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I got a 13GIG Quantum HDD, it was a pull from a almost new referbished gateway box, i payed $5 thinking it was a dumb mistake that the guy made trying to set it up properly, turns out, it plan wont work right!

It is detected by the BIOS, it spins up i can transfer data in it for about 20 min, then it stops spinning and i can't get anything in/out of it!

never have i seen or read about this problem before.

anyone know whats going on inside this HDD??

I'm running Windows98SE, haven't tryed to mount it in linux yet.
the HDD is a Quantum Fireball CX 13GB serial num: 934926328617PAPXX


Any ideas? thanks guys!

Sounds like maybe its a bad ide controller that works until it heats up... Could also very well be a power saving feature in Win98 screwing things up.

Something wrong with the controller on the HDD I'd say. Have you checked online to see if it's under warranty?

It's not under warranty so, I guess it's yet another piece of computer hardware I can throw at the cat. oh well, thanks guys!

How come you ppl think Maxtor is the best??? I always thought maxtor wasn't very goot and seagate and WD was the best. whats goin' on?

Maxtor is not necessarily THE best (I'd give that to WDC probably) BUT overall Maxtor is a very good drive for the price.

They're reliable, the newer ones are very quiet, they have a good warranty and RMA turnaround is very fast.

Most of the drives I've owned are Maxtors and I've been very happy with them.

I just RMAed a Quantum Fireball to Maxtor last week. Mine was a KX though. Still waiting for a replacement drive. Too bad yours is out of warranty. Maxtor makes RMAing a drive a snap.

Personally, I like WesternDigital drives. None of my drives have ever failed on me. I have worked on one that had a WD 1.2gig in it that failed. It was sent in for RMA and WD replaced it with a 1.6gig drive.

I like Seagates and western digital, to me they are the best hands down. Old seagates really sucked, they seem real good now.

I have had Quantum HDD's in the past you commonly find them in pre-build comps like Compaqs etc. and im sure you will all agree when i say Compaq Blows, Really bad, they suck. so, you'de kinda think that quantum sucked too, they do. I have a bunch of old 600Mb Caviar WD's all of them work flawlessly, i had 3 or so Quantum's 1 worked out of the lot. what does this tell me?

I dont have any good or bad-ness tward Maxtor, but I'm nice and comfy with Western digital, they the bomb.

hell i dropped this WDC 30GIG i have (and am using now) I'm such a idiot, it works perfect, never EVER has it been troublesome. it's given me about 4 years of faithful service (so far).

Just to let you all know where i stand.

Not meaning to be the Devil's advocate or anything, but I think if this many people say that Maxtor has such a great turn around time on they're RMA's, then too many people are sending back Maxtor drives.

I have a 10 gig Quantum Fireball that works when it wants to and a 40 gig Maxtor that I've had for about a year with no problems.

I'm weary on which drive to get. I don't know about all of you, but to spend $130 on a drive and all the time to install an OS on it just to send it back doesn't sound like a good time to me.

LOSTMAN: Good point, but many people here like myself are IT techs. You work on a lot of computers you see a lot of dead drives (lightning, surges, abuse, just plain old age). I send a lot of different drives back for RMA.

Overall I've had no problems with WDC, Maxtor and Seagate RMAs. Maxtor in particular has VERY quick turn around times - I've gotten drives back a week after I sent them (and I send them via USPS Priority Mail!).

Don't even ask me about Samsung or Fujitsu runk

Don't know what drive is best myself but I'll tell you this,

I have a Maxtor 8 gig drive I had for years and am still using. Awhile back when 13 gigs were still big I bought a WD 13gig as a second drive. By second drive I mean the maxtor 8 did all the work and the WD did a little storage and booted off of once in awhile.

I know WD had a nice RMA, fast and easy, basically no questions asked other than whats wrong!
Cost me $8 or so to UPS the drive to them. No biggy for $120 drive. Didn't have anymore problems after that, Drive was RMA'd after just a few months, new drive worked fine about a year, just put it in a system I gave my brother-in-law for Chrismass, still working good.

Maxtor 8 gig is going strong, much older more used and never been RMA'd!

So what was my NEW drive I just bought? Maxtor 60gig! Cost a bit less and never had to RMA the 8 gig yet which is worked to death still in the other system still.

Fixin to buy another drive soon, trying to decide between Maxtor and WD again.
Think Maxtor will get the sale, but still looking, WD sounds good, and anyone can mess up once I geuss!

Memorex has real good RMA on their CDR/CDRW writers too. At least when I bought the 2216 that went bad they had good RMA. Cost me a few bucks for shipping, got a new drive.

My 8x4x?? writer was a Sony, never had to RMA it!

I am thinking hard about trying the Lighton brand CD recorders next though, much lower in price and I like the DVD drive from them.

Back to harddrives though, I just installed an OLD 260 MEG Seagate into one of my spare machines, and it still works great! Even after being bounced arounce the boxes, desk drawers and never in anti-static bag. Just abused and unused for several years, and it checked out fine. Gonna use it in a old 486 system just to store a few little used files on and for experimenting.

canton_kid