IBM Deskstars suck

[Durzel]

Not sure if the thread title is libellious so I will elaborate by saying that "IBM are a bunch of useless shits".

My 4th Deskstar 75GXP DTLA 30Gb drive has now failed on me, with the oh-so-familar clicking and eventual death. The ironic thing is, the 2 drives that have failed now were replacements for the ones that failed originally. "Serviceable Used Parts" indeed.

For a while I thought it might be my computer causing the problems, but I've had a Maxtor in there since I bought it, and its merrily spinning away (touch wood).

As of this moment I've actually got a more reputable hard drive on order. I'm tempted not to even bother RMA'ing them for a 2nd time, instead running them over in my car. Several times.

Not holding out much hope for them fixing themselves once I low-level format them.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[mank!]

You'd probably be better off posting in the Hardware forums.

And yes, I do know fuck all about PC's/hardware

 

[Durzel]

Soz, feel free to move it (if someone can)

 

[mank!]

No one will bother moving it, and it'll probably get answered in here anyway. I'm just a tidy freak.

 

[adams901]

My IBM 2 deskstars work ok

 

[S-Gray]

Some people seem to call em "Deathstars"..... interesting name yet true

 

[PR.]

All my HDDs are Seagate all 10 of them even the 7year old 1gb one and the 10year old(?) 340mb one

I've never had a HD failure (molest wood).

 

[Embattle]

When the GXP 60 arrived it seemed quite a few of them started dieing and this continued to the 75 series. IBM never made an official statement but instead would just replace the drives when they went up shit creek, although this doesn't help if you've lost data.

The other thing that surprised many, and semi confirmed what many were saying, was the change in specs. It seemed to suddenly claim a maximum of 333 power-on hours per month in the specs section, although IBM denied this would affect warranties.

Now IBM has merged its Hard Drive business with Hitachi, it would seem more of a Hitachi will run it under the name "Hitachi Global Storage Technologies".

To me it seems that IBM have gracefully left the building after a good start but then tripping up halfway down the track.

You're not alone as an example Steve of HardOCP:

When it rains it pours....not only have I had a blast this past two weeks with having ever wire in our vicinity dug up ( severing my cable modems internet access ), I just had two IBM 75gb hard drives go out on me...and no way to recover the data... damn. Sometimes it doesn't pay to even get out of bed ...ironically, I am currently holding a contest that is giving away 7 IBM 30gb hard drives, how bad is that sucking??

Kyle of HardOCP:

Bad Drive. Bad Bad Drive:
On a slightly humorous note, I finally had my last remaining IBM Deskstar bite the dust this week. I did get it to boot up one last time to get some needed information off of it. The Click of Death accompanied by the Whir of Annoyance came to visit my 60GB drive last week. Quite honestly, I had forgotten I even owned another IBM Hard Drive as I thought I had cleaned house of them last year. Out of the six I purchased, every one has now failed.

It was replaced with a 100GB Western Digital 8MB drive.

A bit more info http://www.sudhian.com/docs.cfm/id/97.sud

 

[mank!]

I've got a Seagate barracuda, never had a problem with it :-----------------)

 

[bodhi]

Strangely, after a low-level format my 75GXP is still spinning merrily away after having survived the click of death.

 

[Embattle]

It is always important to do a low level format first, even if it does take fooking ages. One of my Maxtor drives went a little strange and a low level format did the job of fixing it.

 

[Dr_Weasel]

Ive had 2 deathstars die.... i keep buying em though... dunno why. I think I may be stupid.

 

[adams901]

yeah either that or your just stupid.

 

[shadow`]

I've had a 120XP for a few months now that seems to be doing the job alright atm, although occasionally it 'beeps' or does something to cause a sound.

Not sure what that's all about.

 

[adams901]

mine does as well, it sounds like something is turning over then you get a beep that sounds like a bios beep.

I might have to ask at work tomorrow what that is all about.

 

[shadow`]

Aye, that's it.

Concerning at first :/

 

[adams901]

I think it might be when the drive isnt being used it goes into standbye (I may be wrong though)

 

[Durzel]

Originally posted by shadow`
I've had a 120XP for a few months now that seems to be doing the job alright atm, although occasionally it 'beeps' or does something to cause a sound.

Not sure what that's all about.

Originally posted by adams901
mine does as well, it sounds like something is turning over then you get a beep that sounds like a bios beep.

