Korean Job Discussion Forums

cellphone · Joined: 18 Feb 2004

I need to get a new hard drive. My Maxtor 120 gb (8mb buffer) is clicking alot, system freezes frequently and even at startup many times comp won't fire up. Best guess is hard drive failure..... What I wonder is, does this mean the drive only has days before it dies, or could it go on like this for many more months? In that case, at least I would be able to buy new drive and eventually do file transfers even with freezes/locks. On the other hand, does this clicking mean it's dead within a week?

Went looking at Yongsan this afternoon. Prices not fabulous but not bad if you are in need for one quick. I saw some Seagates (Barracudas), best prices I saw were 160gb/7200rpm/8mb for 125,000won. However 120 gb's were still around 110,000 won, and those were the best prices.

Quick question, should I bargain on these prices no matter how settled they seem on price and even if the HD is new? About how much down should I be able to go on the 160gb currently at 125,000w? Maybe down to 110,000 or even 100,000? Or are we really only talking more only a few thousand won? Same with the 120gb currently at 109,000 won?

Secondly, they said most of the new drives had 1 or 2 yr warranties, even the USA drives (Maxtor) supposedly offered warranty IN KOREA. So this apparently means I could get the drive serviced all still inside this country. Question, does the warranty include ONLY manufacturing defects or does it also cover general usage failure? And also, do you trust these warranties in this country, being they are USA drives? I mean after all they could say anything they want, but then later cop out by saying "They are American drives, not Korean" and back out, perhaps(?).

Thirdly and MOST importantly, some of the vendors selling new hard drives were actually selling from make shift tables OUTSIDE, that is they were not located in a solid store inside the building. They were right out front of the Sunin(?) bldg at fold-up tables. A few others were real brick stores inside. Anyways, the important thing is, almost ALL of these so-called "new" drives came only as the drive itself in plastic wrap, that is there was no box nor professional packaging -- this leads you to think you have less chances at future warranty coverage since all you will have is the drive itself and any lame printed paper they might decide to give you, no UPC nor other official markings. In any event, especially with these outdoor sales and what not, I mean has your experience told you they are trustworthy overall? (I guess they wouldn't be authorized to sell there in the first place if they were fly by night, but still....)

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

You can't barter too much on one item, and a cheap one at that. Don't expect much, if anything, 2000 won. You're not buying a shirt in India... Razz

Second, the place you bought the drive will take it back and get you a new one, no questions asked. Many drives are boxless...anti-static bagged, but boxless, so don't expect a warranty card. Get the name card of the shop who sold it to you with a reciept, and you will be fine.

Buy inside the building from a store with a reputation on the line.

cellphone · Joined: 18 Feb 2004

"Buy inside the building from a store with a reputation on the line."

Guess that explains why the best prices were from the tables outside...

Regarding warranty, wow so much more simple than back home, huh? If it's within the 1 year warranty, they simply take it and give you a new one? Back home it's alot harder, first you pay with credit card, then get original receipts, then you fill out paper work, then you complete online submission. Then with failure you ship the unit away, they take time to repair; shipping involved. The good thing is it's more official. But here, so simple, apparently. I think the down side here is that, if there is failure it sounds like they will not include data recovery nor repair, which means less responsibility on their part for future failure. Hmmmm....

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Well, in all my years of computing, I have never had a hard disk outright fail. I have bought 2 that were bad from the start...bad sectors, so they wouldn't format. I bought these in Korea and had a new one without question.

No, data recovery is not part of the deal...is it in the west? Didn't know that.

....backup, friend. Constantly backup anything you can't afford to lose. Buy a DVD-RW while your at it....

cellphone · Joined: 18 Feb 2004

well finally bought one, but now wondering how wise it was to buy the one I did. Got a Western Digital, 160gb, 8mb buffer, 7200 rpm for the nice low price of 117,000 won. Also it comes in a real box (not just wrap) and on top of that, it has a full 3 year warranty. So that's what made me buy in haste when I did.

