Laptop hard drive

kazakore · 14 Mar 2011 at 12:36

Been having serious problems with the hard drive in my laptop. Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB BJKT version (with shock sensor, version for sale through Overclockers is the version without this.) Original one I had in the laptop for around two years and although it seemed to work fine it had a intermittent fault of it would start emitting a random, high pitched beep every so often, which may only occur every couple of months but was really annoying when it did so and I was trying to sleep. Got that drive RMA'd, new drive installed and computer froze a few minutes after powering on at work a couple of weeks later. Forced power off and Windows partition of the drive was destroyed, not even recoverable by running a full format on it and trying to reinstall on the same space, or fdisk or anything to try and mark bad sectors. Second drive RMA'd, new one arrived and installed. Couple of months at most later and spend a chilled day watching some videos off it and video starts stuttering, then BSOD and now the drive clicks on power-up, doesn't seem to spin up to speed and is not seen by BIOS or from Linux Live CD.

Don't think I'm gonna bother RMAing again as I just seem to be having pure trouble with them!

Replacement has to be at least 320GB and 7200RPM. Would consider SSD but they are really above the price bracket I want to spend. I am assuming latest failure is due to overheating so one that is known for running quite cool would be good.

Was thinking to try the Samsung SpinPOiint MP4 but they are currently out of stock. Any other drive you can recommend? Doesn't have to be stocked by Overclockers, although you obviously can not put any links on this forum to it if it is not.

Philtor · 14 Mar 2011 at 13:23

Seagate Momentus is worth a look.

kazakore · 14 Mar 2011 at 15:24

Yeah did have a quick look at the Seagate.

As far as I know Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung are generally considered roughly on par with each other, and up at the top of HDDs these days. Think I must have just had back luck with the batch my last couple have come from but it's still put me off WD, although their customer service has actually been pretty good, two drives barely lasting a month really is not!!

Only one review on Overclockers for the Samsung so just looked on NewEgg (American company so hope it's OK to name them, OK for checking customer reviews but obviously I doubt people here would buy from them) and it seems a lot of people have had a fair few problems with the Samsung SpinPoint MP4. Staring to put me off...

Seems the Seagate gets about as much bad press too.

Everything in electronics has a Yield of production, QC is done in batches mainly to measure this, and there are always particularly bad batches that do get through...

Going by the above mentioned site seems to WD drive, although the version without the protective shock sensor (they don't stock the one with, which I have, but neither does Overclockers) gets the best reviews out of the lot...

kazakore · 14 Mar 2011 at 19:17

Unfortunately they don't do them through here but I think I'm going to go with a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500. Plus I will also get a 2.5" IcyBox enclosure and RMA the old WD and keep the replacement as a bus-powered external drive.