3rd Maxtor HDD Failure!

Thanks for the quick response,

So why on earth are Dell selling high end systems with Maxtor hard discs? Are `Technical Support' the only people we can talk to about this? What about the other Maxtor hard discs that we have and are inevitably going to fail soon?

Interestingly, this thread says:

"They also said they give 15 days grace for replacing hard discs after warranty has expired but not longer. I think this is a bit unfair as the OEM Maxtor's appear to have a warranty of 3 years."

Is there any merit in this? I may have a few days left...

Dave.

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@dmosses wrote:
Hi,

We bought two systems with 2 x Maxtor 7Y250M0 SATA discs in each, just over 12 months ago (warranty has JUST expired). In the past 12 months 2 of these discs failed and today the 3rd went. The old ones were replaced under warranty but as this one has gone just out of the basic 12 month warranty period Dell support don't help.

I don't have a complaint with Dell support, but frankly 3 out of 4 identical hard discs falling over with multiple bad blocks in less than a year isn't just unlucky, its a manufacturing fault. I'm sure that I should be able to discuss this with someone at Dell but there doesn't seem to be anyone to call unless you're expecting a delivery, making an order or have a specific support request.

Anyone else had problems with the same discs?
Does anyone know who to contact at dell to discuss this? I expect Dell will dissagree but it hardly seems right that we should have to foot the bill to replace these discs when they appear to have sold us dodgey equipment in the first place!

Thanks in advance...

Dave.

Using the Advanced Forum Search on the bottom of this page, you can quite easily find the answer to this often asked question. 

THOUSANDS have had this issue, the forums are plastered with posts about failed Maxtor hard drives for the past 18 - 24 months.  However, once your system unit warranty ends, Dell has no responsibility to replace the drive.

My XPS Gen 5 came with a Seagate drive (thank goodness), which I can highly recommend.  I have bought that brand many times in the past for several other systems, all of which have run 24 hours a day... and so far (knocking furiously on wood) I have never had an issue with any of them.

Good luck, Dave.. I hope that you can get some kind of resolution from either Dell or Maxtor.

Every major drive maker has produced a run of bad drives - IBM's desktop drives were so bad about 3-4 years ago that the company exited the drive business entirely.

Maxtor has clearly had issues, but major vendors like Dell have had little choice but to ship their drives, since you cannot run a computer company without using Maxtor, which had a market share of upward of 20% at one point - there just aren't enough drives from other vendors to go around.

It is interesting to note that Dell has begun shipping Samsung hard drives, which it hadn't done before. It's also true that I've seen HP, Compaq, Sony, and IBM/Lenovo systems of recent vintage with Maxtor drives in them.

Maxtor apparently got caught in a quality squeeze when it shifted production from Singapore to China - supposedly, drives of very recent vintage are better, but the jury is still deliberating that one.

As for the warranty, the drive shipped as OEM carries the system warranty - not any added warranty the maker may have provided on drives it shipped to its own sales channels.

Evening,

I'm not sure if this will help or not but I had this very same talk with Dell support about the very same issue. To digress... I bought an XPS 400 with a 160 gb HD. AFTER I bought the system, I visited the Dell forum and found the problems people were having with their Dell maxtor HD's. I was told by Advance Dell Support that the number of reported complaints compared with the thousands of computers sold with drive does not give them (Dell) cause for concern. Now, ME... I have NOT taken this computer, bought in the beginning of December, out of the Box. I have been racking my brain AND those of the 'Experts' on the Dell forum for an answer. The best recommendation so far is to buy another HD, in my case and external USB HD) and back up my system right out of the box. In the event of a HD failure, I will be getting a new drive from Dell but can easily download my original system from the external drive. Now Bev ( a real master on this forum ) has taken this idea a giant step further. She bought 2 Seagate refurbished drives for a VERY reasonable price and has so far had no trouble with them. Hense, I am waiting for my external drive to arrive with a recommended backup program callled Acronis and THEN I will have my compter up and running..  So far its been 2 months since its purchased. I realise I sound a bit wierd, but I wanted to do this right. I now have Grandchildren and many wonderful photo's and Digital Movies. My plan was to use this XPS system for the purpose of making Wonderful movies that my family will be very proud of. That's why I have bought Dell... (my fourth) Plus the fact that I am VERY lucky to have a daughter that was a communication major in college and worked for a local TV studio. She is WELL versed in the art of film editing....  Happy me with a happy face   ONCE I get up and running.  So far, 2 months and counting... ALL because of the HD....  Hang my head in shame sorry folks....   art