I might have to ask at work tomorrow what that is all about.

The beginning of the end to be honest.

Mine started beeping (the BIOS sounding beep, followed by what sounds like a recalibration) a few months ago (3 or so). I ignored it at first because it did it very infrequently, I figured it was just a characteristic of the drive - recalibrating or something.

A month or so later it started beeping more regularly.

Present day - when I boot my machine it beeps about 50 times, clicks and scratches (the dreaded "krrr-krrr-krrr-krrr...... krrr-krrr-krrr-krrr...").

Every time I have booted it since it has found more bad sectors, which culminated last night in it finally finding bad sectors on my Windows partition, in all the wrong places, and rendering my XP installation barely useable (most apps GPF instantly, others don't appear to load at all, "My Computer" wouldn't load for me last night, etc)

In short, I would prepare for the worst. I knew it was coming from bitter experience. I still didn't bother backing up anything, purely because a) I have little on my machine of personal value, and b) Im a lazy shit.

PS Embattle: Cool link, thanks

 

[Durzel]

I cannot stress this enough - adams901/ shadow` - start backing up anything you can't afford to lose. Your drives are exhibiting EXACTLY the same symptoms as mine, and mine are now both completely fubar.

 

[adams901]

mine only does it when I go to bed (thats why i think its going to standbye).

But to be honest I have taken it apart and put it back together 3 times so maybe I did something to it lol.

 

[shadow`]

Oh, christ :/


I best get a CDR soon then, thats kinna pissed me off cause it isn't actually that old and cost like £80. I always assumed that it was just part of the drives natural function, but I've heard loads of stories about them dying etc quite alot, I just hoped this wouldn't be one of them.

Cheers for the information anyways.

 

[Durzel]

Originally posted by adams901
mine only does it when I go to bed (thats why i think its going to standbye).

Thats perfectly normal.

 

[S-Gray]

Originally posted by adams901
mine does as well, it sounds like something is turning over then you get a beep that sounds like a bios beep.

I might have to ask at work tomorrow what that is all about.

ARGH! My drive does that! Mine is a "40gb IBM Deskstar IC35L040AVVA07-0" .... and usually during the night at around 1am/2am it makes a loud but short beep like... "beeep beep beep".... and thats it...

This IBM thread has got me thinking.... altho i havent had any serious problems at all with my drive (ive had for it for about 3months)

 

[smurkin]

Yep...IBM deskstars suxxor

I had two 40 gig gxp 75 s (I think) in RAID striping....after 6 months...clicking...really hot drive...failed stripe....lost alot of data

so back to the shop <whine> guy int he queue behind me has the same drive and whinges Xcessively..got 2 new 40 gig 120 GXPs in return.

Now 4 months on ... I'm getting intermitant stripe fails on bootup & I know one of them is gonna blow...

so I'm backing up now with Norton Ghost to save my operating system and data (Ghost is cool .. I can't recommend it enuff)

these drive run shit hot (temperature) and I believe thats why they fail. I even added more cooling in the case...I guess it wasn't enough.

moral of this story ??

with ata100 I was getting 38000 kbps in raid striping...which is, I believe quite good. But it dont mean squat if the drives fail.

 

[Embattle]

First off is the fact that using RAID 0 without backup is stupid, no matter what drives you have....at least you're using something now.

Using RAID 0 and two IBM drives is suicidal....just say no kids

 

[smurkin]

true true...learnt my lesson...

 

[lynchet]

hmm sounds like my mystery beeping may be solved !

Seems to happen at similar time each day -- or if I turn pC on later than usual it happens later -- ie seems to happen after PC on for x amount of time.


Ive also had mine for few months and doesnt seem to be getting worse (or better) -- spose Ill have to keep an eye on it.

 

[Nos-]

I thought the GXP 60 came out after the 75???

 

[Durzel]

Getting technical, this is what happens..

You hear a mechanical (not normal) noise come from the drive, might be a mild grinding noise, anything which sounds "not normal". Then you get a beep which sounds like a BIOS beep.

The reason is the drive failing to read a sector, and resetting the head. It is without a shadow of a doubt a prelude to the eventual click of death. When that happens, and it could be weeks or months, you'll be in the same situation as I am today.

Only a bit more prepared.

 

[lynchet]

But why would that happen once a day regular as clockwork ?