Maxtor drive repaired itself?

[Cactus Jack]

My 250gb drive which is no more than 5 months old decided to go freaky on me 2 days ago. So I ran the powermax software that Maxtor says you need to get a code to get a RMA. Well it coughs one up, deb04f000. Great I think, 200gb+ of data I have the possibility of losing. So I power the comp down and order another 250gb drive hoping this drive can hold out long enough to cough up my data..

The new drive arrives Wednesday; I install it and begin the process of copying the dying drive to it. Everything goes well, and now I'm ready to RMA this dying one. I go to Maxtor's site, input the diagnosis code but there isn't enough space for it. I try a bunch of different combinations thinking I had written it down incorrectly, but no dice. I then look and see I had used an old version of Powermax I had from a few months ago when I had had some general system problems. So I grab the new powermax software, reinstall the dying drive which by this time is sitting in a box ready to be shipped back, and now it suddenly works. The clicking is gone, the freezing isn't there, and it passes even the 90 second test powermax test which before it was failing and telling me to do the full test. I think hmmm, maybe the old software saw something this one didn't and do the same tests again, which it passes.

I'm not sure what to do with this freaking thing now. Would Maxtor be willing to RMA it if I called and brought this up or am I now stuck with a drive I have absolutely no faith in putting data on?

 

[Ice Czar]

well a "click" is the drive recalibrating itself because of an error
a sector that has gone bad can cause that error
the drive can lock out that sector and replace it with a spare

my best guess as to what has occured
as to what Maxtor will say, your guess as is good as mine
call then or email them the original error and an explaination of the course of events

Good Luck

 

[Cactus Jack]

I was thinking it was a bad sector after this turnaround, but the fact that it has done it so early in its life has me a bit freaked. I'm going to try for a RMA since I have zero faith in this disk now (not that I had that much to begin with ).

 

[Ice Czar]

well sectors do go bad at all stages of the life span of a drive
no HDD is ever manufactured perfectly and they all ship with bad sectors that are locked out
though the frequency of sectors that go bad obviously increases over time
and seriously increase with a head slap and subsequent physical wear of the head running over ejected debris

and a head slap can be shipping related, (or a slightly too hard a shove when installing or a bump when spinning)
its all probabilities, it could be a normal sector failure or it could be the first sign of bad things to come