Two Maxtor 200GB drives fail to boot

[moebelli]

Just bought these drives recenctly. I've been using them in a firewire
enclosure and suddenly neither will boot up, like the drive just sits
there and doesn't even look like it gets power. All my other drives
(WD) have no problems.

Any ideas? I tried different enclosures, same prob. Are there internal
fuses in drives? I just don't get why suddenly they both won't boot.
Same models by the way (6L200RO).

 

[Arno Wagner]

Just bought these drives recenctly. I've been using them in a firewire
enclosure and suddenly neither will boot up, like the drive just sits
there and doesn't even look like it gets power. All my other drives
(WD) have no problems.

Any ideas? I tried different enclosures, same prob. Are there internal
fuses in drives? I just don't get why suddenly they both won't boot.
Same models by the way (6L200RO).

Hmm. Any more possible clues? Is this a two-drive enclosure or
did they only stop working some time apart?

Arno

 

[moebelli]

It's a firewire enclosure for one drive only. I own about three of them
and use them as required. I have one on top of my PC with the top off
and plug in bare drives as needed. I basically do this to backup my
edits for clients. They buy a drive per job, I backup when the edit
project is completed, then hand them the bare drive which they bring
back to my suite if changes are needed in the future.

This has worked well for the past 2 years. About 2-3 months ago I
bought a Maxtor 200Gb and so did one of my clients. Both when plugged
into the firewire enclosure stopped working recently.

The one that just went, I used the day before yesterday to transfer
files from the drive to my PC. All went perfect. Yesterday, I turn it
on -- nothing. The drive fails to power up, I don't here it cycling or
going through a boot procedure. Totally, totally weird.

I tried changing enclosures, rebooting my PC, plugging in/out the
firewire cable -- everything, I just can't get them back up. Now, I
haven't installed them into my PC but I can't do that. I've got a 500G
two drive Raid and a 160GB drive for XP, I don't have the room or want
to fool around with my editing dual core PC.

The other client drives have been Western Digital and they're all
working. I'm done with Maxtor after this. Can't recommend them anymore.
Has anyone heard of any problems with the 200GB 6L200RO drives?

 

[WackySnoozy]

I encountered the same problem with my firewire enclosure (4 bays SOHO
FW400 U7-4WA4) as well. What I did was to unplug the firewire cable,
reboot Window XP, remove all the hidden devices, plug back the firewire
cable and everything is working fine. Another method is to power on
the enclosure first, then power on the PC after 15 secs to allow the
hard disks to complete the initialisation.

 

[Arno Wagner]

It's a firewire enclosure for one drive only. I own about three of them
and use them as required. I have one on top of my PC with the top off
and plug in bare drives as needed. I basically do this to backup my
edits for clients. They buy a drive per job, I backup when the edit
project is completed, then hand them the bare drive which they bring
back to my suite if changes are needed in the future.

This has worked well for the past 2 years. About 2-3 months ago I
bought a Maxtor 200Gb and so did one of my clients. Both when plugged
into the firewire enclosure stopped working recently.

The one that just went, I used the day before yesterday to transfer
files from the drive to my PC. All went perfect. Yesterday, I turn it
on -- nothing. The drive fails to power up, I don't here it cycling or
going through a boot procedure. Totally, totally weird.

I tried changing enclosures, rebooting my PC, plugging in/out the
firewire cable -- everything, I just can't get them back up. Now, I
haven't installed them into my PC but I can't do that. I've got a 500G
two drive Raid and a 160GB drive for XP, I don't have the room or want
to fool around with my editing dual core PC.

The other client drives have been Western Digital and they're all
working. I'm done with Maxtor after this. Can't recommend them anymore.

Although I agree that Maxtor is not the most reliable (personally
I think WD is even worse), you should determine what the problem
actually is, before blaming them.

One step in that process is mounting it in a PC and trying to obtain
a SMART status. Alternatively, if money is not an issue, you can also
ask a data recovery company for a diagnistic.

Arno

 

[moebelli]

I did plug in, plug out, reboot Windows. Nothing!!

I tried the faulty drives in two other firewire cases, I even tried
them in a new USB enclosure. THEY DON'T POWER UP. Any other bare drives
I have work fine in all these enclosures, in fact, a client just
brought in a new Western Digital 200Gb drive which I just formatted and
is working great in my main USB enclosure.

The thing is, Windows doesn't need to be running, the drives don't
power up, they just sit there. The LED in the enclosures stays red,
doesn't go green. Usually when you power up the enclosure, the drive
cycles and the LED goes green. It does this even without being plugged
into the firewire port and into XP. These drives don't do that. They
don't make any noise -- as if a fuse went inside or something.

