New Samsung drive

[Vakas]

I installed a new 1TB Samsung drive I have installed vista ultimate 64

I am getting a blue screen at random times saying BAD_POOL_HEADER

Having looked on google it sdays it maybe a memory isseu but I have been using my meory for a while and its fine and my othet drive gets no erros

so do you yhink it's more than likey it's the hard drive or shal i try reinstalling Winodws

 

[miniyazz]

run memtest, try reinstalling windows..

 

[Vakas]

I have been using the memory for months and when I use my old hard drive I do not get any errors

should I have the hard drive checked first of all the place I got it from is not too far

 

[Paddyw01]

I have been using the memory for months and when I use my old hard drive I do not get any errors

should I have the hard drive checked first of all the place I got it from is not too far

Another victim of Samsung.

Yes go and have the drive checked and try and swap it for a WD Caviar Black.

Oh and to me, that error message literally sounds like an HDD error and not a RAM error.

 

[Vakas]

I thought Samsung were good drives?

Are there a lot of Issues with these?

The ony 1TB western Digital drive they have is the, 1Tb Western Digital Green Power SATA2 Hard Drive 32MB

is this any good?

 

[miniyazz]

I'm Feeling Lucky on Google :

BSOD the Solution:

Did you install Service Pack 2? Are you now suffering from the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)?. Here is the solution. I have spent 4 days hunting down the cause of my machine crashing and have finally cracked it. Maybe other people have a different cause than mine so my solution may not work for everyone.

After installing SP2 I suffered many crashes. In particular the Screen would turn blue and display a message starting "Bad_Pool_Header". And ending with STOP: 0X000000019....

Then my four day hunt for the cause started.

BSOD Solution
Basically I found two causes of the BSOD.
Cause 1: Corrupted file or folder.
Cause 2: Microsoft Indexing Service

Possibly these two causes are linked.

Solution for Cause 1
Onen up Explore (right click the start button), and expand your directory tree, starting from the C: drive. Click on each folder in turn and see if any cause the BSOD to appear. If so, reboot, and simply attempt to copy the folder, and then delete it.

Solution for Cause No 2
Switch off Microsoft's indexing service. You can do this by clicking the start button, select "Run", then type "msconfig", then select the "Services" TAB, scroll down to the Indexing Service and Switch it off. Reboot your computer, and good luck - maybe it will work, It solved the problem for me.

At first I thought I must have a third party software or hardware conflicting with SP2, but even after I had disconnected the internet, switched off all items in the startup TAB of msconfig, was still getting the BSOD. I tried surface scans, chkdsk, scan disk etc all to no avail. I tried defragmenting the disk, but the frequent crashes may have made things worse.

I discovered the computer was now crashing after about 7.5 minutes of being switched on. It did not matter whether anyone logged in or not.

Finally I went to msconfig (Start Run, MSCONFIG) and switched off "process System.ini files, Load System files, Load Startup Items. And the comuter stopped crashing. So then I added the item back one by one until I discovered the Microsoft Corporation Indexing Service which was causing the crash. I switched it off and switched everything else back on and AT LAST... No more BSOD

Edit: And, any drive can fail. Samsungs sell better than a lot of other drives, so failures are 'more common' - i.e. people report drive failures on t'internet, but they don't post to say "my drive's working everyone. Woo!". I have three Samsung F1s at the moment and have had them for up to 2.5 years, no problems.

 

[Paddyw01]

I thought Samsung were good drives?

Are there a lot of Issues with these?

The ony 1TB western Digital drive they have is the, 1Tb Western Digital Green Power SATA2 Hard Drive 32MB

is this any good?

Yes there are. People in general won't recognise the issues with Samsung HDD's for reasons I cannot fathom, but I've seen 3 people on this website in the last couple of days who've said they're Samsung have failed just after a year. I suggest you google the problem and find out for yourself.

The 1tb WD green power is very good, but as it says, it's designed to be green so you will lose a little performance. As for reliability, because they run at 5400RPM, they should logically be more reliable, but if I were you and this is just me, ask for a full refund on your Samsung and get yourself a 1tb Caviar Black from OCUK

Just look at it this way. I'm not a WD salesman so it doesn't really matter to me what you go for in the end. I've got three WD HDD's though, and I've had one for around 4 years (main OS drive) and another two 750gb for around a year. They're fantastic! Maxtor make excellent HDD's too.
Also, another point, WD specialise in making hard drives. Samsung don't! They make them, but also make DVD players, Blu-Ray players, plasma and lcd TV's, phones, optical disk drives. And I know from much experience that these products develop faults after 6 months.

