Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB HD FAILING :-(

S

scottuf

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2009
364
21
NPB, FL
I've had my 15" 2.4 uni for just about a month now, and put the 7200.4 into it new when it arrived. Today it started locking up, spinning beach ball and all, so I ran the extended hardware test and got this error:

4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(0,0)

UGH - so I go into Disk Utility, and it says SMART Verify. But friendly Google says that error means the drive is failing, so I download Smart Utility from Apple downloads, and sure enough, it also says "Failing". I've got 6 bad sectors, and 224 total errors, mostly Uncorrectable Error - READ DMA EXT.

Now I've got to make sure my backup is good. So annoyed.
 
scottuf said:
I've had my 15" 2.4 uni for just about a month now, and put the 7200.4 into it new when it arrived. Today it started locking up, spinning beach ball and all, so I ran the extended hardware test and got this error:

4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(0,0)

UGH - so I go into Disk Utility, and it says SMART Verify. But friendly Google says that error means the drive is failing, so I download Smart Utility from Apple downloads, and sure enough, it also says "Failing". I've got 6 bad sectors, and 224 total errors, mostly Uncorrectable Error - READ DMA EXT.

Now I've got to make sure my backup is good. So annoyed.
Click to expand...

I just downloaded Smart Utility to check my Seagate 7200.4 now. So far it shows 0 problems. How often can we run Smart Utility without it affecting or causing problems to our hard-drive? Can we run it daily?
 
amitdoc2b said:
I just downloaded Smart Utility to check my Seagate 7200.4 now. So far it shows 0 problems. How often can we run Smart Utility without it affecting or causing problems to our hard-drive? Can we run it daily?
Click to expand...

I abhor Segate drives; i had 6 of them fail sequentially a few years back on a project on a mac pro G5 (sATA) and ever since have sworn off seagate forever... lost important data even though i had redundant drives because of problem the mac had with that drive.

I always make a point of not using seagate now; not scientific or may not help op but that's been my experience. I have never had a drive from WD, Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu or Maxtor fail....
 
think the problem is that the Seagates (I know Western Digitals have them) the new Seagate has its OWN built in motion sensor that conflicts with Apple's.

The key is to disable the Seagate's motion sensor You want Motion sensor on your computer, you just don't want the hard drive manufacterer's version of it which I believe conflicts with Apple's.

Betcha this is why the new Seagates' have been pulled. They are locking up people's computers. Glad I waited.

This is an old conspiracy theory about Toshibas, which are usually pretty good hard drives, but there were a batch that were in the 12" powerbook a few years ago that had come from the factory with their labels covering their own "breather holes" on the drives -- and they failed at an alarming rate. Trick was to punch a hold in the label yourself where the breather holes were.
 
Another good idea is to install SMARTReporter, it sits in the menu bar and you can set it to check your HDD(s) at a regular interval and if the SMART status changes to something bad, it will change the icon in the menu bar, pop up and alert and optionally e-mail you or run a script. Very useful.
 
To be very blunt, Seagate has been on my "Do Not Buy Under Any Circumstances" list for a couple years.

Every single Seagate drive I bought since 2002 (about six) died prematurely.

The Seagate drive that was included in my first Mac Pro was a piece of junk (slow, paused constantly, supposedly some firmware bug that later got "fixed") and I wound up replacing that with a WD Raptor within the first week (that one's still working fine now).

The 200-something gig Seagate drive that was in a mid-2007 iMac I got slightly-used was running at 50 degrees C, seemed sluggish and showed "FAILING" in Smart Utility. After replacing that with a 1TB Western Digital drive, the machine ran way better, and the internal temperatures dropped dramatically (10-12C).

I've had good luck with WD and Hitachi. I think the Hitachi 7200rpm 320-gig laptop drives perform slightly better than the WD's of the same size/speed, but it's an incremental difference and I haven't seen any of either fail here.
 
alphaod said:
So how does that help the OP?
Click to expand...

my thought exactly. that topic is about the drive shipping, not failing, btw. how many multiple posts are there on this board about almost every topic. this, IMO, is a NEW topic ;)

running smartreporter in the menu bar and keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't fail completely before i can get a 100% backup (no, i don't have a full backup) been using macs since the mid-90's, first drive failure, although this is a self-performed upgrade and not the stock drive.
 
I had several Seagates fail in the past but gave them another try recently. Failed within a week. No more Seagates for me.
 
update, for those interested: just got off of the phone with seagate, he said this is the 1st time he's had anyone call on the drive ;) said i could warranty exchange it, but suggested that before i do that i format the drive with the zero fill option then restore and see if that fixes it. said that sometimes a zero wipe can fix bad sectors. sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, but i might as well give it a shot, right?
 
scottuf said:
update, for those interested: just got off of the phone with seagate, he said this is the 1st time he's had anyone call on the drive ;) said i could warranty exchange it, but suggested that before i do that i format the drive with the zero fill option then restore and see if that fixes it. said that sometimes a zero wipe can fix bad sectors. sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, but i might as well give it a shot, right?
Click to expand...

i love that..the first time someone has had anyone with that issue...what a textbook answer...

im sure they get alot of those call's

seagate's drives have been having a hard time lately...especially the 7200.11 series...i have 3 fail out of 5 :|
 
Different strokes for different folks I guess. I've owned literally dozens of seagate drives, starting with a 40 MB (yes, MEgabytes) model on my first computer in 1991! I've had only one fail (an 80 GB 2.5" sata drive), and it was of course replaced under their excellent warranty.

