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Tell you what....
Let's all chip in for five hard drives.
We'll run them with typical applications night and day for five years in a loop.
We''ll automatically turn some off and on a few times a day.
If one fails within a five year period, you win the bet.
If none fail within a five year period, I win the bet.
How about a $1000 dollar wager. Any takers?
I've split this off to its own thread so that the previous thread it was in won't get in the way.:)
I have a hard drive here that stopped spinning. Will it work again if I re-install XP? It's only 3 years old.
Robert M, are you seriously suggesting that hard drives never fail? Was the Google article just made up for their own amusement? How do data recovery companies possibly stay in buisiness you have to wonder :rolleyes:
Supersparks,
Of course not, but they are far more reliable than some people would lead you to believe.
Many people do not know how to distinguish the difference between an actual hard drive failure and other problems that may seem to be a hard drive failure.
To me, a hard drive failure means that no part of the drive can be read or written because of a damaged read/write head, or an electronic component or chip fails or the platters do not spin when they are supposed to.
The Maxtor 60GB is just as bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Bob
Let's run these drives in from what I have seen over and over again as a "typical" environment: sitting on a carpeted floor, one or two pets in the house, no front intake or no exhaust, no filters, and not bothering to routinely clean out the dust in the case at all, make sure all the wires and ribbon cables are placed to restrict air flow, make sure the back of the case is flush against a wall to restrict exhaust (or even better, stuck in a cubbyhole in a cheapo computer desk that doesn't allow much for exhaust or air space. Then let's treat them like most "typical" (read: "unknowledgable") users do: turn off the machine abruptly several times a month, thereby not allowing the heads to park correctly. Fun to be had by all!
I'll give it three years tops before heat or wear and tear will kill those Maxtors. I've never had a Maxtor that lasted more than that even WITH care.....swore off of them years ago. Seems that bad sectors roam the neighborhoods at night just looking for Maxtors to infiltrate. :)
Crunchie,
It might work if you plug in the power connector for the drive.
If the power connector is plugged in, and the disk is not spinning, that's a problem and you won't be able to reinstall till that's fixed.
Bistro,
Are you sure you want to make that bet?
But, How about we leave some ventilation?
Do you really think most people block the fan holes and ventilation?
But...I don't think it would matter though.
The drive electronics are designed to stand a reasonable amount of overheating. Bad sectors do not a failed hard drive make.
Many bran new drives straight from the manufacturer have bad sectors.
The format command hides them from the computer.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us
But wait everybody, let's not all go formatting if the drive has already been formatted and not until we know for sure we have developed some additional bad sectors. But even then, we need to backup everything first.
Formatting makes all your data and programs inaccessible, or erases them.
I've just had a brand new Seagate Barracuda 320GB fail right out of the box. It spins up (very noisily), but Windows won't recognise it at all. Annoyingly it was one that I bought a few months ago that was surplus to requirements on a build, so I had it sitting on a shelf as a spare. I suppose I'll have to RMA it direct to Seagate now.
Oo..oo..oo...an RMA!
What's an RMA?
Do you mean you need to obtain a Return Materials Authorization number?
Yes, that is what I mean.
I haven't seen such powers of deduction since I left Worcester County.:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Robert M
Actually,,it's "return merchandise authorization". And I fully agree about the Maxtor drives being crap. I'm hoping the new ones will be better since Seagate bought Maxtor,but it will be a long time(if ever)before I trust them enough to buy one again.:rolleyes:
My drives at this time and for the last three years are all Seagate 120GB barracuda's in two machines and I've never had a problem with any of them.
I'm still not sure who's saying what in this thread, but hard drives are very vulnerable to the conditions around it. I've seen many drives who have failed within a year, and even more within 3 years.
Well Ridgerunr, bistro and usil,
Shall I put you down as people who are going to chip in and make the wager?
Since I have more to lose, $3000, covering three bets if I lose ....
How about you each give me a bonus of another $5000.00 for every year they all continue to run after the first five years without a head crash or a component failure for every year after the first five?
For example, if they all make it six years, you each owe me another $5000.00