriate to post a netiquette violation to a public
newsgroup. It is considered polite to send the offending author a private
email.

Now I have to violate those guidelines because you brought them up in a
public newsgroup.

Why did you rename my thread and to a software topic in a hardware group?

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette

Perhaps you are unaware of the microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
newsgroup. That is a good place to discuss Vista and also get interest in
your Vista links.

 

[kony]

On Fri, 18 May 2007 17:05:15 GMT, Pecos

It is also inappropriate to post a netiquette violation to a public
newsgroup. It is considered polite to send the offending author a private
email.

Not true anymore, most people don't post valid email
addresses these days for various (privacy, spam, etc)
reasons.

 

[Pecos]

Now you tell me. But you are right. For modern hard drives it is
not a good idea to tap the hard drive as I did. For those who aren't
old enough to know, some hard drives built in the 1980's used a thin
film of lubricant on the platter that caused a problem known as
striction. It was a widely known problem at the time that these
drives could fail to spin up. The solution was to tap the drive on a
hard surface, just hard enough to free the heads and light enough not
to damage the drive internally. The spindle motor of these drives did
not have enough torque on power-up to overcome the striction between
the heads and the platters. Once spinning and, assuming you haven't
damaged the internals, the drive was fine - until the next time it
happened.

<snip>

I incorrectly stated that the problem was called striction in the
paragraph above. I discovered today that the problem is actually called
stiction, which stands for STatic frICTION.

Update - if you are interested:

I have received my replacement drive and all is well. It is refurbished
as expected. Seagate either forgot to send the prepaid return label or
was sending it by mail - minor problem. A call to their technical
support quickly resolved that.

I haven't looked at the firmware versions of the two drives yet, but the
model numbers and model names are the same and everything seems to be
working perfectly. I can't tell you how good it feels to have my RAID
working again. I won't ever go back to a single hard drive in any system
I buy or build in the future.

I have taken the opportunity to rebuild my array volumes. My initial
thought when setting up the striped/mirrored volumes was that I wanted to
maximize my storage space. The first configuration was 400 GB/33 GB RAID
0/RAID 1. I found that was the wrong strategy for me. I just didn't
have that much data to load that I was willing to lose. After completely
backing up my mirrored volume, I rebuilt the array to 150 GB / 158 GB
which will allow me a lot more room for my important mirrored data.

 

[Pecos]

Please satisfy my curiosity. Why? With two drives you, at best,
have an automatic immediate backup (IMO). I personally prefer to
make backups on command. The immediate operation prevents you
going back more than one version, assuming the software makes that
version. There may be a slight speed advantage, but that effect
should be minor. Again, IMO.

1. With RAID 0 (striped) my OS and apps load up in slightly more than half
of the time they would on a comparable single drive setup. With RAID 1
(mirrored) that doesn't apply for a write operation but does for a read
operation.

2. I can and still occasionally do backup to a third drive for any
important files. This gives me a prior version that I can reference if
need be. Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise also have the ability to
store and retrieve what Microsoft calls 'previous versions'. *One* shadow
copy of the file is automatically saved, but this feature has to be
configured properly to work on the partition(s) that you need to retrieve a
'previous version' - but don't get me started on Vista, this is the wrong
group for that.

So, I am pretty well covered as far as backups and previous versions go.

3. I don't prefer to do backups or worry about them. With RAID 1 and a
drive failure (any drive can fail at any time without warning) backups are
done immediately. The only data you would lose would be anything you might
be working on since your last save.

I wasn't sure about RAID when I first decided to try it out, but my recent
drive failure has only proven, to me at least, that it is a real lifesaver
and timesaver.

For the price of hard drives these days, RAID is an inexpensive and
reliable way to have a little peace of mind.