Maxtor drives for ever!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob H
  • Start date Start date
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Bob H

Yesterday I was having to re locate some of my hardware so that my new
ATA 133 80 pin cable would reach, and in the process of moving my Maxtor
30Gb slave drive, I inadvertently let the front end fall about 1/2
inches in the drive bay. Oooops, thats done it, I thought. Time for
another drive to take its place.
Anyway after connecting everything back up again, I booted into win2k,
but it threw a wobbly (BSOD with STOP error message) and wouldn't boot.
I then tried WinXP, not a problem. It booted up just fine, and showed
all the partitions on the slave drive. The files and folders were fine.

Tonight, I tried win2k again, and viola, it booted up ok!!! Very strange.

Anyway the point is, the Maxtor 30Gb drive is still working fine after
its little fall. But I won't do that again, I won't be so lucky next time!
 
Previously Bob H said:
Yesterday I was having to re locate some of my hardware so that my new
ATA 133 80 pin cable would reach, and in the process of moving my Maxtor
30Gb slave drive, I inadvertently let the front end fall about 1/2
inches in the drive bay. Oooops, thats done it, I thought. Time for
another drive to take its place.
Anyway after connecting everything back up again, I booted into win2k,
but it threw a wobbly (BSOD with STOP error message) and wouldn't boot.
I then tried WinXP, not a problem. It booted up just fine, and showed
all the partitions on the slave drive. The files and folders were fine.
Click to expand...
Tonight, I tried win2k again, and viola, it booted up ok!!! Very strange.
Click to expand...
Anyway the point is, the Maxtor 30Gb drive is still working fine after
its little fall. But I won't do that again, I won't be so lucky next time!
Click to expand...

An the other question is, how long will it keep working now?
I had some drives damaged in the mail. They lasted several
months until they began to fail. The same model not damaged
works still after more than two years...

Arno
 
I am always VERY careful with my drives. However, I have purposely been
very cruel to hard drives to see just how durable they really are (drives
that would otherwise be thrown away). While running, I have smacked,
slammed, dropped and anything else I can think of. It is amazing what they
can handle and still run without problem. How long will they last after
abuse? I don't know, but I am impressed by their durability.

--Dan
 
Anyway the point is, the Maxtor 30Gb drive is still working fine after
its little fall. But I won't do that again, I won't be so lucky next time!
Click to expand...

I've dropped the hard drive from higher height and it still worked
fine. I do suggest you do a complete surface scan for any damaged
sector(s) caused when the hard drive was dropped and the head may have
banged around.

As for why it wouldn't boot the first time, maybe you had the cable on
loose or something?
 
dg said:
I am always VERY careful with my drives. However, I have purposely been
very cruel to hard drives to see just how durable they really are (drives
that would otherwise be thrown away).
Click to expand...
While running, I have smacked, slammed, dropped and anything else I
can think of. It is amazing what they can handle and still run without
problem. How long will they last after abuse? I don't know, but I am
impressed by their durability.
Click to expand...

Ever seen a hovercraft?
 
Arno said:
An the other question is, how long will it keep working now?
I had some drives damaged in the mail. They lasted several
months until they began to fail. The same model not damaged
works still after more than two years...

Arno
Click to expand...

I have ordered another drive, just in case, and I have backed up all
required data from the drive I 'dropped'

Cheers
 
Well I am usually VERY careful with drives; but on this occassion, due
to the restricted space, ie trying to move them without moving anything
else first, I could only hold on to the back end of ther drive in the
bay, and consequently when I attempted to move it up a position, the
front end dropped.

I have ordered a new Maxtor drive just in case it does fail soon.

cheesr
 
Impmon said:
I've dropped the hard drive from higher height and it still worked
fine. I do suggest you do a complete surface scan for any damaged
sector(s) caused when the hard drive was dropped and the head may have
banged around.

As for why it wouldn't boot the first time, maybe you had the cable on
loose or something?
Click to expand...

I used PowerMax 4.6 or something to do all the required tests etc on it,
and it passed every one! Amazing!
Yep its always possible, about a loose cable. You never know what comes
loose when you are fiddling inside the case, so its always best to check
everything afterwards, says he!

Thanks
 
Well I am usually VERY careful with drives; but on this occassion, due
to the restricted space, ie trying to move them without moving anything
else first, I could only hold on to the back end of ther drive in the
bay, and consequently when I attempted to move it up a position, the
front end dropped.
Click to expand...

In my experience Maxtor drives are not very drop sensitive. About a
year ago I knocked a 60GB off the table on to the floor and it is
still working fine.


Steve
 
In my experience Maxtor drives are not very drop sensitive. About a
year ago I knocked a 60GB off the table on to the floor and it is
still working fine.


Steve
Click to expand...

'off the table onto the floor'!!! I have nothing to worry about then :-)
I really thought/expected it not to work, and I wasn't surprised when
Win2k threw up the BSOD because I reasoned that the registry would have
expected to find that data on that drive, but could not, and hence maybe
got corrupted or something???
I was more surprised when WinXP said everything was OK.

Ah well, you live and learn!

Cheers
 
Previously dg said:
I am always VERY careful with my drives. However, I have purposely been
very cruel to hard drives to see just how durable they really are (drives
that would otherwise be thrown away). While running, I have smacked,
slammed, dropped and anything else I can think of. It is amazing what they
can handle and still run without problem. How long will they last after
abuse?
Click to expand...

Very, very difficult to tell.
I don't know, but I am impressed by their durability.
Click to expand...

They have gotten massively more shock-resistant some years
back. You might try a 30cm drop on concrete while running.
That should get close to the limit.

Arno
 
In my experience Maxtor drives are not very drop sensitive. About a
year ago I knocked a 60GB off the table on to the floor and it is
still working fine.
Click to expand...

What type of floor coating? A 1 m drop on carpet can be less damaging
that 10 cm on concrete.

Arno
 
I used PowerMax 4.6 or something to do all the required tests etc on it,
and it passed every one! Amazing!
Click to expand...

You might have been lucky. However the dropped ones that failed
on me did test perfectly as well. I hope your disk is O.K.. Maybe
run a long self-test once a month for some months to be sure. Im
my case the disks did not die immediately, just started to produce
more and more defective sectors after some months.
Yep its always possible, about a loose cable. You never know what comes
loose when you are fiddling inside the case, so its always best to check
everything afterwards, says he!
Click to expand...

True. Since you have a back-up anyways (right?) just go with
the drive. It might be perfectly fine, it is just hard to tell.

Arno
 
Bob said:
Yesterday I was having to re locate some of my hardware so that my new
ATA 133 80 pin cable would reach, and in the process of moving my Maxtor
30Gb slave drive, I inadvertently let the front end fall about 1/2
inches in the drive bay. Oooops, thats done it, I thought. Time for
another drive to take its place.
Anyway after connecting everything back up again, I booted into win2k,
but it threw a wobbly (BSOD with STOP error message) and wouldn't boot.
I then tried WinXP, not a problem. It booted up just fine, and showed
all the partitions on the slave drive. The files and folders were fine.

Tonight, I tried win2k again, and viola, it booted up ok!!! Very strange.

Anyway the point is, the Maxtor 30Gb drive is still working fine after
its little fall. But I won't do that again, I won't be so lucky next time!
Click to expand...

It used to be that just setting a drive down on a hard surface could crash
it. Not the case anymore--they take quite a beating, especially
non-operating.
 
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