I'm wondering if maybe plugging in/out these drives in the firewire
enclosure damaged them somehow. Odd that this has never happened with
any drive before, and now it's happened with these two identical 200Gb
Maxtor drives.

 

[Rod Speed]

I did plug in, plug out, reboot Windows. Nothing!!

I tried the faulty drives in two other firewire cases, I even tried
them in a new USB enclosure. THEY DON'T POWER UP. Any
other bare drives I have work fine in all these enclosures, in fact,
a client just brought in a new Western Digital 200Gb drive which I just
formatted and is working great in my main USB enclosure.

The thing is, Windows doesn't need to be running, the drives don't
power up, they just sit there. The LED in the enclosures stays red,
doesn't go green. Usually when you power up the enclosure, the drive
cycles and the LED goes green. It does this even without being plugged
into the firewire port and into XP. These drives don't do that. They
don't make any noise -- as if a fuse went inside or something.

Thats pretty clear evidence that they have both died.

I'm wondering if maybe plugging in/out these drives
in the firewire enclosure damaged them somehow.

It can do if you managed to forget to turn the enclosure off first, twice.

Odd that this has never happened with any drive before, and
now it's happened with these two identical 200Gb Maxtor drives.

Yeah, unlikely to be a coincidence, but thats obviously possible.

What happens if you try those drives in
a normal system, not a firewire case ?

 

[moebelli]

I always made sure to turn the power off when attaching a drive. My
standard procedure is: open box, attach drive, close box, plug in
power, attach the firewire cable to my PC, turn on the power, wait
till XP recognizes the drive.

Unfortunately, I don't have any space left in my PC to install these
drives. I think I'll take them to the store I bought them and see if
they can do that.

I'm just wondering, maybe its not a good practice to shuffle these bare
drives inside a USB/Firewire case. Maybe it just makes them more prone
to damage. Too bad because it's been very handy to do that. Maybe I'll
buy a case for each new drive and keep them in the case permanently,
but that will add an extra $60 per drive (plus the drive itself) to my
client's costs. Wish there was a better way to back up large data that
you intend to give clients. Many of my projects are 160 GB or more. I
can't archive that much data on DVD's.

 

[Rod Speed]

I always made sure to turn the power off when attaching a drive.
My standard procedure is: open box, attach drive, close box,
plug in power, attach the firewire cable to my PC, turn on the
power, wait till XP recognizes the drive.

Unfortunately, I don't have any space left in my PC to install these
drives. I think I'll take them to the store I bought them and see if
they can do that.

I'm just wondering, maybe its not a good practice to
shuffle these bare drives inside a USB/Firewire case.
Maybe it just makes them more prone to damage.

Yes, its not theoretically a great idea, bit prone to static damage etc.

Too bad because it's been very handy to do that.

Yeah, can be.

Maybe I'll buy a case for each new drive and keep
them in the case permanently, but that will add an extra
$60 per drive (plus the drive itself) to my client's costs.

Yep. It might be better to just make the warranty claims
on the drives. Maybe use Seagates with 5 year warrantys.

Wish there was a better way to back up large data
that you intend to give clients. Many of my projects are
160 GB or more. I can't archive that much data on DVD's.

Yeah, hard drives have real advantages speed and size wise.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I did plug in, plug out, reboot Windows. Nothing!!

I tried the faulty drives in two other firewire cases, I even tried
them in a new USB enclosure. THEY DON'T POWER UP. Any other bare drives
I have work fine in all these enclosures, in fact, a client just
brought in a new Western Digital 200Gb drive which I just formatted and
is working great in my main USB enclosure.

The thing is, Windows doesn't need to be running, the drives don't
power up, they just sit there. The LED in the enclosures stays red,
doesn't go green. Usually when you power up the enclosure, the drive
cycles and the LED goes green. It does this even without being plugged
into the firewire port and into XP. These drives don't do that. They
don't make any noise -- as if a fuse went inside or something.

I'm wondering if maybe plugging in/out these drives in the firewire
enclosure damaged them somehow. Odd that this has never happened with
any drive before, and now it's happened with these two identical 200Gb
Maxtor drives.

Did you plug them under power?

Arno

 

[WackySnoozy]

I did plug in, plug out, reboot Windows. Nothing!!

I tried the faulty drives in two other firewire cases, I even tried
them in a new USB enclosure. THEY DON'T POWER UP.

In this case, it seems that the harddrives are dead.

into the firewire port and into XP. These drives don't do that. They
don't make any noise -- as if a fuse went inside or something.

I don't think there is a fuse in the hard disks. Could be that the
logic board is damaged.

I'm wondering if maybe plugging in/out these drives in the firewire
enclosure damaged them somehow. Odd that this has never happened with
any drive before, and now it's happened with these two identical 200Gb
Maxtor drives.

Guess could be a faulty batch.