Another WD HD Bites the Dust

  • Thread starter Thread starter CSS
  • Start date Start date
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CSS

I've been having constant problems the past two weeks or so with my system
locking up, requiring a power cycle to reboot and then getting the error
"unmountable boot volume" which requires an XP recovery run of chkdsk.
Corresponded with the install of my 200 gig WD 8 Meg cache drive as a second
drive. When the problem occurred in front of me, I heard the sound of the
drive heads clicking and the motor lose power and then spin back up, then
the system locked up. Yesterday I disconnected the power and data cables to
the 200 gig drive and all has been running well since then.

The 200 meg drive is a warranty replacement for a new-in-box drive that
developed a high pitched whine after less than a week of operation. If this
drive is indeed causing the problem (and I haven't yet ruled out another
cause, such as the power supply), this will be the third WD failure I have
experienced in about a year (two new drives developed high-pitched whining
noises shortly after install and now this replacement drive is erratic).

I just went online and picked up a Samsung 160 gig drive to replace the WD.
Even if I can get another WD warranty replacement, I'm not going to-- it
just isn't worth the hassle (and possible loss of data) that can occur with
the flaky WD drives (the 200 gig is a backup drive based on experience with
the earlier HD failure). I bought the WD based on the three year warranty,
but when you need to replace it after less than a week and the replacement
has less than a year warranty on it and also fails, the longer warranty
effectively has no value.
 
CSS said:
this will be the third WD failure I have
experienced in about a year (two new drives developed high-pitched whining
noises shortly after install and now this replacement drive is erratic).
Click to expand...

This suggests to me that there may be some other factor causing the
premature failure of the drives - a defective power supply, or
overheating.
 
Mike Tomlinson said:
This suggests to me that there may be some other factor causing the
premature failure of the drives - a defective power supply, or
overheating.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've certainly considered that. However, of the two WD drives that
developed high-speed whines within days of install, one was on the original
PS and the other was on a replacement Zalman supply. I doubt that a heat or
power supply issue would case a HD to develop a whine within a week, esp.
since the two replacement drives have run much longer in the same case w/o
developing the same problem. The PC has an AMD Thunderbird processor, so it
is necessarily pretty well vented. The air input is right where the drives
are mounted, and they don't get much more than warm to the touch during
operation.

That said, Samsung now gets a chance. If the problems continue, I'll post
an update. If not, consider me an ex-WD customer.
 
This suggests to me that there may be some other factor causing the
premature failure of the drives - a defective power supply, or overheating.
Click to expand...

That wont produce the bearing whine he got with the first drive.
 
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