WD 120GB hard drive crashing

[Rookie]

Last February, I installed a WD 120 GB hard drive in my computer. About four month later, it crashed. The manufacturer send me another. This week, about ten months later, it is showing signs of failing. I am getting clicking noises and the drive is running at a snails pase. The manufacterer is sending me another. My question is: is there something I can do to prevent the new one from doing the same thing sever months down the road? Is this a common problem with Wester Digital brand of hard driver? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

[Ferrit]

Last February, I installed a WD 120 GB hard drive in my computer. About four month later, it crashed. The manufacturer send me another. This week, about ten months later, it is showing signs of failing. I am getting clicking noises and the drive is running at a snails pase. The manufacterer is sending me another. My question is: is there something I can do to prevent the new one from doing the same thing sever months down the road? Is this a common problem with Wester Digital brand of hard driver? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Not really you might turn on the smart monitor in the bios of the machine.
But that will only serve to warn you of impending disaster.
Other then that not really anything to do
Other then buy another type of drive
I can reccomend Seagate

[FireAm94]

I would not recommend Seagate...as far as my IDE experiences are concerned. People may call me crazy...but after a lengthy discussion with Western Digital...please be sure that your drive (if master) is at the end of the cable. We had this problem with our less experienced techs not thinking it mattered where the drive was on the cable. It caused drive failures in a number of drives. One more thing...does the harddrive have room for ample airflow? If it doesn't....this could cause failure over time also.

Joe

[joeace1]

I would not recommend Seagate...as far as my IDE experiences are concerned. People may call me crazy...but after a lengthy discussion with Western Digital...please be sure that your drive (if master) is at the end of the cable. We had this problem with our less experienced techs not thinking it mattered where the drive was on the cable. It caused drive failures in a number of drives. One more thing...does the harddrive have room for ample airflow? If it doesn't....this could cause failure over time also.

Joe

True the cable does matter, but I have had several WD fail over the last few years. Also you could check the power supply connections to make sure they are getting the correct power. Shame though WD used to have great drives and now I have atleast 3 in my bin that have died. If its clicking like he had said I would get the data off asap. One thing dont trust the WD tools they arent so good. I have had two drives that their program said is fine die the next time I used them

[SolApathy]

It's been my experience that WD drives have controller problems. The board on the drive goes bad. I have had 2 seperate instances of this on the 120GB models, and have heard quite a few similar stories.

[tyamada]

I have a friend that is a VAR and uses Western Digital drives exclusively,
he has had nothing but problems with the drives from one week old to 10 months old. I used to be a VAR but had to quit due to health problems but I used Maxtor Drives. My experience with maxtor is great I have replaced one drive out of all I have installed in the last 10 years. I still have some drives that are 8 years old that still work.

I have just started using Seagate SATA drives because they just changed their warranty to 5 years.

I have had fewer problems with Maxtor and Seagate drives than Western Digital or Haitichi (IBM) drives. Their faliure rate is very bad.

[BOB IROC]

I have had fewer problems with Maxtor and Seagate drives than Western Digital or Haitichi (IBM) drives. Their faliure rate is very bad.

I have ad just the opposite. I have used Western Digital HardDrives for years and I have experienced a higher failure rate with Maxtor. Not too sure about seagate. At the school I work for we have many Dell Optiplex computers and I see more maxtor drives die than Western Digital. There are many other factors that can cause HardDrives to die. Heat, Dust, power issues to name a few. A small power fluctuation from either the power supply or from the wall outlets can be devastating to computer equipment. I highly recommend investing $50 -$70 in a Battery Backup Unit for a PC as it provides a constant flow of power and better protection than the average surge protector. Also if the Hard Drive does not have adequate cooling it could cause it to fail prematurely. Many computers today provide heat readouts of the case temp. To provide better cooling make sure the computer is not in an enclosed space (some desks have a little cubby hole that is designed for the computer to be placed in). I find these trap the hot hair and force it to be re-circulated through the computer.

[FireAm94]

I think Western Digital got a bad name when they had 500,000 drives recalled a 3 or so years ago. We have very good luck with them now (no more "click of death") and we have had bad luck with Maxtor, IBM Deathstars (afraid of Hitachi due to that), Fujitsu (were made by IBM), Segate and Maxtor weren't godawful bad...but more failures in volume than Western Digital. We also need to take into account the method of delivery and whether the UPS/Fedex driver we had was new or had delivered many times

Joe

[Rookie]

Well, the &*#@ drive crashed again since being installed in January. I am finally had it with this company. I went out and bought a Seagat 160 GB harddrive instead. So far so good with the new drive. I especially like the quietness of the drive and the five year warranty