It's the top deal on gotapex.com right now. $226 minus 2 $100 rebates (note the Dell page shows both rebates for the drive).

It's Western Digital, so if you hate them, don't look

I've already debunked this one on like 3 or 4 different forums...

Anyone wanting this one better be prepared to pay $126. The two separate $100 rebates are not likely to be honored, becuase:

1. Someone on Anandtech called Western Digital and confirmed that it's one rebate per household. The representative said that they would not honor both rebates for a single sale.
2. Even if people play games and submit the rebates from two different addresses, they can tell it's the same sale (receipt required.)
3. Dell's track record on these things is they get overloaded with orders and are back-ordered for many weeks at a time. One of the rebates expires 30 days from today, so if your order is back-ordered for more than 2 or 3 weeks, you'll be very unlikely to get it there in time.

I am big on WD drives, especially the SE's. Both my PC's are WD-only... But I am almost certain that 99% of the people who try to do this will end up only getting one of the rebates back. $122 still isn't a bad price for the 200GB SE, but I ended up getting a 160GB SE a couple months ago for less per GB... So keep shopping unless you really like your luck on getting 2 rebates which both state "one per household."

Not to mention that even if you do manage to meet all the rebate requirements, sometimes the rebates just disappear into the ether after you mail them. Had that happen to me more than once.

I'll try my luck. The wording is sufficiently ambiguous as to whether they mean "this worth 1 times $100" or "cannot be combined with any other rebates", which other rebates have actually said.

If they don't honor it, I'll just go back to only buying Maxtor, and my life will be none the worse

Weirdest thing that every happened to me was when I got the XM radio receiver which was -$10 or whatever after discounts and rebates, mailed the rebate, got a "declined since this didn't come from a store we support" note, checked, verified they were lying, and before I had a day with a few minutes to call and bitch a check for $100 was in my mailbox.

Only peripherally related to this topic, but I just gotta tell somebody...

I bought a software utility (Drive Image 2002) on eBay for $9.99.

It arrived today in a sealed, retail box (with a $99.99 price sticker on it) and inside the box was a rebate coupon for $30. Amazingly enough, the rebate hadn't expired (5 days to go) and I actually met all the requirements for the rebate.

Maybe sometimes there IS such a thing as a free lunch!

tanstaafl.

Cool. Free $20!

Dell rebunked it.
Dear Valued Customer,

After further consideration, we have determined that the $200 in rebates will be honored on eligible purchases of 200 GB Western Digital hard drives ordered between September 25, 2003 and September 27, 2003. Please disregard our prior communication on this issue. We value you as a customer and will keep your order in process at the original online purchase price.

If you have cancelled your order due to the initial message posting and wish to reinstate your order, please respond back to the [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<<mailto:[email protected]>> mailbox. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotion the Western Digital hard drive will have twenty one days lead time before the item ships. We will be posting revised instructions for submitting rebate requests and will be extending the submission deadline.

If you would still like to cancel your order please contact us at the [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <<mailto:[email protected]>> mailbox. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you and thank you for your patience in this matter.

Anyone know where there are some good rebates for a 160 gb drive?

Which is the best hard drive to buy?

Which is the best hard drive to buy?

What a simple yet loaded question

It's going to be like asking people whether they thing AMD or Intel is the best company to go with, except there are quite a few more. Western Digital and Maxtor are probably the biggest for the average desktop user.

My personal preference is for Western Digital. WD makes very reliable drives (in my experience), they're fast (thought other companies are right up there with them), and the warranties and the warranty process for the drives are great.

It also depends on your use. For the average desktop user, a simple 80GB drive is nice and has plenty of room. Given that you've been asking about de-interlacing video, you might want something more like this. Either way, if you go with WD, get the Special Edition drives.

Those are some basic considerations. Let us know what you're looking for.

Maxtor drives are okay but don't do weird things with them involving the security features. I've managed to some how totally and permanently it seems lock the drive to 9MB. It refuses to acknowledge the fact that it's actually a 120GB drive and also seems to think that none of the security features are set. *shrug*

IBM have a bad reputation from the Deskstar 60GXPs (60's I think? or was it 70's?) but they've sold their entire storage division to Hitachi now anyway. I've got no idea whether the new Hitachi drives are any good.

80GB is definately enough for the average desktop user. If they don't have broadband and therefore don't end up downloading huge files then even a 40GB would probably be enough.

Maxtor drives are okay but don't do weird things with them involving the security features. I've managed to some how totally and permanently it seems lock the drive to 9MB.

Have you tried the "qunlock" utility (no link I'm afraid, but it's referenced and available at one of the TiVo upgrade sites).

Maxtor & Quantum drives have a nasty habit of locking themselves up at that very storage limit when you're trying upgrade your Tivo with them, what you have seems exactly the same. Do a search for qunlock If you have no joy PM me & I'll dig out my copy.

Cheers, Sim

Yep. That's why the drive is bizarrely locked permanently. It seems you can't do a lock, unlock cycle too many times before it decides to freeze permanently. I've looked at the security flags set and it doesn't even think the drive is locked. HPA is on but doesn't seem to affect it.

Have they made any further progress on working out what's wrong with them? I've not tried the qunlock utility since the drive got locked so I've no idea if it's changed.

DO NOT try to run qunlock on a maxtor 120GB drive, apparently it kills them. qunlock is for Quantum drives, few things have changed with the Maxtor 120gb's, qunlock used to work on the older Maxtor's but not the newer ones.
I've got 2 x 160GB Maxtor's in my Tivo, and MFStools 2.0 unlocks the drives automatically when I put them into my PC.

Here are a couple of threads about it at the tivo community forums...
Maxtor & Qunlock

And for anyone who reads this in the future who hasn't seen the other threads (or missed it here): DON'T RUN QUNLOCK ON ANY MAXTOR DRIVES EVER FOR ANY REASON!

Yeah. I've found that out myself
The drive is doing a very good job as a paperweight on my window sill at the moment however.

I turned off the auto locking of drives in the Tivo bootloader and it's been working fine ever since with a different set of drives.