If you lost important data due to a drive failure, its YOUR fault, not the drive manufacturer's. That's what backups are for. RAID is not a substitute for regular backups!

With super easy (and free) Mac tools like CarbonCopyCloner, no one has an excuse not to backup their machine. I use a 320 GB seagate 7200.3 in my MBP, and a 320 gb 5400.5 on fw800 for my clone. Heck, when drives are as cheap as they are these days, $89 for a 320gb/7200 notebook drive, you really have no excuse not to backup.

Seagate currently has the best warranty (5 years) of any hard drive manufacturer. No other manufacturer has such a long warranty. If your seagate drive failed, you simply RMA it under warranty and they ship you a new one. Easy peasy.

Toshibas OTOH are total junk. Poor performers and premature failures. I haven't had much luck with WD either. And Hitachi / IBM? Does no one remember the 75GXP DeathStar? I've had Maxtor and Connor and Quantum drives fail as well. Every manufacturer has their quality issues from time to time.

The fact of the matter is that a hard drive is a mechanical device with moving parts. It *will* fail. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". Its your job to backup your important data on a regular basis. Beyond that, all you can do is select a drive that performs well and has a good warranty.

Just my 2 cents.

BTW, x2 on the SMARTreporter menubar utility. Great little drive health monitor.
 
Wotan31 said:
Different strokes for different folks I guess. I've owned literally dozens of seagate drives, starting with a 40 MB (yes, MEgabytes) model on my first computer in 1991! I've had only one fail (an 80 GB 2.5" sata drive), and it was of course replaced under their excellent warranty.

If you lost important data due to a drive failure, its YOUR fault, not the drive manufacturer's. That's what backups are for. RAID is not a substitute for regular backups!

With super easy (and free) Mac tools like CarbonCopyCloner, no one has an excuse not to backup their machine. I use a 320 GB seagate 7200.3 in my MBP, and a 320 gb 5400.5 on fw800 for my clone. Heck, when drives are as cheap as they are these days, $89 for a 320gb/7200 notebook drive, you really have no excuse not to backup.

Seagate currently has the best warranty (5 years) of any hard drive manufacturer. No other manufacturer has such a long warranty. If your seagate drive failed, you simply RMA it under warranty and they ship you a new one. Easy peasy.

Toshibas OTOH are total junk. Poor performers and premature failures. I haven't had much luck with WD either. And Hitachi / IBM? Does no one remember the 75GXP DeathStar? I've had Maxtor and Connor and Quantum drives fail as well. Every manufacturer has their quality issues from time to time.

The fact of the matter is that a hard drive is a mechanical device with moving parts. It *will* fail. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". Its your job to backup your important data on a regular basis. Beyond that, all you can do is select a drive that performs well and has a good warranty.

Just my 2 cents.

BTW, x2 on the SMARTreporter menubar utility. Great little drive health monitor.
Click to expand...

I agree with you (kinda)
HDDs fail because they have to due to their nature.
And for those guys that lost seagate HDD they were unlucky because seagate HDDs are good.
My best HDD ever is (because still works perfectly) a maxtor diamond 10 that came as part of an AcomData external HDD (120GB) and is almost 8 years old (it might seem like 8years is not a long time, but for an HDD it is! besides it have traveled with me from country to country, and I used to move it all days to take it with me to my friend's office (now it is enjoying a stress free retirement as a "video networked server" so its being treated "easy." I also owned a 13GB maxtor HDD that while I owned it performed flawlessly (I do not own it anymore so I dont know if it still works.)
I have also owned other seagates and maxtors HDD but just performed as spected (no problems within the first year, then start doing "extra" noise for 2 years then fail after the 4th or 5th,) The only that diserves mentioning is the Maxtor Raptor (74GB model of the previous generation) which is cr@p, its marginally (hardly noticeable) faster than a regular HDD @ 7200 rpm (which happens to be way cheaper and offer better GB/$ ratio, in fact you can buy a few of those regular HDD and make up a RAID and have much more performance for the same ammount of money) and is loud (wait not loud, but LOUD, thats better) and mine own failed after uhm.... 8 months? maybe even less.
 
Wotan31 said:
If your seagate drive failed, you simply RMA it under warranty and they ship you a new one. Easy peasy.
Click to expand...

sorta easy peasy. seagate called yesterday to tell me they are still out of stock on the drive until early april. they offered a couple of other options (give me 2 drives adding up to 500 mb, return for refund, etc) but since mine hasn't failed entirely, just several bad sectors, i'm just gonna stick it out and make sure time machine is up to date. but m impressed that they called me to give me the update rather than the other way around. pretty good cust service!
 
I have never had a problem with seagate. I have had 2 or 3 of their drives and none of them have failed. I got the 320gb 7200.3 or .4 I forget, but it's working great.
 
Update

well seagate finally shipped the replacement drive, but its the "g" version. i guess they ship the first equivalent or better they get in stock. guess i need to read up on how to disable the fall sensor before i get into trouble.
 
I have heard that the 7200.4 is fairly unreliable. If you search around on notebookforums you may find the same threads I did. Personally I bought a 2 platter 500gb 5400 rpm drive and I have been happy with its performance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back