The curse of Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10

Sijo45

Sijo45

Sijo45

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Joined
24 Apr 2006
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High Wycombe
I have a Diamondmax Plus 10 300GB ROHS hdd (model 6L00SO), or rather so far I have had 9 of the blighters. ALl of them have made a loud click on power down, which with the help of technical support we have traced as being the drive head. Basically, 3 of them have failed, as the noise is caused by damage in transit causing the heads to not track properly and all the others have made the same noise on powerdown. Has anyone else experienced this? I am certain the noise on powerdown is not normal, and my other drive certainly doesn't make it. Anyone know if I can get a refund out of Maxtor? I am sick to death of this problem. I stuck with one drive that made the clicking noise and lost 150GB of data! The problem doesn't seem to be limited to factory refurbs either, as the latest one makes the same noise and they sent me a new one.
 
If you are using a Nforce mobo, try turning off NCQ (Its in the SATA controller properties in device manager). Some earlier firmware Maxtors had issues of this sort on Nforce mobos, dunno about the current batch- Mine are fine.
Ironically, the only two other new non-Maxtor drives I got were both DOA (Seagate), so I suspect its pot luck.

-Leezer-
 
Thanks for the feedback. Im using an Nforce3 chipset which doesn't support NCQ, but was previously using Via KT880 chipset with the same problem. I think you're right about pot luck, but 9 drives? That's ridiculous!
 
Ouch. Didn't see the nine figure :eek:
Sorry to say this, but I don't think this is Maxtors fault. Much more likely to be one of the intermediate links in the chain bashing the drives around. Write to the delivery company (If its RoyalMail try having a chat with the post office, they may be able to help) and generally have a complain.

Not much you can do if this is the case though.

-Leezer-
 
Hmmm, you do know that most drives make some sort of clicking noise when turning off, when the heads are "parked", don't you?

In fact, unless the drive is obviously misbehaving in other ways/losing data/not seeking while on etc etc, I would not worry too much about a click when switching the drive off... Most of my drives make an audible click when they're turned off, though some are more noticable than others (I've got a Maxtor DiamondMax +9, 2 Raptors and a Seagate Barracuda.) However, as I say, unexpected seeking/clicking or other misbehaviour while on can of course be indicative of a dodgy drive.
 
Yeah, I thought it could be a 'normal' noise, but the original drive I had didn't make the noise on powering down - ironically, the first one I had came sealed as new, but had somebody elses data on it!! It was the replacement that died on me, and when it was seeking and couldn't read the disk, it made the same click as when powering down. I think it is definitely a problem in transit, as they are being sent from Holland, Ireland and as far away as Hungary, and they could easily be being damaged in transit. I think I may stick with this new one for a while and see what happens (making sure I back up all my data of course)...
 
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