Rant - a Sony VAIO's death

[Dilbert]

OK, I'm going to get a hard drive to test Windows Vista Beta on. It's a crappy 40GB Maxtor partitioned in two, but hey, a disk is a disk. However, getting it was a complete accident. Here's what happened:

My Grandma was trying to take backups she'd made off her old PC, the said Sony VAIO, which has gone through not one, not two, but three TDR's*, and put them on her Dell Dimension E510. Sensible. However, as I showed her how to do it, and the Copying... dialog showed up saying 4 minutes (Microsoft minutes), I got an error -- not sure what it meant. So, I tried one folder at a time. I tried different folders. Same errors. I tried individual files. Same errors, and this time it locked up so we had to reboot.

While it's rebooting, I put the CD in my supa-machine to see if I could put it directly on my Flash drive. Same errors. Cursing under my breath, I went to good ol' CMD.exe to do it via the prompt. Same error, and every 290KB file took a Microsoft minute to tell me it couldn't copy! Then, she tells me that she had trouble making said backups. Oh... crap. The words corrupt disk flash through my head. Then she tells me it was off her D: drive (partition of C:). I boot up the VAIO and look in My Computer. It's still there. I think, "maybe I can get copies directly onto my Flash Drive". With 1GB at my disposal, this was no problem. Except, as I click on D:, the system locks up.

I reboot, and after the Windows XP (no service packs, it no longer had an internet connection and so updates were pointless) screen, it went black as it always does before the Welcome screen. And stayed there. I reboot again, and get some water and a Tylenol as it does so. Nope, no dice. So, I decide to slave the disk to the T-Machine (mine) and take off the data hdd to hdd. Logical, right? Well, anyone who's had one of these infernal machines knows that those machines are NOT built to be tampered with! It takes five flippin' minutes to get the case open. I figure it out, and I look in there. The hdd is the only thing not behind a metal plate. Unfortuneately, the CD-ROM drives are directly above the hard drive bay, and the CD-ROM bay is secured by a metal plate that offered no obvious methods of removing it to get to the *censored* hard drive.

I'm about to rip out the hard rive bay, not caring about damage, when I see this tab on the bay. One pull of that tab, and the bay is mine. (I then see similar tabs for the CD bay, but yanking them does nothing. Go figure.) So, I slave the hard drive to my PC, boot it up, and Windows recognized the Maxtor. After a "need to reboot because I say so to see your hard drive" from Windows, I access E: (was C: on hers) and backup documents and pictures. I go to F: (was D: on her machine -- her old CDs were E: and F: on the VAIO) and the whole freaking DRIVE IS EMPTY!!!! AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Right now I'm scanning her Maxtor for viruses, then it's a format away from being mine to toy with. (The only reason I scan is so I know if I need to worry about my C: drive -- two "no viruses found" messages from AVG tell me I'm fine)

The biggest kick in the crotch is that the pictures/documents I saved were from after the third TDR on the VAIO -- no trace of the ones currently on the corrupt CDs (all 7 of them!) can be found. Now, none of these CDs were full -- just looking at the bottom of the CD verifies that -- but apparently there is an entire batch of corrupt CDs with her stuff on them that we can't access.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Totally Destructive Restore

[GX1_Man]

A Sony is higher up on my "Do Not Buy" list than eMachine. Frankly, I'd rather have a Compaq! (And I don't want a Compaq.)

[Dead_reckon]

A Sony is higher up on my "Do Not Buy" list than eMachine. Frankly, I'd rather have a Compaq! (And I don't want a Compaq.)

lmao, they just went to my "do not buy list" as well... sony makes decent products, but if you buy a computer and it comes with a maxtor hard drive, expect problems... dilbert, i would advise gutting what you want out of this (mabey the chip, might be able to find a board to fit it and find some use for it) i would advise showing it your good friend, the 5 pound sledge hammer . my dell met my good friend... my left foot... wouldnt boot, spin the disks, or show video (i assume the north bridge was gone) later, it met another good friend of mine, the ordinary hammer

[Rob Pomeroy]

A Sony is higher up on my "Do Not Buy" list than eMachine...

But but but they look so purdy!

[sealbee]

Every body puts down the Maxtor drives, I've owned several in the computers I built and had no problems. I did have a Western Digital go all crappy on me, that's when I bought the first Maxtor.
Am I just lucky, are they that bad?

[GX1_Man]

I have had no problem with Maxtor's as a group through the years and have used a LOT of them. All hard drives die eventually,and the new, larger ones generate a lot more heat and seem to have issues regardless of manufacturer. Anyone who says all ____ components are worthless probably had one bad experience and just rush to conclusion in general, or heard someone say it, etc.

