Western Digital HDD gone noisy... 1

[samsonx]

I recently bought a Western Digitial 7200RPM 40Gb HDD (2 Meg cache, not the newer 8Mb cache that has a 3-yr warranty). The read head in the drive started playing up and missing, and the drive was replaced under warranty.

With my replacement drive in, after a month, it is now starting to be a lot noiser and has a static sound when booting up. I have backed up my data because I think it will die in the near future.

I changed the IDE cable to see if it would make any difference, but it hasn't. The HDD is primary master, with a spare 2g on slave. The jumpers are set correctly and the PC is operating fine.

This is the first time I have had problems with my HDD's. Maybe it is just Western Digitial, but I usually use Seagate.

Has any else experienced problems with WD, or is it just me?

 

[davewall]

>The read head in the drive started playing up and missing, and the drive was replaced under warranty.
>With my replacement drive in, after a month, it is now starting to be a lot noiser and has a static sound when booting up.

I would seriously suggest you contact your supplier and get them to check out the replacement drive before your remaining warranty runs out.

 

[samsonx]

Thanks for the advice mate.

Cheers,

Samson

 

[skidoggeruk]

Hi,

I have had WD drives die in similar manner in the past, complete with the scratchy un-tuned radio sound. think yours will be on the way out maybe.

Oh yeah, have also had "warranty replacements" that are simply re-worked broken ones. Hard to argue that one one though, I imagine. Maybe you keep getting "friday" drives.

good luck

BK

 

[TLC1964]

I have replaced numerous Western Digital HD's in customers and friends systems after they failed using other brand drives. WD seems to have a high failure rate in my experience. I have had good luck with Maxtor drives over the years and usually recommend them.

 

[ThePug]

hi! i am also experiencing some noise from my WD 40g 7200 rpm 8mb drive. its like an old automobile motor running. i've swtrated to back-up everything. i had this drive for only 3months. i guess im going back to seagate.

 

[Grenage]

No Problems with WD here, they seem identicle in failure rate to Maxtor, luck of the draw perhaps.

 

[PeterGriff]

I have always been a firm Seagate. I had two 80 Gb Seagate drives start going bad on me recently (bad sectors). Both about 6 month old. There was apparently a bad manufacturing batch of 40 and 80 GB drives from China that affected 3 of 4 HDD manufacturers late last year although no-one is admitting to it (Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi - apparently WD was the only one not affected).
This was reported at

http://www.digitimes.com

if anyone is interested. I'm still sticking with Seagate despite this mishap as they have been pretty consistant over the last few years (and at least the drives didnt just die and lose the lot).

I would love to hear from wholesalers about the return rates of the respective drives (and motherboards for that matter).

Peter G

 

[VMPhilosophy]

wester digital do have a very high failure rate as of late, the store where i work stopped selling them because of this.

"Did you ever wish a circle was a square, so when land sharks start circling the boarders you can just cut them off at the corners?" - Aesop Rock

 

[ingulf]

I've had two maxtor drives go bad. In both cases I was able to recover most of my data. PowerQuest used to sell a product, "Lost & Found" that was helpful. My recovery rate was about 65%. With some data previously saved the recovery improved.
I understand that PQ does not support this product anymore.
The first instance was with W95 and the second was wit W98,2e.