I'm Feeling Lucky on Google :


Edit: And, any drive can fail. Samsungs sell better than a lot of other drives, so failures are 'more common' - i.e. people report drive failures on t'internet, but they don't post to say "my drive's working everyone. Woo!". I have three Samsung F1s at the moment and have had them for up to 2.5 years, no problems.

I'm not disputing your solution. It seems very good to be honest

And what you say is true; any drive can fail. But when you have MTBF of 1.2 million hours for the WD compared with 600,000 hours for the Samsung, it makes you wonder. Oh and I kindly ask that you don't say that I'm only just quoting manufacturers' times. The fact of the matter is it is unlawful for any company to state misleading things of a product. MTBF are approximate.

Like plasma and LCD tv's, the fact of the matter is that Samsung sell better than other manufacturers' is because they're a little cheaper. The fact that a lot of the people on this forum recommend Samsung because it's cheaper proves my point. Custom PC recommended the Spinpoint model because it is cheaper and slightly quicker than other Seagate and WD drives. Who cares about it being a millisecond quicker! Hard drives are there for long term use, not a year or two.
Doesn't it make people wonder how Samsung can sell so many HDD's (and all their other products for a start) at lower prices than other manufacturers'? Clearly they've invested less money in research thus their price tag goes down. Proper HDD manufacturers' invest A LOT of money in research. Look at WD's 10,000RPM HDD's.

If you google problems with Samsung or even WD drives and end up on a discussion forum like this one, I'm sure at the end of the thread someone will say "got a replacement" or "problems fixed". So people do report successes as well as failures. This website is a good example.

You say you've had your Samsung's for 'up to 2.5 years'. That really isn't a long time in HDD territory. I've got one WD that I've had for 4 years and a Maxtor for 7. Where I work, they're all WD drives and the computers there are all around 10 years old.

 

[miniyazz]

Just look at it this way. I'm not a WD salesman so it doesn't really matter to me what you go for in the end. I've got three WD HDD's though, and I've had one for around 4 years (main OS drive) and another two 750gb for around a year. They're fantastic! Maxtor make excellent HDD's too.
Also, another point, WD specialise in making hard drives. Samsung don't! They make them, but also make DVD players, Blu-Ray players, plasma and lcd TV's, phones, optical disk drives. And I know from much experience that these products develop faults after 6 months.

I'm not disputing your solution. It seems very good to be honest

And what you say is true; any drive can fail. But when you have MTBF of 1.2 million hours for the WD compared with 600,000 hours for the Samsung, it makes you wonder. Oh and I kindly ask that you don't say that I'm only just quoting manufacturers' times. The fact of the matter is it is unlawful for any company to state misleading things of a product. MTBF are approximate.

Like plasma and LCD tv's, the fact of the matter is that Samsung sell better than other manufacturers' is because they're a little cheaper. The fact that a lot of the people on this forum recommend Samsung because it's cheaper proves my point. Custom PC recommended the Spinpoint model because it is cheaper and slightly quicker than other Seagate and WD drives. Who cares about it being a millisecond quicker! Hard drives are there for long term use, not a year or two.
Doesn't it make people wonder how Samsung can sell so many HDD's (and all their other products for a start) at lower prices than other manufacturers'? Clearly they've invested less money in research thus their price tag goes down. Proper HDD manufacturers' invest A LOT of money in research. Look at WD's 10,000RPM HDD's.

If you google problems with Samsung or even WD drives and end up on a discussion forum like this one, I'm sure at the end of the thread someone will say "got a replacement" or "problems fixed". So people do report successes as well as failures. This website is a good example.

You say you've had your Samsung's for 'up to 2.5 years'. That really isn't a long time in HDD territory. I've got one WD that I've had for 4 years and a Maxtor for 7. Where I work, they're all WD drives and the computers there are all around 10 years old.

First off, old Maxtors are renouned for failing. There are people on this forum who work in repair shops and have been through literally dozens of IDE Maxtors, completely disproportionately to the quantities sold. Great that yours is still running, but I would steer well clear of statements such as 'Maxtor HDDs are excellent'.

And, great, Intel specialises in CPUs so their SSDs must be rubbish. Oh wait..
Oh and not only that, their CPUs must also be rubbish because they make SSDs..

