Dying Hard drive I found in the street?

[Clockwork_Apple]

About 6 months ago I found a 250GB Maxtor HDD sealed in an anti-static bag, lying in the road. I picked it up took it home and tested it out, formatted it and started using it for storage. :beer:

It developed a loud repeating rattle, and now its become worse. I used SpeedFans online analysis tool and it says the Power Cycle Count is below average limits. Report here. (http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepshowreport.php?ReportCode=1646247&ReportVerification=52571E29)

There's nothing vitally important on it, just media, but I'd still be annoyed if it died. Is it safe to say this hard drive is going to fail soon? Are there any programs people recommend for testing out this hdd?

Thanks.

[Murdochs_mad]

Is it still under warraty? If so RMA it:) Also download maxtors hard drive tools, for checking the heath of the drive and see what it says.

Good find by the way, all I ever find are small drives:(

EDIT:

Most the stuff I find is left out for the bin men;)

[lenix]

Grr.. you found it on the road and you're annoyed that it's dying ?

And what the hell, second poster also finds hdd's on the road.. -,-

[Viol8ted]

Grr.. you found it on the road and you're annoyed that it's dying ?

And what the hell, second poster also finds hdd's on the road.. -,-

Sounds like we need to travel that road lenix. LOL

[dylskee]

Hmmm, the ol "Fell off a truck" theory. :)

[systemhost]

That must be code for "stolen" because I've never found anything still sealed in antistatic bags, let alone actually working...

[freakdiablo]

Grr.. you found it on the road and you're annoyed that it's dying ?

And what the hell, second poster also finds hdd's on the road.. -,-
I agree with the first point, but notice how Murdochs_mad never said he found them in the road. Kid I know would get drives and stuff from my schools trash :) (went to an IT highschool that ran a computers for underprivileged kids program, and half the computers donated had dead mobos and stuff but were so old you could by slightly better computers then looking for replacement parts+shipping+wasted man hours searching for them) So the kid would just go grab the hdds. Its funny seeing 20gb hdds in a raid on his 3.2ghz p4.

[Cheator]

That must be code for "stolen" because I've never found anything still sealed in antistatic bags, let alone actually working...

The best i ever found on the road was a damned computer hardware book... and it was from like 1994 or something. This was in 2005. Give the hard drive to me. I'll fix it.

[EmAn]

i wish i could find stuff on the road besides hats and sunglasses

[dylskee]

i wish i could find stuff on the road besides hats and sunglasses
All I ever find on the road is my vehicle broken down!! :cry:

[Clockwork_Apple]

My friends constantly joke about how lucky I am, a few months after the PSP release, I found a boxed PSP in a charity shop, I enquired how much they want for it... £30. I bought it, played it for a few months then sold it for profit :D

Murdochs, I cant RMA a hdd I found in the street, lol. Maxtor Tools always freezes when it runs a diagnostic on the drive, I'm guessing thats a bad sign.

[systemhost]

Ermmm you CAN rma a drive you "found on the street". Well at least with WD you can. I bought my first 500gb for about $180 from someone at school. Well, this drive eventually ran into some bad sectors here and there, sooo, I contacted WD and they just went by the manufacture date. Not as much time as I woulda had, buut, I didn't buy it from a store, so I sent it in and got a new one back in the mail. ^^

[Murdochs_mad]

If I remeber rightly Maxtor tools always used to freeze when I tried using it, and systemhost is right if the drive is still under warranty you should be able to rma it, the manufacturer arn't usually interested in where you got it just the serial number linky (http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp)

[Iron Hawk]

By RMA I think we mean Warranty through the manufacturer, not returning to the place of purchase. With most HDD warranty replacement, you just type in the model and SN found on the drive, and they company (WD, Seagate, etc) evaluates if the warranty is valid based on that, and you are all set. Might be worth it. Backup the files on it, and get a new one :-) Keep in mind the new one will probably have Warranty replacement written on the label, not that this affects the performance of the drive.

[Clockwork_Apple]

Thanks for the link Murdochs_mad, I'll give it a go.

Is funny noises etc. enough grounds for an RMA? What programs can I run to test the integrity of the drive for bad sectors etc.

[ShadowPho]

....The first thing you should do if you are posting on a forum about a dying HDD is post SMART. (pun intended) :p
(smart = Self-Monitoring Analysis And Reporting Technology)

Google for a program to reveal all that.

[newbienerd]

That must be code for "stolen" because I've never found anything still sealed in antistatic bags, let alone actually working...

Haha! Where I live, people throw away all sorts of stuff. I'm currently typing on a 1ghz, 125mb ati radeon 900 card. I found two towers side by side. one had a burnt vid card and one had malfunctioning mobo. Switch some parts around and i have ONE working puter!!!! LOL!!! u just have to know where to look. ive gotten 20 g scsi drives and raid cards too! YAY spring cleaning!!! w00t

[Murdochs_mad]

Usually HD manufacturers like you to run 'their' hd diag tool, which, as you already know is a pile of pap that locks up, to make sure thiers a problem before they will let you return it. But try Seagates SeaTools, which I think will run in windows, they can't dispute it as maxtor is owned by seagate now. Also I think Western Digitals HD tools will work on other manufacturers HD's.

[krag]

Keep it clean fellas. This is a "G" rated forum.

krag, OCF moderator

[Trike007]

Well if it dies, you can always use thermite. :P

[gocartman2]

wow i cant believe it, there are other people that find computers on the road, theres only one i can remember well, it looked like any other computer from 1998, but had no cpu heatsink(no socket for a cpu), no identifiable hdd, and where a pci card should be was a huge card that took up the whole case and barely fit, the only thing i almost too was the cd drive but decided not to cause the case was run over, LOL

speaking of old maxtors, i love my free 13.6gb that was donated to me, SMART gives me this:
Your hard disk is a Maxtor 91360D8 with firmware PAS23B15.
Your hard disk is not in the current database.

your hard disk has 136 reallocated sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 1024) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degradated performances

The overall fitness for this drive is 66%.

can you believe its running in my rig? i sure cant

[Hipcrostino]

...Keep in mind the new one will probably have Warranty replacement written on the label, not that this affects the performance of the drive.

Sif, we all know stickers adds 50 horsepower!