If your curious as to the health of the drive you could try crystaldiskinfo on it, to see a detailed listing of stats about use of drive and any damages. But i'd toss that drive out and get a different one. Maxtor has been gone for a while now. Seagate bought them out. For a short while Seagate gave the Maxtor drives that had short warranties a 5 year warranty, and I was able to take a 500GB paperweight Maxtor and send it in for a healthy 500GB Seagate refurb drive. I doubt that your Maxtor has any warranty from seagate on it, but you could check with seagate if your curious, however if the drive has a date on it older than 5 years then I'd say your out of luck for a free replacement. My drive was 4 years old and I got a replacement under Seagate whereas Maxtors warraty expired after 3 years i think it was. The drive dying shortly after its 3 yr birthday out of warranty. Friend of mine told me about Seagate buying Maxtor and offering 5 year warranty on the Maxtor line and it worked out very nice at the time to have a healthy 500GB Seagate returned to me at just the cost of shipping my dead Maxtor drive back to them.