Samsung HDDs are cheaper possibly because they are made in greater quantities, possibly because they tend to come with 3yr warrantees rather than 5yr warrantees (presumably because the MTBF is lower, oh and I never said anything about you just quoting manufacturer times).

As you agreed, HDDs can fail at any time. This means that any critical stuff should be backed up, whether onto a spare disk, DVD, or tape, whatever. Now me, I'm quite happy to replace my failed Samsung HDD every 2 years, if the need arises. It will work out cheaper for me than buying a more expensive HDD that fails every 4 years, because I keep my data backed up.

 

[Paddyw01]

First off, old Maxtors are renouned for failing. There are people on this forum who work in repair shops and have been through literally dozens of IDE Maxtors, completely disproportionately to the quantities sold. Great that yours is still running, but I would steer well clear of statements such as 'Maxtor HDDs are excellent'.

Really? Well I know the owners of a 'repair shop' where I live and they swear by them. In fact, they only stock Maxtor and WD hard drives.

And, great, Intel specialises in CPUs so their SSDs must be rubbish. Oh wait..
Oh and not only that, their CPUs must also be rubbish because they make SSDs..

You're taking my argument to the extreme. Clearly Intel make excellent SSD's and excellent CPU's, but what do Intel specialise in? Processors and chipsets, and what are in SSD's? No moving parts but chips.

My argument suggested that because Samsung do so much for the PC market, TV market, mobile phone market, digital camera market, camcorder market (you get the gist) they don't specialise in hard drives.

Samsung HDDs are cheaper possibly because they are made in greater quantities, possibly because they tend to come with 3yr warrantees rather than 5yr warrantees (presumably because the MTBF is lower, oh and I never said anything about you just quoting manufacturer times).

Yes, that is also probably true that one of the reasons why they're cheaper is because they make them in masses, rather than in niche quantities.
Also, if a manufacturer gives its products 3 year warranties as opposed to 5 like other manufacturers, that suggests they are less confident in how long the product will last. I have a 5 year warranty with my hard drives and with my TV. WD and Pioneer just know what they're doing as opposed to Samsung.

I asked if you didn't say about me just quoting manufacturer times as I find it irritating when people say "oh you're just saying what it says on the back of the tin". It was just a friendly warning

As you agreed, HDDs can fail at any time. This means that any critical stuff should be backed up, whether onto a spare disk, DVD, or tape, whatever. Now me, I'm quite happy to replace my failed Samsung HDD every 2 years, if the need arises. It will work out cheaper for me than buying a more expensive HDD that fails every 4 years, because I keep my data backed up.

I completely agree with you about backing up data. I'm completely confident in my WD drives, but I have my data backup up just in case

I'm actually quite shocked that you're willing to replace your Samsung every 2 years. First of all, what a waste. Secondly, what a hastle (my own opinion) to replace a hard drive, even though it may be backed up.

So according to your calculation, suppose I bought 2 1tb Spinpoint HDD's for a total 134 quid (price as of monday 29th June). Suppose one failed in another 2 years bringing my total expense to around 200 quid in hard drives in 2 years. Now, if I bought 2 1tb Caviar Black HDD's for a total of 145 quid and one failed in 4 years bringing my total to around 220.
The extra 20 quid for an extra 2 years use is no temptation? Seriously?

 

[miniyazz]

Really? Well I know the owners of a 'repair shop' where I live and they swear by them. In fact, they only stock Maxtor and WD hard drives.

Have a read of this thread, I seem to be the only one there who's owned a Maxtor that didn't fail on me. But I heard last month that it died on the person I sold it on to..
Although it seems I was mistaken about referring to the repair shop guy, I was thinking of sja, second post down.

You're taking my argument to the extreme. Clearly Intel make excellent SSD's and excellent CPU's, but what do Intel specialise in? Processors and chipsets, and what are in SSD's? No moving parts but chips.

My argument suggested that because Samsung do so much for the PC market, TV market, mobile phone market, digital camera market, camcorder market (you get the gist) they don't specialise in hard drives.

Yes, that is also probably true that one of the reasons why they're cheaper is because they make them in masses, rather than in niche quantities.
Also, if a manufacturer gives its products 3 year warranties as opposed to 5 like other manufacturers, that suggests they are less confident in how long the product will last. I have a 5 year warranty with my hard drives and with my TV. WD and Pioneer just know what they're doing as opposed to Samsung.

