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  1. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Whether you are meaning to or not, you really are beginning to sound like either a raving lunatic or a troll.

    You have been given a LOT of free, reasonable, well documented, experiential sage advice, and you continue to fall back on harping on one or two pet peeves instead of actually following (completely) that advice. And only doing some remedial steps is near to the same thing as not doing any. And then you complain about it not working - whose fault is that?

    By the way, this is an open forum where anyone can freely say whatever they want. So everyone: BUY EXTRA WD HARDDRIVES!

    Scott
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  2. Originally Posted by jeanpave View Post
    Originally Posted by fritzi93 View Post
    Why are you so reluctant to take the drive out of its enclosure?

    Because usually if I take anything out of its enclosure I can't put it back the same perfect-looking way.

    In this case, I not only broke the warranty - big deal, it's not like those bastards are going to give me a replacement or something, after about 3 years!
    If the drive was under warranty they would have replaced it right up until the last day. Why would You not take advantage of the warranty. These are major companies. I had HP replace a CD Burner one time that had two days left on its warranty. They then extended the warranty 30 days on the replacement.

    From everything You have said that drive is toast, Take it out to the backyard, dig a small hole and give it a decent burial.

    I have most likely purchased well over 100 drives personally, many more at work. They all have some problematic drive models, All.

    Seagate had some models with bad firmware that with no warning would eat Your data and die AKA Brick themelves.

    Seagate Employee Explains Firmware Debacle
    January 23, 2009
    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-firmware-7200.11-drives-bricking,6885.html
    Last week, Tom's Hardware reported that an escalating number of Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 SATA and DiamondMax 22 drives were failing due to a fatal flaw in the firmware which caused the drive to suddenly lock itself up and prevent the BIOS from even detecting it in the system. There is no way of fixing this unfortunately, and the drive needs to be returned for replacement.
    Please stop saying Seagate is prefect and Western Digital isn't, You are wrong. The bottom line is that for You Seagate is better. For many it is the other way around. I use Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital as well as Intel and Samsung SSD drives. My first hard drive was a 20 Megabyte ST 225 MFM hard drive by Seagate.

    Seagate purchased Maxtor in 2006 and the Samsung HDD business in 2011.

    I bought the Seagate ST 225 in the 80s I have been buying and using hard drives since then from all makers. I have never seen any brand that I could point to and say I'm not buying that junk.

    Your experience with Western Digital is atypical.

    TBoneit
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  3. You can't believe anything Tom's Hardware says. They might have an agenda. They might be fabricating lies. The simple fact that they post on the internet make them suspect.
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  4. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    But jagabo, YOU just posted on the internet...That means that you are suspect!

    Wait a minute, I'm posting right now! Oh, no, I must be suspect, too?! When will it ever end!?

    Scott
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  5. Everything posted on the internet is false. Including this post.
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  6. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    You can't believe anything Tom's Hardware says. They might have an agenda. They might be fabricating lies. The simple fact that they post on the internet make them suspect.
    Except that in this case I remember this problem.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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    Remembered something that may be the cause of the OP's problem.

    As mentioned earlier, every hard drive has bad sectors. Windows aggravates this because chkdsk / scandisk will block out suspected bad sections of the drive and never tries to use them again (even when running scandisk /r (recovery). I've had a couple of drives "fail" because the allotted number of bad sectors was exceeded because Windows cannot / will not recover / reuse them. SpinRite was able to recover these 'failed" drives because the "bad" sectors were actually okay.


    Here's what the SpinRite site says about chkdsk / scandsk:

    Source: https://www.grc.com/sr/faq.htm

    "How does SpinRite compare to ScanDisk?

    SpinRite and ScanDisk are entirely different types of products. ScanDisk replaces the original DOS CHKDSK command, which verified the logical file system structure of the hard drive (the newer CHKDSK command no longer performs that function). Microsoft created ScanDisk because people were switching off their computers without first exiting Windows. This resulted in corruption of the file system.

