IBM sucks

I got a Travelstar 40gb about a month ago to put in my wife's laptop. I haven't had time to deal. Today I exhausted the space on my empeg and was going to upgrade one of the 20gbs in it to a 40, and either buy her another 40, or give her the 20.

Of course, the 40gb just makes a horrible noise when it tries to spin up, then spins down and I get a pump error. I have another laptop drive laying around, stick it in and the builder image pumps and formats it. Both connectors on the IDE cable, it fails (I didn't expect it would succeed; The noise is so horrible I can't imagine it working).

I bought something new which needs to be returned. Annoying, but not shocking. What really pisses me off is IBM has no cross-ship option; I'm willing to let them hold against my credit card, I just want a d%^ drive!

So much hatred, so little time.

Sorry to hear you are having a bad day. I have been running with IBM drives for years now, and the empeg's certainly test the drives well - no problems so far.

Could you explain what a cross ship option is - I guess I am from the wrong side of the Atlantic.

I believe that the cross-ship option he is referring to is when the company ships you a replacement as you ship the defective to them. I know that Dell offers this and I've had them ship a replacement and then let me ship the defective after I have received it.

IBM drives are usually very good.

I will never buy another IBM drive again. With Maxtor and WD, end users can send back OEM drives. With IBM you can't. I had to auction this drive because IBM wouldn't take it back from me. Thanks IBM!

I buy Maxtor for IDE drives now and haven't looked back. They're just as fast, quieter, cheaper, and take returns. I am soured on WD due to many past drive failures, but their return process was very good.

I've had no really bad problems with WD, but that's just my experiences. I did have one drive go bad, but I think it was all my fault. The return process, as you mentioned, was excellent. They have all their drives' serial numbers on file and can tell when the warranty runs out, and all of this can be checked out by you. It was a very easy return process and when they shipped it back they packaged it extremely well.

I've had 2 of those same drives die on me from excessive shock (being in a machine that I moved quite often - i.e. took it to work every day for over a year). I checked the IBM warranty page and, even though they were both OEM drives, they were still both under warranty. I sent them in and got two replacements that work great.

I have a 20gb Travelstar in this machine (my laptop) which I got second-hand from a friend for $20. It's working so far, but it's starting to develop bad sectors. He said it was banged around quite badly in the laptop it came from (it was dropped from about 4 feet while turned on). So, I'm about to RMA this one as well, as it is also still under warranty.

because IBM wouldn't take it back from me.
Rob, did you go through this RMA form or some other way like 800 number?

I have successfully RMAd 2 OEM (I thought OEM...bulk pack, anti-static bag-only) IBMs in the past year. One local PC shop did tell me, though, that they stopped using IBMs because of warranty problems with IBM "white box" drives -- and the biggest problem was telling which ones were eligible. Where did you get that one originally?

IBM: Inferior But Marketable

Yes, it was that website. I tried it a few times before just giving up and selling on ebay. I even researched returning it to Singapore (someone on usenet claimed you could send it back to the factory directly). Whatever. The buyer seemed happy to get the deal, so maybe he was lucky.

Here is what happens when I enter the numbers off the label on the eBay page.

Here is what happens when I enter the numbers off the label on the eBay page.

Interesting. So, while I was thinking my drives are "OEM" (bulk pack), at least some of them aren't from the standpoint of passing this warranty/RMA page. I have about a dozen IBM drives. I think maybe I should collect all the S/Ns and punch them in -- see whether some of them are OEM OEM -- not RMA-able.

IBM: Inferior But Marketable

When I worked there it meant I've Been Molested, but prior to the screwing of the employees by Lou it meant I've Been Moved...
I always thought it should be more like, I'll Be Manager because that seems to be the entire goal of IBM, make you a manager, much like Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss ...

I love Maxtor, I have .4tb of it spinning in my house. But, they don't do laptop drives. WD has screwed me in the past, maybe it's time to look at them again.

All I can say is that the Special Edition 80GB drive I've got in my system at the moment is kicking ass.

All I can say is that the Special Edition 80GB drive I've got in my system at the moment is kicking ass.

Yeah I have a 100Gb and a Special Ed. 120Gb (8MB buffer.) So far so good...

Same here. I've got some 120GB SE drives and I love 'em. I had lots of problems with WD in the past, but these drives have changed my mind (about the SE line anyway).