One might suppose, with them making these substantial numbers of hard drives, that they might specialise in hard drives in addition to anything else they may or may not specialise in

I'm actually quite shocked that you're willing to replace your Samsung every 2 years. First of all, what a waste. Secondly, what a hastle (my own opinion) to replace a hard drive, even though it may be backed up.

So according to your calculation, suppose I bought 2 1tb Spinpoint HDD's for a total 134 quid (price as of monday 29th June). Suppose one failed in another 2 years bringing my total expense to around 200 quid in hard drives in 2 years. Now, if I bought 2 1tb Caviar Black HDD's for a total of 145 quid and one failed in 4 years bringing my total to around 220.
The extra 20 quid for an extra 2 years use is no temptation? Seriously?

What can I say? I'm a cheap student

I cannot find the post I am looking for but here's one that references it:

Slackworth here has also said that there are no more Samsung returns than there are for any other manufacturer.

I own over 60 1TB F1's and haven't had one problem so far.

Barring the fact that 60F1s is, quite frankly, a ridiculous number to have, Slackworth is or was of the opinion that manufacturer returns are pretty much the same across the board.
I'll stick with the cheaper F1s thank you

 

[Paddyw01]

Have a read of this thread, I seem to be the only one there who's owned a Maxtor that didn't fail on me. But I heard last month that it died on the person I sold it on to..
Although it seems I was mistaken about referring to the repair shop guy, I was thinking of sja, second post down.

Very interesting thread. I'm going on what my local PC shop say.
It's also interesting to note that some people on that thread say IBM have high failure rates. A little strange considering that IBM were once the world's largest computer component manufacturer.

One might suppose, with them making these substantial numbers of hard drives, that they might specialise in hard drives in addition to anything else they may or may not specialise in

I'd like to see as to whether Samsung have individual dedicated hard drive, plasma/lcd, mobile phone, DVD/blu-ray player, surround sound speaker system, monitor etc research factories. I doubt it very much.
They just roll out cheap goods and make lots of money! Oh my old Samsung TV switches itself on when I walk past it now, and it's only 18 months old. Well done again Samdung!!!

What can I say? I'm a cheap student

I cannot find the post I am looking for but here's one that references it:

Barring the fact that 60F1s is, quite frankly, a ridiculous number to have, Slackworth is or was of the opinion that manufacturer returns are pretty much the same across the board.
I'll stick with the cheaper F1s thank you

I'm also a student, but that doesn't stop me in investing in high quality products. We're talking about an extra 20 quid for crying out loud. Come on!
And also, because you're a "cheap student", presumably you have lots of essays or whatever on your computer. The extra reliability should be more of a temptation in that case. To me anyway.
Speaking of students, my friend is a student and his laptop just got fried by a power surge. A large high street retailer of computers (who shall remain nameless but still obvious) took it in, repaired it, but replaced the HDD with a Samsung. Failed in two weeks!! He's not a happy bunny

I just realised, this is turning into more of a debate than solving a problem. So what happened in the end Vakas?

 

[miniyazz]

Very interesting thread. I'm going on what my local PC shop say.
It's also interesting to note that some people on that thread say IBM have high failure rates. A little strange considering that IBM were once the world's largest computer component manufacturer.

Ever hear of the IBM Deskstar? Now usually referred to as the IBM Deathstar, that many of them died. Also check out this new thread that popped up today.

I'd like to see as to whether Samsung have individual dedicated hard drive, plasma/lcd, mobile phone, DVD/blu-ray player, surround sound speaker system, monitor etc research factories. I doubt it very much.
They just roll out cheap goods and make lots of money! Oh my old Samsung TV switches itself on when I walk past it now, and it's only 18 months old. Well done again Samdung!!!

Hey, people pay money for their TV to turn on when it thinks you want to watch it! You're just hurting its feelings by turning it off straight away again.

I'm also a student, but that doesn't stop me in investing in high quality products. We're talking about an extra 20 quid for crying out loud. Come on!
And also, because you're a "cheap student", presumably you have lots of essays or whatever on your computer. The extra reliability should be more of a temptation in that case. To me anyway.

Backups, always backups. Documents split and synchronised between two computers, also backed up onto RAID5, every night.