    ScanDisk can also perform a read-only "scan" of a drive's surface to check for any unreadable sectors which it will then remove from use by the file system. However, ScanDisk does not perform data recovery, maintenance, or surface analysis of any kind. Unlike SpinRite, it does no data pattern testing, defect scrubbing, data relocation or unreadable sector repair and recovery. ScanDisk was never designed to perform those functions.

    If your hard drives are acting up, the best thing to do is to run SpinRite first (a quick scan at level 2 is fine) to check for and repair any obvious read-trouble on the drive. Then, knowing that the "lower-levels" of the drive are okay, run ScanDisk to check and verify the "higher-levels" of the drive's file system. SpinRite is the best and only tool for long-term low-level data integrity maintenance, and ScanDisk is a useful free tool for checking the operating system's file system at a higher level."

    Edit: Thanks to Cornucopia for pointing out that SpinRite has been around since 1988! When I recalled it would would work on MFM and RLL drives, a DUH! light went off in my head!
    Last edited by lingyi; 4th Mar 2014 at 23:45.
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    As for ALL "Brand X" <product> being bad and ALL "Brand Y" <product> being good based on a very limited sampling is extreme user bias.

    Even BackBlazes 24,000+ sampling is statistically insignificant compared to the millions (billions?) of hard drives in current use.

    In one of my high school classes, way back when, the teacher wanted to test probability by having the students flip pennies for the entire class period. The others in my group were ecstatic about the "improbability" of flipping tails 70+ times out of 100 and the teacher encouraged their enthusiasm. I on the other hand realized the futility of this "experiment" and never returned to that class again.
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    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    Whether you are meaning to or not, you really are beginning to sound like either a raving lunatic or a troll.

    You have been given a LOT of free, reasonable, well documented, experiential sage advice, and you continue to fall back on harping on one or two pet peeves instead of actually following (completely) that advice. And only doing some remedial steps is near to the same thing as not doing any. And then you complain about it not working - whose fault is that?

    By the way, this is an open forum where anyone can freely say whatever they want. So everyone: buy extra wd harddrives!

    Don't listen to this retarded fanatic.

    If you buy things from his stupid mother- company, you'll be as much of an ass licker as he is.

    Most definitely, he does not mean to say that western digital is good, or better than anything.
    He's obviously working, or having some connection with, western digital, or otherwise he wouldn't persist so much in trying to convince me, and people who are reading these posts, that western digital is worth shet.

    I've got concrete proof, in more than 8 hard-drives just sitting as coasters in my home - and anybody is welcome to come and examine them - just give me a public address to meet with you, and I can take you to see the damaged HDDs - all made by those losers at western digital! And cornucopia together other brain-damaged idiots in his corner try to push polls who were made and financed by god-knows-who?!! And they get all upset, aggressive and bent out of shape because I don't listen to them? Why should I listen to western digital whores like them?
    I can think and analyze for myself, I don't need yes men telling me what's what when the truth is clearly visible.
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    By the way, I'm going to provide an update on what happened with that drive.

    Yes, it is fried now! western digital drives cannot get refurbished, apparently. They get ruined quickly, and for good.

    After running chkdsk /r many, many times, until able to copy all the remaining files from the drive onto a good one, I was left with what I thought was an empty, recoverable drive.
    Nope!
    I did a low-level format, and then tried to re-partition and re-format the drive, as I said. It was taking forever.

    Quick format eventually worked. In about half a day, the partition and re-formats were (supposedly) complete.

    But, actually, nothing can be copied onto this hard-drive even again. It would have been more feasible to leave the old files there - the ones that still copied to other places - and say to myself that I have back-ups.
    Because now I can't put anything new on this stupid western digital anymore. First of all, it's copying at rates of 112 kB/s, or something like that, even though the USB connection is Full Speed! And even if something small does get transferred completely, it has tons of glitches if one tries to access it with software.

    So, yeah, thanks to western digital for the newest coaster in their long line of failing hard-drives (at least for me).