Yup, I agree. I have a WD 100mb SE. Great drive. VERY good performance.

I saw a rather interesting IBM drive last night. My friend brought his system over so we could have a mini LAN last night. He plugged his power in, and watched his power supply smoke. So we then searched around for a replacement, and nothing I had was powerful enough beyond my server. He had a first gen slot Athlon, aka the Power Sucker(tm)

So I pulled out my recently created spare machine that used to be my main gaming PC, and we decided to toss his drive in, along with my old WD 13gig. He took his out, and it was an IBM 13 gig, that really closly matched the WD. Even down to a yellow plastic piece covering a controller chip and cache on the PCB. The one difference was that one of the other chips on the PCB had moved slightly, but all the other components matched, as did the overall design of the spindle and such.

Did IBM get their drives from other companies initially?

I think it's the other way around from what I remember. IBM developed some of the GMR head technology and licensed it to other companies. I'll find you the press release.... Okay. very old press release on their website

- Trevor

I am soured on WD due to many past drive failures, but their return process was very good.
Giving credit to 'practice makes perfect'. I too have had 2 IDE home PC drives go bad once they were installed were never moved & kept in ideal climate conditions. These failures seemed to coincide within a month of the passing of the warranty. I should note that the SMARTdrive did catch they were going bad but it was a little too late. I decided to see if I could take the drive apart and salvage the platters maybe install in another identical drive. The contact arm or head was making direct contact w/one of the platters w/the reading head laying to the side. The other platter/heads seemed fine.
The IBM drives I have have yet to fail me and the one Maxtor I have has passed all of them in performance believe it or not it's from a PC I bought in 1996.

Did you actually get it to work after transplanting the platters? You could do this years ago when the platters had a fairly low bit density but these days the tolerance needed is way too high for somebody to do it at home.

SMART monitoring hasn't worked very well for me. It only started warning me once there was serious problems with the drive which were noticeable anyway.

- Trevor

Did you actually get it to work after transplanting the platters?
I haven't exactly tried it as yet, first I had to find the right sized T-? bit which the size of all the T bits I have was of course the size I didn't have. Now I have the right bit but don't feel like possibly trashing the new/used matching drive I got on Ebay to see if the data is any good. Maybe someday when the new/used drive starts to go I'll try the swap.
SMART monitoring hasn't worked very well for me. It only started warning me once there was serious problems with the drive which were noticeable anyway.
I suppose you could say it worked for me but only tells you if somethings wrong when you restart Windows in DOS which I guess since Windows has to be restarted often works well. The drives didn't exhibit any signs of their future demise.

I don't think you'll be successful in swapping those platters because if I recall correctly all harddisks are sealed in a dust-free environment. I don't think you can emulate such an environment in your own home.
This means that even if the tiniest bit of dust gets onto the platter and gets between the platter and the head it will "scratch" the platter and data will be lost.

It's like you said : I wouldn't risk thrashing your new/used drive to repair this one, especially since your chances of actually repairing it yourself are practically 0.

Well ummm some people would say I do live in a vacuum so just maybe.

Those people are dead now, excuse me 'terminated with extreme prejudice'!

Well ummm some people would say I do live in a vacuum so just maybe.

Ah, in that case I guess you'll have half a chance then!

Those people are dead now, excuse me 'terminated with extreme prejudice'!

Oh, so they bit the dust then? (sorry, couldn't resist!)

People have apparently opened their drives and gotten them back together still working.. but actually moving the platters adds a whole lot more risk/complexity.

What you need is a friend with a job in a clean room and some spare time at lunch

Somebody on a mailing list I'm on has done exactly the same thing. He said that it started giving data errors after a few months but initially he didn't notice any visible problems.
I guess it's just due to luck that these things even work afterwards

- Trevor

It would be right that the errors don't show up immediately, but only after a while of use.
Imagine only one dust particle being trapped in the once opened harddisk. Surely that one little particle won't cause very much damage in the first ten seconds when you use your drive again. But it will grind on the platters every day, causing a little bit more damage and, given due time, data errors will show.

Too put into perspective - about five years ago someone did an analysis of (then) current drive technology and came out with this analogy to help visualize a disk read:

Imagine the Empire State Building lying on its side one inch above ground, flying at the speed of sound, and counting every blade of grass as it goes. Without errors.