Speaking of students, my friend is a student and his laptop just got fried by a power surge. A large high street retailer of computers (who shall remain nameless but still obvious) took it in, repaired it, but replaced the HDD with a Samsung. Failed in two weeks!! He's not a happy bunny

That is when most HDDs fail - the first month of use. After that, they tend to be good for a couple of years at least.

I just realised, this is turning into more of a debate than solving a problem. So what happened in the end Vakas?

 

[Paddyw01]

Ever hear of the IBM Deskstar? Now usually referred to as the IBM Deathstar, that many of them died. Also check out this new thread that popped up today.

Deathstar! What is it with the nicknames.

Yeah I had a look at that thread. It seems that many people don't like Maxtor but all say WD is good and reliable. Although one guy said he had a few Maxtors and they've all been fine. This is quite strange considering I know a few people with really REALLY old 80gb Maxtors and are still running them today

Unfortunately, most people on that thread recommend Samsung

Hey, people pay money for their TV to turn on when it thinks you want to watch it! You're just hurting its feelings by turning it off straight away again.

LOL... I'm only laughing at that because it isn't my main TV anymore. But I mean come on! What a stupid fault!
Imagine the scenario: I'm right in the middle of watching The Dark Knight and suddenly Mr Samdung decides to switch channel on me (it's done that loads also). I switch it back, but it then decides to turn itself off then back on again!!

Backups, always backups. Documents split and synchronised between two computers, also backed up onto RAID5, every night.


That is when most HDDs fail - the first month of use. After that, they tend to be good for a couple of years at least.

So hang on. You're a "cheap student" who sticks with F1's, but somehow can afford a RAID 5 array and two computers?

Perhaps. But a good HDD should not fail at all for atleast 5 years.

 

[miniyazz]

LOL... I'm only laughing at that because it isn't my main TV anymore. But I mean come on! What a stupid fault!
Imagine the scenario: I'm right in the middle of watching The Dark Knight and suddenly Mr Samdung decides to switch channel on me (it's done that loads also). I switch it back, but it then decides to turn itself off then back on again!!

Get a projector. They're made of win

So hang on. You're a "cheap student" who sticks with F1's, but somehow can afford a RAID 5 array and two computers?

Perhaps. But a good HDD should not fail at all for atleast 5 years.

OK, maybe I'm not that cheap a student. But I still save £20 when I see little benefit in getting the more expensive option! Anyway, I have five Seagates and only 3 F1s, I stopped buying F1s as soon as 1.5tb drives were available. And I've still run out of HDD slots..

And quite a large proportion of HDs will die within 5 years. A fair few don't, but many do. It's just whether you get lucky or not.. I wouldn't class having a 5yr old drive fail on you as unlucky; frustrating perhaps, but not unlucky.
That's not to say they're bad HDs because they fail in that time, it's just they have moving parts and aren't expected to last that long. 1.2 million hour MTBF is all very well, but that would presume a lifspan of over 100 years with 24/7 use, and that, quite frankly, is ridiculous

Laptop drives tend to have especially short lives because they get moved much more and bumped while in use, etc. But you already knew that, I dunno why I'm writing it really..

 

[Vakas]

I got my drive checked out and it was fine i think it was more of a device driver issue with one of my devices.

I have had a F1 samsung drive in one of my other systems for a year and its working great and awfully quiet.

My friends are also using them and have had no issues...

I got a Samsung because the computer magazine I have been reading for yeatrs always recommends them and they always come on top,

So they must be good...

 

[Johnnytoxic]

Another victim of Samsung.

Yes go and have the drive checked and try and swap it for a WD Caviar Black.

Oh and to me, that error message literally sounds like an HDD error and not a RAM error.

Agreed, My Samsung F1 has now a SMART fault and I have to RMA it. It's not even a year old.

 

[Paddyw01]

Agreed, My Samsung F1 has now a SMART fault and I have to RMA it. It's not even a year old.

Let me take this opportunity to correct you on one simple point. It's Samdung not Samsung

If I were you, and it depends on how much you care about how reliable your hard drive is, I'd get a 1tb WD Caviar Black for a few quid more than a Samdung. Although many users on this forum will advise you to do the contrary (something I've discovered in many areas of the hardware section), I think you know what to do. Stuff their RMA which will most likely last you a year or so and stuff Samdung!!

 

[AbsenceJam]

Too much stupidity here. Someone quoted me above about owning 60+ [1TB] F1's, well that eventually doubled and none have been problematic. I've owned at elast that number again in other Samsung models and I've had to RMA five but not for failiure, just for bad sectors following nasty crashes which were presumably just marked off. But since Samsung have a the best HDD RMA service if you need it I sent them to be safe.

