The inferiority of Maxtor

[Ian]

What is it with Maxtor internal IDE hard drives? This week is the
second time I had trouble with a Maxtor Diamond hard drive.

Here's the story:

When I attempted to access the folder in which the file I needed
was stored, Windows 2000 threw an "Error performing inpage
operation on hard disk" error dialog. The first thing I did was run
chkdsk with the '/R' switch. chkdsk found some errors and claimed
to have fixed them, but I still couldn't access the folder with my
files. So, then I used the Maxtor "PowerMax" diagnostic utility to
test the drive. During the Advanced Test, the utility reported that
the drive was failing and that I should contact Maxtor.

The funny thing is, this exact same thing happened to me with a
different Maxtor hard drive on one of my other computers back in
December of last year. I managed to "repair" the drive by using a
utility called "dban" and having it do a wipe of my hard drive 3
times. After doing that, the Maxtor diagnostic utility claimed the
drive was healthy again, and I haven't had any problems since. I
still don't trust the drive, though.

What is causing this data corruption? Is it more likely an error of
the operating system, or the hard drive itself? I know Maxtor is
known for drives going bad, but this is ridiculous considering my
hard drives were baught new only a year ago.

 

[Rod Speed]

What is it with Maxtor internal IDE hard drives?

What has basically sent them bust, now owned by Seagate
who appears to have done that to eliminate a competitor.

This week is the second time I had
trouble with a Maxtor Diamond hard drive.

Here's the story:

When I attempted to access the folder in which the file I needed
was stored, Windows 2000 threw an "Error performing inpage
operation on hard disk" error dialog. The first thing I did was run
chkdsk with the '/R' switch. chkdsk found some errors and claimed
to have fixed them, but I still couldn't access the folder with my
files. So, then I used the Maxtor "PowerMax" diagnostic utility
to test the drive. During the Advanced Test, the utility reported
that the drive was failing and that I should contact Maxtor.

The funny thing is, this exact same thing happened to me with a
different Maxtor hard drive on one of my other computers back in
December of last year. I managed to "repair" the drive by using a
utility called "dban" and having it do a wipe of my hard drive 3
times. After doing that, the Maxtor diagnostic utility claimed the
drive was healthy again, and I haven't had any problems since.
I still don't trust the drive, though.

Likely that just forced the drive to reallocate a bad sector by writing
to the bad sector. Its likely visible in the SMART data for the drive.

What is causing this data corruption? Is it more likely an
error of the operating system, or the hard drive itself?

The OS cant produce a problem that the diagnostic decides
is a failing drive unless the diagnostic is completely ****ed.

I know Maxtor is known for drives going bad, but this is ridiculous
considering my hard drives were baught new only a year ago.

Yeah, but they dont like inadequate cooling.

 

[CJT]

What is it with Maxtor internal IDE hard drives? This week is the
second time I had trouble with a Maxtor Diamond hard drive.

Here's the story:

When I attempted to access the folder in which the file I needed
was stored, Windows 2000 threw an "Error performing inpage
operation on hard disk" error dialog. The first thing I did was run
chkdsk with the '/R' switch. chkdsk found some errors and claimed
to have fixed them, but I still couldn't access the folder with my
files. So, then I used the Maxtor "PowerMax" diagnostic utility to
test the drive. During the Advanced Test, the utility reported that
the drive was failing and that I should contact Maxtor.

The funny thing is, this exact same thing happened to me with a
different Maxtor hard drive on one of my other computers back in
December of last year. I managed to "repair" the drive by using a
utility called "dban" and having it do a wipe of my hard drive 3
times. After doing that, the Maxtor diagnostic utility claimed the
drive was healthy again, and I haven't had any problems since. I
still don't trust the drive, though.

What is causing this data corruption? Is it more likely an error of
the operating system, or the hard drive itself? I know Maxtor is
known for drives going bad, but this is ridiculous considering my
hard drives were baught new only a year ago.

Until you know the true cause of the problem, I think it's a
mistake to blame the drive(s). There are many other potential
culprits -- OS, memory, power supply, etc.

FWIW, I've had good results with Maxtor drives.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

FWIW, I've had good results with Maxtor drives.

So have I. It may be due to good cooling in my Dell PC's
case and the Kingwin mobile rack - the drives are never
warmer than body temp.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Peter]

Move your hard drive to another, well behaved system.
Perform all tests on your hard drive. If they fail too, your drive is most
likely defective.
Make sure that jumpers set on a drive are default as per manufacturer info.

 

[Arno Wagner]

So have I. It may be due to good cooling in my Dell PC's
case and the Kingwin mobile rack - the drives are never
warmer than body temp.

I have had both: Good experiences when well-cooled and bad ones
when not well cooled. I think Maxtor overestimated how careful
PCs are designed today.

Arno

 

[CJT]

I have had both: Good experiences when well-cooled and bad ones
when not well cooled. I think Maxtor overestimated how careful
PCs are designed today.

Arno

Keeping a drive cool (not just Maxtor drives, either) is critical to
reliability and lifetime.

 

[Rod Speed]

Arno Wagner wrote

Keeping a drive cool (not just Maxtor drives, either) is critical to
reliability and lifetime.

Not as cool as the maxtors need to be.