    If you buy wd hard-drives, have cornucopia buy them for you, in Texas, 'cause apparently there they work!
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  11. It's probable the bad blocks are in the root directory area or possibly some of the allocation tables. You can often work around this by creating a partition that doesn't start at the start of the drive. If you're using Windows' partition manager:

    1) Delete all partitions.
    2) Create a partition that's about 5 percent of the drive.
    3) Create a partition that's the rest of the drive.
    4) Delete the first partition.
    5) Format the remaining partition.

    That will leave the first 5 percent of the drive unused. And you may find that the rest of the drive is fine. I've used this technique to work around such problems.
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  12. Originally Posted by jeanpave View Post
    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    Whether you are meaning to or not, you really are beginning to sound like either a raving lunatic or a troll.

    You have been given a LOT of free, reasonable, well documented, experiential sage advice, and you continue to fall back on harping on one or two pet peeves instead of actually following (completely) that advice. And only doing some remedial steps is near to the same thing as not doing any. And then you complain about it not working - whose fault is that?

    By the way, this is an open forum where anyone can freely say whatever they want. So everyone: buy extra wd harddrives!

    Don't listen to this retarded fanatic.

    If you buy things from his stupid mother- company, you'll be as much of an ass licker as he is.

    Most definitely, he does not mean to say that western digital is good, or better than anything.
    He's obviously working, or having some connection with, western digital, or otherwise he wouldn't persist so much in trying to convince me, and people who are reading these posts, that western digital is worth shet.

    I've got concrete proof, in more than 8 hard-drives just sitting as coasters in my home - and anybody is welcome to come and examine them - just give me a public address to meet with you, and I can take you to see the damaged HDDs - all made by those losers at western digital! And cornucopia together other brain-damaged idiots in his corner try to push polls who were made and financed by god-knows-who?!! And they get all upset, aggressive and bent out of shape because I don't listen to them? Why should I listen to western digital whores like them?
    I can think and analyze for myself, I don't need yes men telling me what's what when the truth is clearly visible.
    Over the Years starting back in the 80s with a 20 megabyte Seagate MFM hard drive I have had most brands that there are and were.

    I have a Mix of Toshiba, Seagate, Maxtor - Now owned by Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Hitachi and of course Intel, Samsung SSD drives.

    Currently in use in a NAS WD Red drives. Intel, WD, Seagate etc. In Desktop and Laptop computers. I worked in a repair shop where we saw a lot of drives. I have seen no pattern of any one brand being definitively worse than another.

    I can not recall having to replace a drive due to it being defective. I have replaced numerous drives due to their being too small after years of use.

    Drop any drive and that can kill it especially if it is in use. Where a drive is can have an effect too. Poor ventilation, Vibrations etc. I have seen many portable and external drives killed by others due to being dropped or knocked over while in use.

    I also do, Turn off the computer and switch off the AC to save wear and tear on the Moving parts when it will not be needed for a little while. They start fast enough that the 30 seconds Approx. That this one takes to boot up is not a issue for me. I also power down and remove the AC on all external drives including the NAS's to save wear and tear when I do not anticipate using them for a period of time.

    It is common sense that things with moving parts will wear out with use.

    Hard Drives, Computer CPU and Power supply fans etc.

    Good Luck
    TBoneit
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  13. Some of the comments about Scandisk are NOT accurate.

    It does indeed do data recovery, and will re-locate files from bad sectors. Checking the drive for errors IS "Maintenance". It is not as good at data recovery, but then if I need data recovery, I use GetDataBack, which is better than Spinrite, at that task.

    Haven't had any need or use for Spinrite in decades. If a drive has enough bad sectors that I need to return them to usability, the better answer is "get a new drive". Haven't needed to apply RLL coding to an MFM drive, or vary sector interleave values, in a LONG, long time.

    Pretty much, if you need what Spinrite can do, you need a new drive. They are too cheap, and hold too much data, to try and rely on a questionable drive.

