Part 2 - Please Vote on the status of your IBM hard drives

[4.6POWER]

Post any drive fitness test results also!!

Joe

[4.6POWER]

75GXP307015
Manufacture Date: April 2000

Serial # YFT02229
Failure Code: 0x70 - Defective Device
Additional code: 0x71
Test date: 27-11-2001
TRC: 7071F0D7

[Baptizer]

Serial # SXL55826
Failure Code 0x72 - Defective Device, Detected by S.M.A.R.T.
Additional 0x02

Technical Result Code(TRC) for RMA 72024DD7


My Situation:
I have 2 IBM 60gxp's. One went bad approx 6 months after purchase. The other drive has yet to gone bad(as you notice i say 'YET" considering i am expecting it too).

[4.6POWER]

I always manage to mess up the polls,
forgot to mention.... you can select as many options as you want, so if you have one bad + one good... you can select both those options.

Joe

[Ummugumma]

I have a problem with one of my 41gb 60GXP drives. Sometimes it's fine, passes the drive fitness test and sometimes it just goes ape**** making lots of clunking noises and various other strange things. I raised an RMA with IBM rather than www.overclockers.co.uk because overclockers.co.uk are a bunch of wa**ers who's customer services suck big time. I had to send it all the way to the Netherlands from the UK so i hope it gets there ok :D

[mackerel]

Had a 75GXP 45 gig start making funny clicking noises one day. It had trouble reading, but sometimes with enough retries it works. So I moved off what data I could onto another disk.

Ran DFT, detected bad sectors and offered to fix them. Which it did, a re-run showed no errors. So I reinstalled Windows and after a few days it was happening again! Again, ran DFT, it found bad sectors and offered to fix them. Let it do it and I had a "good" disk again. Tried putting Linux onto it and after minutes once again the noises returned. Fix again...

Had enough. Checked out warranty. Since the drive could be "fixed" by the software, it was not returnable so in the end I just stuck it on ebay with a warning that it had been bad in the past, and got 50 quid back.

Later went to local shop, and ended buying a pair of 60GXP 40 gigs. Now mirrored just in case, and has been working fine.

[Pistol]

75GXP two 15's and three 30's all doing well so far,knock on wood

[BigBen]

Hi,
I have three 75GXP's ...one died a short while ago, got it replaced and am keeping my fingers crossed

Regards

[KMS]

guess i must have been lucky, the poll makes interesting reading though !

[JMke]

X fingers
running 30gb 75GXP since last year november without probs
I do a weekly back-up of all my personal data though, but that's independant of HD brand ;)

[northport]

Recently attempted to install 4 aboce hard drives in seperate systems. 2 tested okay - 1 bad sectors leading to none boot etc-- 1 -started up with a high pitch whine.

First 3 made in "Thailand- the 1 whiner made in Hungary.

Serial# txgd8997, tx2n7043 bad ones

So, two are RMA'd and will be relaced with Maxtor's.

I refuse to pay more to play a HD lottery.
:mad:

[Wrath]

Hi,

Got 2 60GXP's one of which corupted itself for some reason and a low level format was required ..for no reason! but apart from that they have both been fine for 2 years

And a 75GXP thats been running fine for 6 months.

[Neomagic]

Bought a 45GB 75GXP at www.overclockers.co.uk last january. Messed up after only a month, making all kinds of screeching sounds and clicking. Ran DFT, it checked out fine, but it kept corrupting my data so I fixed it. And then used it as backup, has been fine until I installed XP on it, and started using that as my primary OS. After a few weeks, same thing. Ran DFT again, it's fine again now, using as backup only. But now my other 45GB 75GXP I purchased when the other one kind of died, is starting to show the same symptoms. So what gives. They are from different manufacturing dates and plants.

Sent email to Overclockers UK twice, haven't had any answer since I sent those emails two weeks and a week ago respectively.

I am seriously considering purchasing WD or Maxtor drives, RAID them and use my IBM's solely as backup for infrequently used data, which is the only situation in which they seem to behave just fine without corrupting.

*sigh*

Or should I try to figure out an RMA deal with IBM ? Cuz those OC UK ******s won't do anything about it. And besides, when you run the DFT on it, it checks out fine anyways, and then you end up paying for the shipping twice.

[BigBen]

Hi Neomagic,
When my 75GXP died which I got from www.overclockers .co.uk I just phoned them and explained the problem (they did take a while to answer), got a RMA number and it was replaced all in all it took 2 weeks.

Regards

[Neomagic]

Well I don't have the time during the day to call them, besides calling the UK from my cell phone is not very affordable to put it gently. So I guess that leaves me pretty much burned.

And the problem is they'll never find anything wrong with it because it always seems fine for quite a while after a 'fix'.

:(

[mackerel]

Neomagic, that is exactly what happend with mine, which was also bought from OcUK. I read the small print in IBMs returns conditions, which basically said if the software says its ok, then they don't want it back. I didn't want to deal with OcUK either as past returns (3 cases of them shipping me wrong items) have been so slow.

What I did in the end was to put it on Ebay stating clearly that the drive had broke before and was "fixed" by the software. I still got around 50 pounds +p&p for it.

[Neomagic]

Well, I am looking on IBM's site to see what I can do about RMA'ing it, but as you said, it'll probably return d*ck squat.

I guess I'll just keep it as backup, which is the only thing it's good for, shame for such a good and speedy drive, for as long as it lasted. Time for a 120GB WD or something :cool:

SMART tests all say the drive is totally fine, even when it's messing up. I don't get what's the use of SMART if it cannot even detect such obvious malfunctioning. But that just as a sidenote.

[Mender]

My two 30gig 75gxp's have been running 24/7 for a little over a year now and have never given any trouble, both are quiet and very fast.
During this time I have had a WD 15 gig and a Maxtor 15 gig, both of which have died. My Seagate 40 gig Barracuda 4 seems pretty good though.