Another Maxtor HD bites the dust...

LimeiBook86 · Sep 18, 2004

I have a 200gb Maxtor Hard Drive, formatted to 132gb on my Dad's Power Mac G4. Today he turned it on and the hard drive started to click, he has 2 hard drives in the machine so I thought it was the Maxtor drive because I've had problems with the brand before unfortunetly. So I unplugged the Maxtor drive and the clicking stopped. Unfortunetly this was my backup drive, so now it's gone with all my data...

Any ideas?

I know places can fix them, anyone know any standard prices?
Thanks a lot, hope my data is safe...

crazzyeddie · Sep 18, 2004

Just started clicking? You mean where it spins up, clicks, and spins down... then does it all over? If so, then it is probably the drive...

If you NEED to data on the drive, then DriveSavers can probably rescue the data, but if youre just talking about saving the drive, send it back under warranty. Its not worth trying to repair a broken drive, and in most cases isn't possible.

LimeiBook86 · Sep 18, 2004

crazzyeddie said:
Just started clicking? You mean where it spins up, clicks, and spins down... then does it all over? If so, then it is probably the drive...

If you NEED to data on the drive, then DriveSavers can probably rescue the data, but if youre just talking about saving the drive, send it back under warranty. Its not worth trying to repair a broken drive, and in most cases isn't possible.

Well as far as I can tell the drive didn't spin up. And I didn't wait for it to. As soon as the computer starts up you here a clicking, there is no pause, or no stopping or anything. All you hear is the clicking. I turned the Mac off and took out the drive right away.

I sort of need the data but don't have a lot of money to spend, at least I will complain to the company, but they will probably give me some BS on how its out of warenty etc...

Thanks anyway

Damn Maxtor...

Duff-Man · Sep 18, 2004

LimeiBook86 said:
WI sort of need the data but don't have a lot of money to spend, at least I will complain to the company, but they will probably give me some BS on how its out of warenty etc...

Thanks anyway

Damn Maxtor...

Duff-Man says...even if it was in warranty still, that does not cover any data you may have on the drive. All they would do is replace the drive with another one. All drive manufacturers have failures - I have had 3 seagates tank on computers at work lately....maxtor is really not any better or worse than most.....oh yeah!

Macmaniac · Sep 18, 2004

I hope you have him back up often, I have seen far too many people lose their data because of bad HDs, programs etc.... and then they say to me can you save my data? And I'm like I'm sorry your data cannot be recovered, did you back up? Um no I never back up..........

Macky-Mac · Sep 18, 2004

Macmaniac said:
I hope you have him back up often, I have seen far too many people lose their data because of bad HDs, programs etc.... and then they say to me can you save my data? And I'm like I'm sorry your data cannot be recovered, did you back up? Um no I never back up..........

well, he DID say it's his back-up drive....so that should mean he has all of the original files somewhere else and will be able to reassemble the data

Macmaniac · Sep 18, 2004

Macky-Mac said:
well, he DID say it's his back-up drive....so that should mean he has all of the original files somewhere else and will be able to reassemble the data

Well I am glad that he was keeping a back up, except IMHO I think CDs serve as a better back up tool since they are less mechanically inclined to fail.

Apple Hobo · Sep 18, 2004

LimeiBook86I said:
I know places can fix them, anyone know any standard prices? Thanks a lot, hope my data is safe...

Don't expect to pay much less than $1,000 to have your data recovered by a professional service. Your data could probably could be saved, but it will cost you some serious cash. For example, I had a screwed drive and Drive Savers quoted (IIRC) $2,000-$8,000 to recover the data. Note: $8,000 would've been their 24hr. emergency service.

However, there are some utilities to try before you give up. Both have free trial download versions.

VirtualLab

Data Rescue X

If your drive is really hosed bad, then the above apps probably wont work.

slughead · Sep 18, 2004

Arg...

I know what it's like.. you get your fancy over-sized hard drive, maybe for christmas from the 'rents, or whatever.. you see it's a Maxtor but you think "well MAYBE the rumors are false, maybe they are reliable" and you pop it in your computer.

A year later you'd forgotten all about it, then all of a sudden, one day you hear the click.. sounds kind of like that ball in the spray paint can, but with the rhythm of a dropped coin.

The blood drains from your face and your mind effortlessly and instantaneously pinpoints the exact moment a year ago when you made the mistake--when you plugged that last cable into the drive and closed your computer case.

Tough break man, it's happened to us all.

LimeiBook86 · Sep 18, 2004

slughead said:
Arg...

I know what it's like.. you get your fancy over-sized hard drive, maybe for christmas from the 'rents, or whatever.. you see it's a Maxtor but you think "well MAYBE the rumors are false, maybe they are reliable" and you pop it in your computer.

A year later you'd forgotten all about it, then all of a sudden, one day you hear the click.. sounds kind of like that ball in the spray paint can, but with the rhythm of a dropped coin.

The blood drains from your face and your mind effortlessly and instantaneously pinpoints the exact moment a year ago when you made the mistake--when you plugged that last cable into the drive and closed your computer case.

Tough break man, it's happened to us all.