    Did you know that you could purchase Spinrite, and legally use it on someone else's PC by paying a small license fee? It was $20.00. Not 100% if my boss ever sent the checks in, but the arrangement was available, I verified this personally.

    The WD Caviar Black are, IMO, the best drives available. I am definitely not yet sold on SSD for long-term usage, they don't yet have the track record to justify the high price. Probably next are Hitachi, Fujitsu, with Seagate last on my list. I also understand that my feelings on Seagate are largely based on a single incident where 5 of 6 high-end drives in a high-end enclosure for a high-end customer failed within 6 weeks. Lotsa extra work for no extra money, essentially the enclosure maker and Seagate dis-agreed on compatibility specs.

    My preference for WD is based on hundreds of drives installed, replaced, maintained, purchased, etc. They did have that series of IIRC 6gb drives where the heads fell off on a regular basis. My Raptor and first 1TB WD drive also failed early. I still purchase WD almost exclusively, Caviar Blacks. No greens or blues.
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  14. Nelson37
    Seagate did also have a issue with firmware where it would brick the drive for a while. They stepped up to the plate as I remember it and did data recovery as well as warranty. I suspect that the data recovery easy.

    However they did as I say step up and fix the issue. As You say with that WD 6Gb anyone can have a issue. What counts is also how they handle it.

    I have to agree, once a drive starts having issues, replace it they are not that expensive.

    On the SSD issue You mention, Knock Wood, I have 4 Intel SSD drives of varying size in use that I bought when they upped the warranty on their 320 series to 5 years. So far the Intel SSD toolbox shows no problems and 100% of life remaining. I have two Samsung SSD drives that have never given a issue, 840EVO series, Knock wood.
    I tend to trust them as much or more than the 7200 RPM Drives, and the USB3 portable external drives I have switched over to for backup usage. There are no computers here that do not have a SSD boot drive. I like them.

    Good Luck
    Roger

    FWIW the 1TB SSD Drives are a bit pricey yet. Especially the Samsungs if You give them the Samsung recommended 10% unallocated space for overprovisioning.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  15. TBoneit, if I may ask: Have you ever had to upgrade the firmware on your Intel or Samsung SSDs? Ever had to do a secure erase? Have they a tendency to develop bad sectors?

    If Intel and Samsung are tops for reputation and reliability (as I understand it), then OCZ, surely, must be at the bottom. And it so happens I have two of them.

    Exhibit A: Just read the reviews.
    Exhibit B: Price. They're relatively cheap.
    Exhibit C: All OCZ SSDs up to at least the Agility 3 had numerous firmware revisions. (Dunno about current OCZ drives).
    Exhibit D: The OCZ forum is mostly dedicated to firmware upgrades. And bitching.

    Anyway, I do backups conscientiously and I've learned how to do necessary maintenance on them. It's not onerous at all. But it sure is necessary. I don't quite trust them, but with my precautions that doesn't really matter. Still and all, for OS boot drives, I wouldn't want to go back to mechanical hard drives.
    Pull! Bang! Darn!
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  16. Originally Posted by fritzi93 View Post
    TBoneit, if I may ask: Have you ever had to upgrade the firmware on your Intel or Samsung SSDs? Ever had to do a secure erase? Have they a tendency to develop bad sectors?

    If Intel and Samsung are tops for reputation and reliability (as I understand it), then OCZ, surely, must be at the bottom. And it so happens I have two of them.
    I did do a firmware upgrade on the Samsung, Their Software, Samsung Magician, offered it so I did it.
    I did do firmware upgrades on the Intel SSDs as a result of a a firmware bug. It did not hit me fortunately. I believe they have been pretty problem free since then. This one
    Update (8/18/2011) -- Fix now available: Three weeks after replicating the so-called "8MB bug," Intel has published a firmware update (4PC10362) that solves the issue.
    So I have had them be trouble free since before that. I had at least one of them around the time Intel increased the warranty to 5 years.
    Intel Newsroom on May 19, 2011
    Confident in the enhanced reliability features of its recently introduced third-generation solid-state drive (SSD), Intel announced it has extended its limited warranty for the Intel® SSD 320 Series from three years to five years. The extended warranty term will apply to all Intel SSD 320 Series drives, including those already purchased. Additional limitations apply to enterprise usage levels. See full warranty details.
    So I have had the Intels since spring of 2011
    Exhibit A: Just read the reviews.
    Exhibit B: Price. They're relatively cheap.
    Exhibit C: All OCZ SSDs up to at least the Agility 3 had numerous firmware revisions. (Dunno about current OCZ drives).
    Exhibit D: The OCZ forum is mostly dedicated to firmware upgrades. And bitching.

