Will Maxtor Give RMA for Fried Curcuit Board?

[Tony]

I've got a fried chip on the curcuit board of a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
80GB ATA/133 HDD.
I would guess from a powersurge. The drive is under warranty. Would Maxtor
give an RMA for this?
Also, I kind of like to recover the data, where would I find a curcuit
board? I've already checked eBay.

Thanks
Tony
email (e-mail address removed) (delete X)

 

[Arno Wagner]

I've got a fried chip on the curcuit board of a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
80GB ATA/133 HDD.
I would guess from a powersurge. The drive is under warranty. Would Maxtor
give an RMA for this?

No. Obviously not their fault.

Also, I kind of like to recover the data, where would I find a curcuit
board? I've already checked eBay.

Difficult. Your best bet is trying a professional data recovery
company. You might also try whether you can get a new one, as this
is a fairly recent model. However it is possibly that a board-swap
fails even with seemiongly identical boards.

Arno

 

[Joe Hayes]

No. Obviously not their fault.

And just how do you know that? Maybe the chip fried due to a manufacturing
defect. Certainly not something that can be determined simply by visual
inspection. I would send the drive back to Maxtor and let them decide.
Chances are they'll give you a new one.

 

[CWatters]

I've got a fried chip on the curcuit board of a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
80GB ATA/133 HDD.
I would guess from a powersurge. The drive is under warranty. Would Maxtor
give an RMA for this?

Would you?

 

[Arno Wagner]

And just how do you know that? Maybe the chip fried due to a manufacturing
defect.

It is very hard to fry that chip without significant over-voltage.
You just cannot get enough energy into it. Furthermore there are other
chips and parts that will be damaged as well, which would not be the
case in a chip-failure.

However if it is non-obvious visually, Maxtor might just not bother
to determine the cause of failure and replace the drive.

Arno

 

[Eric Gisin]

The servo driver chips fries on many drives when there is insufficient
cooling. Some drives do so with good cooling. Whether Maxtor will check the
temperature logs is another matter. IBM did check the logs on RMA'd
DeathStars.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It is very hard to fry that chip without significant over-voltage.

Nonsense, all it needs is a near short circuit in the chip.
Quantum produced the aptly named 'Fireball', blowing chips all the time.

You just cannot get enough energy into it. Furthermore there are other
chips and parts that will be damaged as well, which would not be the
case in a chip-failure.

....... Right ........ What did he just say?

 

[idunno]

It is very hard to fry that chip without significant over-voltage.
You just cannot get enough energy into it. Furthermore there are other
chips and parts that will be damaged as well, which would not be the
case in a chip-failure.

Not if it was made outside of spec. It's simply not the case that
either a chip works perfectly or not at all. Sometimes they act
quirkey for a while before going poof. Personally I'm not convinced
Maxtor makes the highest quality, or at least consist quality products
anyway.

However if it is non-obvious visually, Maxtor might just not bother
to determine the cause of failure and replace the drive.

very likely. Also if they issue an advance replacement the
determination will be made after the fact.

Arno

I'd still like to know how Tony made such a definitive diagnosis.

 

[Q]

Nonsense, all it needs is a near short circuit in the chip.
Quantum produced the aptly named 'Fireball', blowing chips all the
time.

Which series of Fireball? Just curious, 'cause my old Quantum KA Fireball
never had any problems and it still works great despite the fact that it
whines quite loud.