Exactly, see this drive was big, so I put everything on this drive and deleted it from their original location.

This drive had home movies from 1986, software backups, music, movie backups, older computer backups, and well everything else.

I guess there is no way I can recover the data. I can try and startup with the drive if I buy an external firewire case. I have an 80gb Western Digital Hard Drive I can back some stuff up to it.

Wow - I really wish I would have backed up my back up drive...

Everyone who is reading it - make sure your data is backed up. This is one of the worst things that can happen to your computer, and usually there is no way back unless you have a lot of cash.

Les Kern · Sep 18, 2004

Apple Hobo said:
Don't expect to pay much less than $1,000 to have your data recovered by a professional service. Your data could probably could be saved, but it will cost you some serious cash.

You got that right. I had 2 drives go south. DriveSavers saved one at a cost of 2K. The other drive? DriveSavers told me "once it clicks, and you keep trying to start it, that it's ALWAYS hosed, and they can't recover. When the armature strikes the disks, well, it mangles the surface. Yours is clicking. Toss it and get a new one.

Rod Rod · Sep 18, 2004

I've been burning a lot of DVDs in the past couple of months. Stuff saved on a HD isn't really archived. It's like money hanging on a clothesline. You have quick access to it and it's out there flailing in the wind. Stuff saved on optical discs is like money in the bank. Hard drives are for temporary storage.

I've had no problems with my Maxtors.

stoid · Sep 18, 2004

Rod Rod said:
I've been burning a lot of DVDs in the past couple of months. Stuff saved on a HD isn't really archived. It's like money hanging on a clothesline. You have quick access to it and it's out there flailing in the wind. Stuff saved on optical discs is like money in the bank. Hard drives are for temporary storage.

I've had no problems with my Maxtors.

That's not entirely true. Recent studies show that optical media isn't nearly as age proof as they thought. CDs and DVDs can loose their data in only 15-20 years, if exposed to bright light, mild heat, humidity, and tension of going into and out of a jewel case. If you care for them, they'll last longer, but optical media is not made to the same high standards as it was when they were first being produced.

PeterBonnar · Sep 19, 2004

Im never buying Maxtor again!

A friedn Bought a 8 gig for his PC, 6 months later the Hard drive head fell off. He was in the middle of playing doom 2 and we heard this incredable noise from the pc. When maxtor got the drive they blamed him for playing games!

Bought a 12 gig for my G3 tower. One year later started clicking, sent back to maxtor and they denied there was a fault. "It's probably a Mac thing" Computer exchange tested it and gave it a test and said it was crap they sent it back to maxtor maxtor replaced it....

Got replacment 12 gig.... Same thing happened but with in 48 hours...

Many years later in fact about 6 months a go. I need a back up drive, they didn't have the Lacie in stock and gave me a maxtor. After the fourth back up, i deleted everything on my iMac and tried to recover fromt eh Maxtor to find.... yup it was dead. After using norton and disk warriot i got half my back up back. The drive had only be used 4 times! Went back to maxtor and they said it was software... Computer exchange checked it and they said they drive is getting to hot and then messing up.

Maybe i've had a few bad experiences and the rest of maxtors products are safe..... yer and monkies might fly out of my butt.

TMA · Sep 19, 2004

stoid said:
CDs and DVDs can loose their data in only 15-20 years

If you're lucky!

Many of the CD's in my collection purchased between 5 - 10 years ago have started to rot from the outside rim inwards. They've been kept in their cases and dry. And we're talking about pressed (or whatever the manufacturing process is) CD's, CDR/DVDR medua can die alot more quickly. I had a batch of CDR's that bubbled over time, within months of being opened. I've also had CDR's that get scratched by the tinyiest particles of dirt or dust.

They really are a very unreliable method of storage. Always get decent branded ones and they will last a few years longer (I estimate i'll get about 5 years out of most of mine)

wrldwzrd89 · Sep 19, 2004

PeterBonnar said:
Im never buying Maxtor again!

A friedn Bought a 8 gig for his PC, 6 months later the Hard drive head fell off. He was in the middle of playing doom 2 and we heard this incredable noise from the pc. When maxtor got the drive they blamed him for playing games!

Bought a 12 gig for my G3 tower. One year later started clicking, sent back to maxtor and they denied there was a fault. "It's probably a Mac thing" Computer exchange tested it and gave it a test and said it was crap they sent it back to maxtor maxtor replaced it....

Got replacment 12 gig.... Same thing happened but with in 48 hours...

Many years later in fact about 6 months a go. I need a back up drive, they didn't have the Lacie in stock and gave me a maxtor. After the fourth back up, i deleted everything on my iMac and tried to recover fromt eh Maxtor to find.... yup it was dead. After using norton and disk warriot i got half my back up back. The drive had only be used 4 times! Went back to maxtor and they said it was software... Computer exchange checked it and they said they drive is getting to hot and then messing up.

Maybe i've had a few bad experiences and the rest of maxtors products are safe..... yer and monkies might fly out of my butt.

That's why I use LaCie drives - haven't had a serious issue with one yet. (Maybe I'm just lucky, or it's because I retire them if the hard drive in my new Mac exceeds the size of the LaCie external I'm currently using.)