    Anyway, I do backups conscientiously and I've learned how to do necessary maintenance on them. It's not onerous at all. But it sure is necessary. I don't quite trust them, but with my precautions that doesn't really matter. Still and all, for OS boot drives, I wouldn't want to go back to mechanical hard drives.
    I did buy a OCZ once time after they were supposed to be fixed and before they went bankrupt. That is the Only SSD I had to do a Secure Erase on to return it to usability. it was on sale cheap and I got what paid for.

    I have never had a bad sector that I am aware of. I overprovisioned the Samsung 840EVO by 10% as the Samsung Magician software recommended. And I try to not fill up the Intels either.

    The Intel SSD toolbox and the Samsung Magician both show that all is well This is what the Intel shows for all the drives.

    and this is what the Samsung S/W shows.


    The Samsung was pricey, however since this is a All-in-One with room for one drive..................
    My laptops and Regular Desktop have smaller Intel SSDs.

    Good Luck
    Roger
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  17. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    There's no rhyme or reason behind hard drive crashes. Abused drives can continue to work while others crash when you take care of them.

    The only thing that makes sense to me when you think about it is what an employee at LaCie once told me: "Those who back up their data don't get hard drive crashes." (BTW- LaCie makes great HDDs.)

    @jeanpave: Smashing or burning/melting bad products can be therapeutic as you can try with your WDs.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  18. Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    (BTW- LaCie makes great HDDs.)
    LaCie doesn't make hard drives. They buy them from one of the real hard drive manufacturers, WD, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, etc.
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  19. Originally Posted by TBoneit View Post
    I did buy a OCZ once time after they were supposed to be fixed and before they went bankrupt. That is the Only SSD I had to do a Secure Erase on to return it to usability. it was on sale cheap and I got what paid for.
    They went bankrupt? Shows how current I am. It figures though.

    Speaking of over-provisioning, my OCZ Vertex is 120 GB, with 96 GB usable. That's 20% over-provisioned.
    Pull! Bang! Darn!
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  20. Well they did get bought out............
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/2068522/toshiba-buys-oczs-belly-up-ssd-business-where-d...warranty-.html
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/7559/toshiba-acquires-oczs-assets-for-35-million

    On the other hand Newegg is still selling them so I guess Toshiba found some utility in the name.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  21. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR View Post
    (BTW- LaCie makes great HDDs.)
    LaCie doesn't make hard drives. They buy them from one of the real hard drive manufacturers, WD, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, etc.
    Darn. I had a feeling somebody would burst my bubble in my love for LaCie.

    At any rate - I wonder who makes their unique casing for their externals, particularly the slick black ones - real cool.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  22. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Well, if you want me to...

    I used to have to use various LaCie products at my former production company. Nothing BAD, per se, but thoroughly mediocre performance along with high end sticker price, was always my take on them. IOW, not much bang for your buck. I never could figure out how they got such an "inside track" on media systems integration referrals.

    Yes, their cases were their best feature.

    Scott
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  23. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    I never could figure out how they got such an "inside track" on media systems integration referrals.
    They were very popular with the Mac crowd a few years back as they had Firewire and other common Mac connections for a decent price
    that were somewhat rare then. I think that's how they got popular. I had a few of them when I had a Mac.

    And they did have nice looking cases.
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  24. They make a nice solid box, I agree, but the electronics in them were no better than cheaper units.
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