Here's the only kicker or downside, after I bought it I later realize that it is ATA100 and not 133. Any opinions on what that really means? The strange thing is they are still selling them well over in the US so apparently someone is still buying them. However apparently at ATA100 it will clearly lack in data transfer speed, correct?

Also any opinions on Western Digital in general? Overall good, bad, or? as far as quality.

Now the not so fun part --- I have to format the sucker, never liked doing that, can't even quite remember how, apparently there's several ways, i.e. use drive software that came with it, or use a self-made boot disk, etc.... Does WinXP have an auto drive format selection at time of install? However that will only format in the NTFS mode yes? So if by chance I want to do something with WinME or earlier, won't be able to read FAT32, so I was thinking of making 10 or 20 GB in the FAT32 mode....

Any opinions or recs appreciated....

the_beaver · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

For the format in xp just stick the drive in, click on my computer, right click on the drive and choose format.

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Congrats on the purchase. Good price too.

WD have mixed reviews from me...both of the bad drives I have had have been WD. One went south a few days after I bought it, the other didn't work from the start. Don't sweat it though....they are really hit and miss...like anything. The chances of getting a bad one are slim.

Use Partition Magic to do the file system work after formatting. Create a partition and then format it with FAT32. If you don't have partition magic, I can let you have it on my F T P. It's 57MB....my FTP isn't so fast, but it would only take a few minutes, I'm sure. PM me if you want it.

ATA 100 is pretty fast. The difference will be negligable....very small.

http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1820

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

All the big HD companies (ones that I've used at any rate) have programs you can download in order to facilitate installation of a new HD, transferring O/S and data from your old HD, etc.

Here's Western Digital's:

WD Data Lifeguard tools and diagnostic utilities

How to copy or backup one hard drive to another using Data Lifeguard Tools 11.

WD: How to install, partition, and format an EIDE drive in Windows XP.

(You might want to check out what diagnostic tools Maxtor has and run them on your old HD; You might find that it's still good enough to use as a secondary HD)

jazblanc77 · Joined: 22 Feb 2004

Down from Above · Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Location: Naju

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Pretty cheap drive....don't like the 2MB buffer at all though.

jazblanc77 · Joined: 22 Feb 2004

Gollum · Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Location: Japan

I bought a refurbished computer from Gateway about 5 years ago. From day 1, the hard drive made some strange noises, and started acting just like yours. I kept talking to tech support on the phone, and they were having me hold the phone up to the drive, etc. They were putting me through a list of questions to determine if they really wanted to send me a new drive or not.

During one of the calls, the drive suddenly let out a big RRRRIIIPPPPP sound, like a skill saw that gets stuck in dense wood and stops. The Gateway guy heard it (the phone wasn't even near the computer) and he says, "WHAT WAS THAT?!?" I told him it was the hard drive, and a new one was on its way.

I bet yours will reach that same demise. That particular drive was a Western Digital, btw.

cellphone · Joined: 18 Feb 2004

here's an update...

Well fortunately things working well. On the format of new drive, simply booted from cd-rom and let WinXP completely take over. On format put it at 135gb in NTFS and left remainder (~25gb) non-partitioned. Format took awhile, then went right into WinXP installation.

Totally working flawlessly. Here's the interesting part. Once I used my Maxtor 120gb as a slave (drive E: ), it worked perfectly as slave from the new WinXP desktop on drive C:. All folders/files accessible, no drive noises. Went ahead and ran Disk Defragmenter FROM WinXP C: onto 120gb drive. Took darn near 20 hours.

After that, went ahead and replugged the 120gb Maxtor back as Main C: drive, it works perfectly now. No drive errors, definately no drive noises clicking etc, in other words like nothing ever happened after I finished disk defrag. So, all that drive knocking clicking and system crashing (as well as system not booting at turn-on and drive inaccessible) apparently must have been related to fragmentation.

But in any event yah, I'm still going to sit down and copy a bunch of files from the 120gb and make backups.

Thanks all for the feedback. Demophobe I'll PM you as I could probably use that Partition Magic. I am thinking of making a few more partition arrangements and maybe put two O/Ss on there perhaps....