I doubt it was designed as arno is suggesting, bet maxtor
just designed them too badly, just like they clearly did with
their external drives and Dell did with their low end notebooks.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Keeping a drive cool (not just Maxtor drives, either) is critical to
reliability and lifetime.

True. However Maxtor drives (at least the ones I own) seem to
get considerably hotter than the Seagate and especially the Samsung
drives I have.

Arno

 

[CJT]

True. However Maxtor drives (at least the ones I own) seem to
get considerably hotter than the Seagate and especially the Samsung
drives I have.

Arno

a "seem to" and 3 bucks will just about get you a coffee these days

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:
a "seem to" and 3 bucks will just about get you a coffee these days

Well, I lost the sheet with my temperature measurements. However
it was somethink like a Maxtor drive failing from overtemperature
(i.e. > 70C) while a Samsung and a Seagate drive remained at < 35C
in the same usage situation.

Arno

 

[Beemer Biker]

MaxStor is inferior, get over it. If you saw seagate and maxtor 250gb
drives on ebay being sold for $10 each, only the seagate would have
questions about whether it was working. You are lucky usenet postings are
handeled differently than email. The phrase "Max" would not make it past
many spam filters.

...thanks..


--
=======================================================================
Beemer Biker (e-mail address removed)
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
=======================================================================

 

[Timothy Daniels]

MaxStor is inferior, get over it.

That could very well be true. But since my PC's case
has such good cooling, my Maxtors have lasted 6 years
with no problems. In my PC (a Dell Dimension), a single
92mm diam case fan and the power supply fan exhaust
air out the back of the case, and the hard drives are
mounted low in the front, just inside the air intake. If Maxtors
have a reputation of overheating in more pooly designed
cases, great! It just makes Maxtor drives easier for me to
afford.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

That could very well be true. But since my PC's case
has such good cooling, my Maxtors have lasted 6 years
with no problems. In my PC (a Dell Dimension), a single
92mm diam case fan and the power supply fan exhaust
air out the back of the case, and the hard drives are
mounted low in the front, just inside the air intake. If Maxtors
have a reputation of overheating in more pooly designed
cases, great! It just makes Maxtor drives easier for me to
afford.

Drive pricing doesnt work like that.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Drive pricing doesnt work like that.

If retailers start dumping their stocks of a hard drive due
to its growing reputation for overheating failures, the price
will rise? Riiiiight.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Arno Wagner]

If retailers start dumping their stocks of a hard drive due
to its growing reputation for overheating failures, the price
will rise? Riiiiight.

Unfortunately I have to agree with Rod here: Quality and price seem
only loosely coupled for computer equipment today. For HDDs there
seems to be no real relation at all.

Arno

 

[Beemer Biker]

Drive pricing doesnt work like that.

Hey Rod... That was a Max of a cat 5 cyclone you just had down under. I
hope you got the Max amount of rain out of it in your space in the outback,
every little drop helps!


--
=======================================================================
Beemer Biker (e-mail address removed)
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
=======================================================================

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Quality and price seem only loosely coupled for computer
equipment today. For HDDs there seems to be no real
relation at all.

That's because there's no real reputation at all. I'm sure
that in other forums Maxtor has a fine reputation. The reason
is that the buyer (individuals without resources to do
statistically meaningful testing) has to rely on ads and
anecdotal evidence. Corporate buyers, OTOH, are offered
"corporate" models to choose from which the manufacturers
feel would hold up better in such testing. All *I* really know
is that Dell chose to put Maxtor hard drives in its PCs when
I bought mine, and I haven't had a problem with it/them in
7 years of use. If Directron wants to dump 80GB 7200rpm
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 hard drives for $52 (as they
did this weekend), fine with me. I hope they keep it up.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

If retailers start dumping their stocks of a hard drive due to its
growing reputation for overheating failures,

That doesnt happen. Essentially because sweet **** all hard
drive purchasers are ever aware of any reputation stuff at all.

the price will rise?

Never ever said anything even remotely resembling anything like that.

Riiiiight.

Pathetic, really.

 

[Rod Speed]

Arno Wagner wrote

That's because there's no real reputation at all.

Wrong. Its because **** all retail purchasers of hard drives
to any more than just look at the specs on the box on how
big it is and what price a particular retailer is selling it for.

I'm sure that in other forums Maxtor has a fine reputation.

More fool you. And sweet **** all retail purchasers of hard drives
ever bother to check ANY forum before purchasing a hard drive.

The reason is that the buyer (individuals without resources to do
statistically meaningful testing) has to rely on ads and anecdotal
evidence.

The real reason is that **** all retail purchasers of hard
drives to any more than just look at the specs on the box
on how big it is and what price a particular retailer is
selling it for or the specs online and the price.

**** all even bother to buy from an operation
like newegg that allows purchasers to comment
on an item they have bought. And thats useless
anyway for failure well after its bought anyway.

Corporate buyers, OTOH, are offered "corporate" models to choose from
which the manufacturers
feel would hold up better in such testing.

Thanks for that completely superfluous proof
that you dont actually have a ****ing clue about
how corporate purchasing actually works.

All *I* really know is that Dell chose to put Maxtor hard drives in its
PCs when I bought mine, and I haven't had a problem with it/them in 7
years of use.

The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'

If Directron wants to dump 80GB 7200rpm Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 hard
drives for $52 (as they did this weekend), fine with me. I hope they
keep it up.

Irrelevant to what is being discussed.