BornAgainMac · Sep 19, 2004

I started making HD backups a couple of years ago. I had placed my backup Firewire drives on a top shelf in a closet. I was going to get them and the drives slipped from my hand and fell to a hard wood floor. All of them had the clicking sound or worse. It doesn't really matter what brand you buy, mistakes can happen.

I now take the time to backup to DVD in addition to backing up to firewire drives and I keep my firewire drives in a low shelf with insulation so they don't vibrate when someone walks buy. Some data that never changes is perfect for DVD backup.

Luckly 250 GB drives are around $150 so it doesn't have to be so darn expensive. DVD backups are expensive in the fact they take up your time.

PeterBonnar · Sep 19, 2004

wrldwzrd89 said:
That's why I use LaCie drives - haven't had a serious issue with one yet. (Maybe I'm just lucky, or it's because I retire them if the hard drive in my new Mac exceeds the size of the LaCie external I'm currently using.)

None of these Maxtors survived long enough to be retired!
The IT company we use at work insist we use lacie drives. They said if we use anything else we're asking for trouble.

fluidinclusion · Sep 19, 2004

My friend's PM 867 G4 Maxtor drive just died <3 years old

LimeiBook86 said:
I have a 200gb Maxtor Hard Drive, formatted to 132gb on my Dad's Power Mac G4. Today he turned it on and the hard drive started to click, he has 2 hard drives in the machine so I thought it was the Maxtor drive because I've had problems with the brand before unfortunetly. So I unplugged the Maxtor drive and the clicking stopped. Unfortunetly this was my backup drive, so now it's gone with all my data...

Any ideas?

I know places can fix them, anyone know any standard prices?
Thanks a lot, hope my data is safe...

Maxtor isn't that good. My friend just lost a Maxtor 60 GB drive (OEM from apple in a 867 G4). Diskwarrior was able to get it to the point where we could get data using target disk mode, but even after reformat/repartition, we couldn't even to a clean install/boot. Drive is useless after <3 years. That's way way to early for any drive. Especially since my friend just lightly uses his computer at home and doesn't have it running all the time.

Mechcozmo · Sep 19, 2004

Well, I seem to be the only person who has had good luck with Maxtors...My dad's 867 Quicksilver has two of them (60GB and 80GB).

Just to let you know, hard drives are commonly the least reliable backup method, for the reason you just described. They are rather complicated and can fail. Tape backups are generally ok, but the tape dies after ~10 years. The best backups are flash memory, like the USB kind...but those don't go much bigger than 1GB nowadays...

Sorry, because that really sucks.

hcuar · Sep 19, 2004

stoid said:
That's not entirely true. Recent studies show that optical media isn't nearly as age proof as they thought. CDs and DVDs can loose their data in only 15-20 years, if exposed to bright light, mild heat, humidity, and tension of going into and out of a jewel case. If you care for them, they'll last longer, but optical media is not made to the same high standards as it was when they were first being produced.

That's not totally true! If you go buy the discs at Best Buy, Compusa, etc they will not survive for more than 5 to 10 years (many start to degrade after 1 year). However, there is something called archival grade. They should last for 100 years or more. Here's a link:

http://www.mitsuicdr.com/products/Gold/archive.html

Apple Hobo · Sep 19, 2004

I've had 2 Western Digital HDs take a dump on me. The first one worked fine for several weeks, then it started clicking and making grinding noises. I sent the HD back to the online store where I bought it; I had to pay for shipping and wait for 2 weeks without use of my computer.

The 2nd drive seemed louder and started having problems within weeks. I'd had enough of this BS, so I bought a Seagate Barracuda at my local CompUSA. I love my Seagate...it's unbelievably quiet.

I thought I was getting a bargain when I found the Western Digital drive I wanted at a cheap price. The online retailer shipped an OEM WD HD in a plain brown box with just a little packaging protection.

I've also had a LaCie external FW pocket drive die on me. The actual drive inside the FW enclosure was a Fujitsu. Piece of crap!

dvdh · Sep 19, 2004

From what I have heard, the only thing that is going to last half decent amount of time is magneto optical disks, but they don't come in huge sizes or at a decent cost.

Other than that, the best option where available is analog backup. . . good old paper and film. Not really a practical option for lots of stuff, but I do use it for images and documents.

(edited for spelling error)

makisushi · Sep 19, 2004

I always thought that Maxtor produced high quality stuff...I just ordered a 250GB drive from NewEgg and now I am wondering if I should cancel that order...

slughead · Sep 19, 2004

dvdh said:
From what I have heard, the only thing that is going to last half decent amount of time is magneto optical disks, but they don't come in huge sizes or at a decent cost.

Other than that, the best option where available is analog backup. . . good old paper and film. Not really a practical option for lots of stuff, but I do use it for images and documents.

(edited for spelling error)

Actually there's a neat program where you can use a DV camera to store data onto those little tapes (which hold 10-15GB each).

I heard that it can wear out your camera if you do it though.. I'll have to look into that.

Another Maxtor HD bites the dust...

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