[Dead_reckon]

I have had no problem with Maxtor's as a group through the years and have used a LOT of them. All hard drives die eventually,and the new, larger ones generate a lot more heat and seem to have issues regardless of manufacturer. Anyone who says all ____ components are worthless probably had one bad experience and just rush to conclusion in general, or heard someone say it, etc.

i have used maxtor drives, they are not good... and yes, you are very lucky that the maxtors havnt crapped out on you yet...

[Dilbert]

Heh. the new 60GB (turns out it was 20GB and 40GB) Maxtor drive is a slave to my 200GB Maxtor drive. The only trouble I've had is self-inflicted. (Like, deleting GRUB by formatting D:, which was a partition of C:, making it so I couldn't boot and had to format C:...)

Same thing with video cards. Everyone I've met tells me that nVidia sucks, but I've never bought anything else, and I've not run into any serious problems. (One -- just one -- game won't work with the nVidia GeForce 6xxx cards, but that game was old anyway. Never played it much.)

So yeah, anyone can say that "x brand of y is utter [insert pejorative here]", but everything I've seen appears to be contrary. I use what works, and my nVidia PNY GeForce 6600, my Maxtor hard drives, my Norcent monitor, my [on and on] all work just fine.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Dead_Reckon, do you have ANY idea how much more experience GX1_Man has than you?  Come now, a few of us here have "earned our stripes", and it rather grates being contradicted by one - well lets face it, so young.

You can contribute good things to this forum, but if you could dial down the cockiness just a little, I'd be very grateful.

[Nitro]

The only maxtor drive i've owned died quickly!, I've never had a problem with seagate though, Infact the HDD i'm using right now is a 40gb seagate thats around 5 years old and has been used every since then!

[GX1_Man]

I've personally had many Maxtor's run 8+ years without incident. I just boght a Maxtor 100 gig for <$30 after rebate without hesitation for a friend's machine. If I were getting a new huge drive it would probably be a Seagate as they now have 5 year warranties, which is a good thing, as I doubt most of those goliath drives will see 5 years, regardless of maker. Time will tell. They are still too new.

[homer]

my 300GB SATA Maxtor HD died after about 3 weeks of part-time use.(on during the day off during the night). i got a replacement, and i sure hope this one holds because now i got alot of stuff on it. :-/

[panboy]

I have seen SOOOO many Maxtors Die, slow painfull Deaths , and i have to say the crap these things go Trought before they go.... they just dont let go .. Kicking and Screeming down the Street before finaly being Trounced by heat mostly

As ive Said Before CCTV was my Feild for a while, and I was Setting up systems with 500Gig of storage. and always maxtors and a few of these have been running for years , but the Strees there under doing this job its just kills so many inocent drives they just wanted to be loved, all they wated was a desktop job where they could happly live out there years and die slowly by getting cloged whit internet spam... but no not for them , no easy life... trown to the front lines like sheep to the slaghter... its such a pitty

But either way maxtors dont Suck... there just cheep

ATI Sucks   Nvidia All the Way  

[Dead_reckon]

i did get one thing out of an OLD 800mb maxtor drive.. the magnets ... the magnets inside a hard drive are the best you can get for "free" all ya need to do is round up some dead hard drives, get a torx bit set, and have at it, some of the REALLY old ones use phillips head screws, i like them better... i dont have a torx set, so i had to drill out the hard drives with my loyal black and decker 9099 10mm 7.2 volt drill... bought it at a yard sale for 10 bucks, they still sell for about 30 to 50 last time i checked

[tucker42]

You could put a magnet on each side of your head and pass a small 20 amp current through it too. A a matter of fact you should!

[Dilbert]

LOL

[tucker42]

Please?

[Dead_reckon]

tucker, i have a beter idea, you dissesemble a florecent light fixture, pull out the black box inside it (or whatever color it is) and cut the two leads going to the lights, then stick them in your mouth, and plug it in  

[GX1_Man]

That really isn't much of a plan. Let's get back on target.

[Dead_reckon]

That really isn't much of a plan. Let's get back on target.

ok, topic being death of a sony VAIO, so, cut the VAIOS power cord, wire the box to it, then turn it on witht the switch on 115, and watch the sparks fly

[GX1_Man]

And that's a plan?

[Dead_reckon]

plan? who needs a plan? but, if you want one, you can always devise a way to "stratigically" destroy the computer with a sledge hammer

[Dilbert]

We're taking the parts to a computer part recycling shop, except for the hard drive, which I'm keeping. )

[Dead_reckon]

We're taking the parts to a computer part recycling shop, except for the hard drive, which I'm keeping. )

if you can get money off of them, go for it

[GX1_Man]

Proper disposal is even better than a few pennies.  

[Dead_reckon]

not really, a few pennies earned now, means more later...

[GX1_Man]

But improper disposal can be hazardous. That's more important.  

[Dead_reckon]

i just drop them in the trash can and forget about it, the trash man doesnt notice, they have the arm things on the side of the truck that they pick them up with, they dont notice (until they compact it)

[GX1_Man]

Well, that's one definition of being a responsible citizen.