Wasn't a speck of dust the size of a large boulder or something like that?
I've got a removable disk pack at home that has the unbelievable storage capacity of 5MB

- Trevor

I remember an article in Acorn User talking about hard drive technology (back in the day when people bought 10MB drives) and they had a diagram to represent the distance between the head and the platter and comparing it against a speck of dust, human hair, prawn cocktail flavoured crisp etc. I remember the difference being enormous...

prawn cocktail flavoured crisp

In american words... a shrimp cocktail flavored potato chip? That sounds kinda odd.

They don't taste of prawns at all. It's vaguely like the sauce you mix it with but not quite. Not sure how to describe it.

- Trevor

Mmmmm - Skips! Just melt on your tongue.

In american words... a shrimp cocktail flavored potato chip? That sounds kinda odd.

Prawn cocktail doesn't mean the same thing in the UK as it does in the US: in the UK it's cold cooked shelled prawns in a mayonnaise flavoured (and turned pink) by tomato puree, worcester sauce, and a tiny drop of tabasco. One American I know mystified a whole table of us by ordering a prawn cocktail in a restaurant in the UK and then, when it turned up, saying "What in the h**l is that?", when it was quite obviously (to us) a prawn cocktail.

But yes, prawn cocktail flavoured crisps are kinda odd. They have a bit of a cult following. I once had to import several packets for a homesick Brit I was visiting in Philadelphia.

Peter

O.K. I'm clear that what we in the UK call a prawn, is a Shrimp in the US, I've often eaten them. But does a prawn exist in the US and where does it fit in the scale of crustaceans?

Do you mean to ask if there's something that is called a prawn in the US and, if so, is it different from a shrimp? (Like the fact that an English biscuit is an American cookie, and an American biscuit is something else altogether?)

Very few people in the US use the word prawn. In fact, probably next to none. And if they do, they mean the same thing as a shrimp.

O.K. I'm clear that what we in the UK call a prawn, is a Shrimp in the US, I've often eaten them. But does a prawn exist in the US and where does it fit in the scale of crustaceans?

Ah, it wasn't the "prawn" bit that my colleague misunderstood -- he's bilingual enough to know about the prawn/shrimp situation -- it was the "cocktail" bit. It turns out that there's a common American restaurant dish called "shrimp cocktail" where the sauce is completely different, made mainly of chilli sauce and horseradish. I can understand the disappointment of anyone trying to order this and being served with the utterly genteel English version.

Peter

In fact, that sauce is referred to simply as ``cocktail sauce'', despite the fact that I do not believe it is used in any other dish.

We use the word prawn in the US. It usually refers to a large shrimp (usually in expensive restaurants). It is also synonymous with shrimp in many Chinese restaurants around here.

I am, of course, only able to speak for the NY/NJ area. Prawn may not be in the vocabulary of the rest of the country.

As for the actual difference between a Shrimp and a Prawn, this (PDF) gives a fairly good explanation. Most of the time I refer to a Prawn as a larger Shrimp, which is not always correct. For the most part the words are synonymous. However, the shrimp that is sometimes ordered on a pizza, or popcorn shrimp (breaded, fried shrimp) are, in fact, shrimp. What was I talking about? Bah! All I know is they are good. :P

Thanks, one and all, for sorting out the international prawn/shrimp question.
I love the shrimp cocktails you get in America, juicy and tasty, I hate the average prawn cocktail that we get here and would never order one.
Munching a fresh crab sandwich as I type!

I've got a removable disk pack at home that has the unbelievable storage capacity of 5MB

First computer I ever had experience with was a Datapoint mini-computer, it used removable data packs that held 2.5MB. These packs were about 16 inches in diameter, maybe three inches thick, and weighed in the neighborhood of 10 pounds apiece.

The drive unit that used these cartridges cost about $9,000 (back in 1976) and had a service life of two to three weeks between visits from the repairman. The computer was so fast that it could sort and re-index a 1000 line text file (index on the first 10 characters) in less than two minutes.

Believe it or not, this dreadful machine was still a vast improvement over the way we had been doing things before we acquired it.

Ahhh, the Good Old Days. They really weren't, you know...

tanstaafl.