I've used many times that number of WD drives and the outright failiure rate has been easily above 5% but it wouldn't put me off because I'm not a gibbering retard and I realise that no drive is more likely to fail than another. I can kind of understand why people get so stupid over storage, it usually follows data loss; but since data loss is a result of the stupidity of not backing up then following that with impassioned and subjective rants against the drive manufacturer just further compound the stupidity.

Hard drives fail, get over it.

 

[Paddyw01]

Too much stupidity here. Someone quoted me above about owning 60+ [1TB] F1's, well that eventually doubled and none have been problematic. I've owned at elast that number again in other Samsung models and I've had to RMA five but not for failiure, just for bad sectors following nasty crashes which were presumably just marked off. But since Samsung have a the best HDD RMA service if you need it I sent them to be safe.

I've used many times that number of WD drives and the outright failiure rate has been easily above 5% but it wouldn't put me off because I'm not a gibbering retard and I realise that no drive is more likely to fail than another. I can kind of understand why people get so stupid over storage, it usually follows data loss; but since data loss is a result of the stupidity of not backing up then following that with impassioned and subjective rants against the drive manufacturer just further compound the stupidity.

Hard drives fail, get over it.

Wow 60+ F1's and none have been problematic. Where I work, all the hard drives are Maxtor's (we're talking about 100+) and they've all worked for around 10 years, yet a lot of people on this forum complain that they're useless.

I'm really irritated with people defending Samsung! Rants against the manufacturer? Damn straight! ALL and I emphasise the word ALL of my Samsung products have had and still have problems. Everyone I know personally who have Samsung products have had problems with their products at some stage. So don't go calling me a "gibbering retard" mate! I have every right to be annoyed with Samsung and to strongly discourage other users from using them.

If you've used many more WD drives and their failure rate is 5%, then that means it's in fact lower than Samsung's. 60 F1's and you had to RMA 5 is a higher percentage, but you already knew that right? Oh and a hard drive failure due to bad sectors is still nonetheless a hard drive failure.

"Hard drives fail, get over it" - again, over 100 Maxtor's where I work and none have failed, get over it.

Seriously, I've heard so much negativity about Samsung and had defective Samsung products myself that I'm sick and tired of it. We pay a lot of money for PC components for more research to be carried out in increasing their performance, reliability and longevity. Is this opinion too controversial to hold?

 

[AbsenceJam]

Wow 60+ F1's and none have been problematic. Where I work, all the hard drives are Maxtor's (we're talking about 100+) and they've all worked for around 10 years, yet a lot of people on this forum complain that they're useless.

I'm really irritated with people defending Samsung! Rants against the manufacturer? Damn straight! ALL and I emphasise the word ALL of my Samsung products have had and still have problems. Everyone I know personally who have Samsung products have had problems with their products at some stage. So don't go calling me a "gibbering retard" mate! I have every right to be annoyed with Samsung and to strongly discourage other users from using them.

If you've used many more WD drives and their failure rate is 5%, then that means it's in fact lower than Samsung's. 60 F1's and you had to RMA 5 is a higher percentage, but you already knew that right? Oh and a hard drive failure due to bad sectors is still nonetheless a hard drive failure.

"Hard drives fail, get over it" - again, over 100 Maxtor's where I work and none have failed, get over it.

Seriously, I've heard so much negativity about Samsung and had defective Samsung products myself that I'm sick and tired of it. We pay a lot of money for PC components for more research to be carried out in increasing their performance, reliability and longevity. Is this opinion too controversial to hold?

You didn't read my post I guess. It says I've owned at 240+ Samsung HDD's so if I were to count the five non-failiures (that I only RMA'd because it's easier to pay £3~ P&P and have a new drive in 2-3 days than it is to unmark the sectors that are fine) then the 'failure rate would be <2%.

By going on about Maxtor you don't help yourself either, it just goes to show how invalid these silly rants are. What you're saying about Samsung is worth as much as what everyone say about Maxtor. You even make all sorts of colpletely unsubstantiated negative assumptions with regards to Samsung not solely making HDD's and the opposite with regards to WD. You're just having a silly rant because you had a bad experience, that's fine, post an opinion but don't try to make things up and realise that there's no evidence to support your claims.