Well, thanks for all the replies.

After a lengthly telephone call with tech support, the faulty hard disc can be replaced as the fault was reported within the 15 day grace period for discs (yes - it does exist!) - make the most of it.

However, despite the fact that 3/4 of our apparently dodgy batch of discs have now failed Dell refuse to replace the fourth (or anything else) in anticipation of failure or on the basis of it being a bad batch. If it ain't broke, they won't fix it.

So the bottom line is, if you happen to have bought a Dell computer within the last 18 months or so, and it's fitted with Maxtor discs - watch out and take the necessary precautions to make sure you don't loose any valuable data. You may be lucky and have a happy disc for many years, but the track record of ours discs and those of others on the forum might suggest otherwise. In the meantime, start putting some pennies away just in case.

(Can't help feeling there's been an injustice here... Well, I tried.)

Dave.

what finally happened with your drive? I just had a maxtor drive fail. I got on their website and looked up the warranty and they recommended contacting the pc mfg. Which in this case is DELL. Problem is my pc is no longer under warranty from DELL.

PC is less than 3 years old. Maxtor drive less than 3 years old..but I had a second hdd in the pc, also a Maxtor, with a date of 1999. It is working fine!

I have lost everything. Have you looked into data recovery services at all?

jersey0904

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@jersey0904 wrote:

what finally happened with your drive? I just had a maxtor drive fail. I got on their website and looked up the warranty and they recommended contacting the pc mfg. Which in this case is DELL. Problem is my pc is no longer under warranty from DELL.

PC is less than 3 years old. Maxtor drive less than 3 years old..but I had a second hdd in the pc, also a Maxtor, with a date of 1999. It is working fine!

I have lost everything. Have you looked into data recovery services at all?

jersey0904

OEM drives installed by the computer manufacturer have the warranty period of the manufacturer, not of the drive if you bought it at retail. 

Old Maxtors, like your 1999 are fine.  I have some old ones two.  Newer ones (like 18-24 months til now) are not. 

Data Recovery is going to be $1K - $3K...

Hey, thanks. I think I just emailed you on your website.

So, if my 1999 hdd is good, would you suggest I install it as a second drive on a pc. I have another DELL Optiplex I just bought last year, maybe I can install it on this pc and use it as a backup.

What is the longevity of something like this old 1999 drive. Of course it is not being used as much as the master drive..like my newer drive that just crashed.

 

Thanks again

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@jersey0904 wrote:

Hey, thanks. I think I just emailed you on your website.

So, if my 1999 hdd is good, would you suggest I install it as a second drive on a pc. I have another DELL Optiplex I just bought last year, maybe I can install it on this pc and use it as a backup.

What is the longevity of something like this old 1999 drive. Of course it is not being used as much as the master drive..like my newer drive that just crashed.

 

Thanks again

You can lookup the MTBF (mean time between failure) for the drive, but the reality is that a 1999 drive will be very, very slow.  Given the price of drives today, regardless of what drives you use you should have REDUNDANT backup, i.e. two backups.  So if 1 dies you have 1.  I wouldn't use a 1999 drive as a backup drive.  It may fail at any time, or not.

Our 1 year old Hitachi backup drive for our main system died a few months ago with no warning, I lost 30 days of daily backups.  However, I had my weekly backups for 4 weeks on another drive, and of course the current drive hadn't failed.