When did Seagate start to suck?

Seriously... I have bought five new Seagate drives over the last 12 months, about three hours ago the last of those drives died. This one lasted the shortest amount of time at just under a month.

I have two Seagates in another system that have been functioning flawlessly for a about five or six years now. This recent run has completely shattered the faith they built up in me over the years before that.

Anyhow, I lost about 60GB of music (waiting for DVD-Rs in the mail, they'll prolly arrive tomorrow) and yeah. Seagate has finally lost my business after nearly a decade of unwavering loyalty.

Bleh, and I just took my pissyness out on some newbie discussing the a new Windows shell.

But I digress, does anyone know if Seagate made some sort of corporate change that has lead to such poor QA or if I have just been on a remarkable unlucky streak. (most of the drives had been in different systems in different locations so it isn't like there are other factors involved).

cheers,

catch

Well, I just got a seagate about 2 monthes ago. 120gb ata 100 8mb cache, it's been working just fine. Normally I would think a bad shipment in your area, but this has happened over the past 12 monthes?? Is there any symptoms that the drives have before they die? Or they just die unexpectedly? I hope I don't experience the same tragedy you are! :eek:

That is the same drive as mine that died today.

Actually it isn't really dead... it just accesses VERY slowly, so slowly that typically any applications relying on the data will crash. (and it wiped out about half the data on the drive)

Three of the drives gave no warning at all, the other two gave about an hour of warning.

cheers,

catch

I have certainly seen more drive failures of late, but not any particular make. The 7200rpm drives don't seem as reliable as the older 5400 rpm ones. I guess the older ones were much more expensive and had a three year warranty, as opposed to the current 12 months.

I did read somewhere that current drives have an MTTF of about 30 months as opposed to 60 months for the older ones.

Have you tried running the Seagate diagnostics tool against it?

:)

Quote:

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Have you tried running the Seagate diagnostics tool against it?

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Yeah, it keeps locking up and eventually crashing. I can't use on of the desktop utils because any system the drive is in lags and then crashes.

cheers,

catch

Hi catch,

Have you tried this tool?

http://www.roadkil.net/unstopcp.html

It may let you recover stuff that appears to be lost. It does work on damaged drives, and I think that it just copies stuff so it isn't using any apps on the drive.

Who knows, you may get lucky. I have had reasonable results with it in the past :)

No, I was not familiar with that tool.

I think I'll check it out with some other stuff... this drive is just music and I think I might end up with a lot of song skipping or other issues. I'll just rip all the CDs again when I get a new drive.

Thanks though... looks like a good tool.

cheers,

catch

How hot have these drives been getting?

i try to run mine below 35deg Celcius especially if they are running 24/7.. the 7200rpm drive get bloody hot if there is no airflow around them.. this leads to various failures.. motor, controller, bearings (well thats what it sounds like)..
I currently use Everest pro to check my systems.. my rule of thumb is .. Touch the drive with your thumb.. if it is a comfortable temp it is OK ..if you need to remove your thumb quickly it is too hot, if you see the manufacturers logo on your thumb.. it is way too hot, If you smell bar-b-que.. your HDD is about ****ed..ahh done cooked i mean..

As for Seagate.. I have been sideing with WD in the past 12 months.. Seagate was second choice.. Cooling of the HDD is now my no-1 priority when setting up systems after the CPU that is..

undertaker, I have seen these "hard drive coolers" at tiger direct, maybe newegg has them... If you have heard of them what are your thoughts on them? Good? Bad? What would you recomend to cool a HDD in my case that doesn't have any spots for front intake fans??

hi
i have wd and seagate hard disk curently in my pc.both work nicely.both are ate disks 7200 80 g each.
no problem so far withthem.
well the very first pc i built was with seagate 7200 60g hard disk.I was very very new and newby with pc then and of course didnt know much about any parts at all.
unexpectadly my hard disk died after 6 months and to say i was not prepared for it is understatment.
Never heard about backup before or importance of it.even though was just personal no work related pc it still hurts with all music and games and photos gone.
was suprised when seagate support site told me that disk had 3 years varanty and that fact helped me recovering from disaster.(never even dream of it because i bought my parts on swap market)
with your case it look like that you are more concern about losing data then acctually losing disks (financially)
Somotimes is really stupid to back up data like in your case back up 60 g of music.(but then its hard to see them lost)
i learn from my experience that its not question if hard disk will crash its matter of time.so i always try to stay ahead of potential disaster one step ahead.backing up and running diagnostic hard drive tools to see if everything is ok with hard drive.Of course as undertaker mentioned i had invested in termaltake case with 7 fans and i feel little bit better:) and more confident about heat component.
as nihil sugested try seagate tool:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
i still have xp on my seagate drive not on wd but then you never know.Its matter of time.........
Good luck with hopefuly recovering yor data