Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9

[John Green]

Hi,

In the last 10 months, I have had THREE of these drives fail for various
reasons. The third one failed today and each failure was different an
unconnected.

I will of course RMA the drive again, as it's a valuable 160Mb drive, but
i'm not so sure I can trust them any longer and I will not buy Maxtor any
more. I guess it's time to move back to Seagate or WD.

Have I just been extremely unlucky with my Maxtor drives or has anyone else
experienced any problems ? I have read on the web that people think there's
a design problem with the Diamondmax Plus 9 and one supplier even states
that they should not be placed next to another drive or they WILL overheat
and fail.....

Any comments ?

Cheers,
John.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi,

In the last 10 months, I have had THREE of these drives fail for various
reasons. The third one failed today and each failure was different an
unconnected.

I will of course RMA the drive again, as it's a valuable 160Mb drive, but
i'm not so sure I can trust them any longer and I will not buy Maxtor any
more. I guess it's time to move back to Seagate or WD.

Have I just been extremely unlucky with my Maxtor drives or has anyone else
experienced any problems ? I have read on the web that people think there's
a design problem with the Diamondmax Plus 9 and one supplier even states
that they should not be placed next to another drive or they WILL overheat
and fail.....

They do generate a lot of heat. Good airflow is an absolute must.
Hovever with airflow, they are reliable.

Any comments ?

Most likely killed by heat. Besides shock heat is the number one
HDD killer.

Arno

 

[Will Dormann]

Hi,

In the last 10 months, I have had THREE of these drives fail for various
reasons. The third one failed today and each failure was different an
unconnected.

Out of any of the drives that I've owned, I've had two fail. They were
both Maxtors. Neither one was in use for more than 2 months. They
were well ventilated and not mounted next to another drive.

Maxtor is on my personal blacklist...


-WD

 

[John Green]

I agree and I believe that heat is the reason for at least two of the
failures, as the drive was next to a floppy and the surface of the case did
get very hot. However, it was installed within the guidelines set by Maxtor,
so I guess these need to be revised. The first drive that failed was not
near any others and was extremely well ventilated, so that was not caused by
overheating.

I have been using Maxtor for some time now and it's only the Diamondmax 9
that is giving me problems. However, I really don't think I can trust them
anymore. I need to purchase a couple of new HDD's next week and i'll be
buying WD, or Seagate if I can get a decent deal. I just don't trust Maxtor
anymore which is a shame, because their RMA procedures (I know them well !)
are excellent and they are a good company.

John.

 

[William James]

My Windows 2000 system crashed on Sunday, and the Diamondmax
15 Gb disk appears unuseable. However, analysis shows that it is still
readable but that the sector addressing is wrong.

The first gigabyte or so is in the right place, then you have to look two
sectors further for a while and so on, until there is a 9 sector slippage at
10Gb.
Is there a known cure for this, so I can recover some data?

William

 

[Sylvan Butler]

The first gigabyte or so is in the right place, then you have to look two
sectors further for a while and so on, until there is a 9 sector slippage at
10Gb.
Is there a known cure for this, so I can recover some data?

Sounds like translation is now different than it was before. Like
it used to use extended CHS and now it is using LBA or visa versa.

Is windows 2000 new (ie, it worked before but doesn't work with
win2k)?

Did you change primary master drives? (Perhaps you got rid of a
software based translator installed on the original boot drive.)

Perhaps Win2k will respect the BIOS settings. Try forcing the BIOS
to all the various modes. Start with LBA and Extended CHS but try
them all if neither of those work.

sdb
--
| Sylvan Butler | Not speaking for Hewlett-Packard | sbutler-boi.hp.com |
| Watch out for my e-mail address. Thank UCE. >>>> change ^ to @ <<<< |
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral
busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his
cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our
own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval
of their consciences. -- C. S. Lewis

 

[Rod Speed]

Sounds like translation is now different than it was before. Like
it used to use extended CHS and now it is using LBA or visa versa.

Dunno, you wouldnt normally get a single 9 sector slippage that way.

Sounds more likely that the drive has managed to
lose some of the entrys in the bad sector table, so
those 9 sectors that were once marked as bad have
returned from the dead and are now visible again.

It might even have lost all the entrys in the bad sector table
and those were the one only ones in it before the change.

Is windows 2000 new (ie, it worked
before but doesn't work with win2k)?

Again, hard to see how that could produce
a single 9 sector slippage that way.

Did you change primary master drives? (Perhaps you got rid of
a software based translator installed on the original boot drive.)

Again, hard to see how that could produce
a single 9 sector slippage that way.

Perhaps Win2k will respect the BIOS settings. Try forcing
the BIOS to all the various modes. Start with LBA and
Extended CHS but try them all if neither of those work.

Again, hard to see how that could produce
a single 9 sector slippage that way.

 

[William James]

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Dunno, you wouldnt normally get a single 9 sector slippage that way.

Sounds more likely that the drive has managed to
lose some of the entrys in the bad sector table, so
those 9 sectors that were once marked as bad have
returned from the dead and are now visible again.

It might even have lost all the entrys in the bad sector table
and those were the one only ones in it before the change.

Is this table accessible? Or is it embedded in the controller?
I have a disk utility that can read/write anywhere I think!

William

No


Again, hard to see how that could produce
a single 9 sector slippage that way.


No

Again, hard to see how that could produce
a single 9 sector slippage that way.

Don't think I have that much control in that area.

 

[Rod Speed]

Is this table accessible?

Not by you, anyway. It may have gone and
even the controller cant access it anymore.

Or is it embedded in the controller?

Just where its stored varys from drive to drive. With
some its stored on the platter, with other drives it isnt.

I have a disk utility that can read/write anywhere I think!

Thats unlikely as far as being able to access
everything the controller can read/write is concerned.

 

[Rod Speed]

Is this table accessible?

Not by you, anyway. It may have gone and
even the controller cant access it anymore.

Or is it embedded in the controller?

Just where its stored varys from drive to drive. With
some its stored on the platter, with other drives it isnt.

Those Maxtors can lose the drive model details,
so it no longer reports itself as the correct model
anymore if the brown stuff has hit the fan. Most likely
that means it cant read the bit of the platter where
that stuff is stored, but thats not absolutely certain.

I have a disk utility that can read/write anywhere I think!

Thats unlikely as far as being able to access
everything the controller can read/write is concerned.

Don't think I have that much control in that area.