Musical Maxtor

[Smarky]

My replacement one touch drive was doing so well! Now no beeps but it keeps locking up, I can hear the hard drive clicking, as if it's trying or searching. I can get it one for short time, sometimes this is only a matter of seconds, this is very annoying, this is my second drive! I thought Maxtor made good hard drives? Maybe it's a problem with these extrenal ones, never had any problems with Maxtor internals, 2 faulty drives? This one is only two months old!

I hope it starts working soon! any ideas?

[fixxxer487]

hey, I was just reading through the thread in hopes of finding a solution to my roomates failed maxtor ( I am trying the fridge trick as we speak for lack of any other logical solution) The small box on top of the hard drive in the begining of this thread seems to contain small spheres, in my opening this looks to be somewhat like activated charcoal, a very good air filter. I may be wrong, somebody may have posted and I missed it, but thats my take on things. I woulnd't be suprised if the box walls were vibrating causing that high pitched sound either....

[douro32]

Quantum once did make SCSI hard drives with diagnostic beep codes, but Seagate is the only drive manufacturer that currently makes hard drives that actually have diagnostic beep codes...try starting up your Seagate with the IDE cable plugged in backwards or inserted partially and you'll hear what I mean. The sound is actually made by the head servo mechanism. As for that beep that occurs when the drive is shut down in Windows, Seagate has a fix for that on their website.

[jsaitken]

My 30GB Maxtor Diamond Max Plus won't spin up.
I've tried the freezer trick.
I've tried swapping the controller.
I think I've got a failed bearing but am hoping that twisting the drive might allow me to overcome stiction and get something off it.

Anybody know whether these drives (or all drives universally) spin in the same direction? Ie. when looking down onto the platters (pcb underneath) does anyone know whether the platters should be spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? Knowing this might allow me to optimize my twisting technique.

[djphoo]

just because maxtor won't admit it, and because this was the only site that helped me, i'd like to keep the thread going with my experience.

i had the maxtor diamondmax plus 9 200 gb drive moved around outside of my computer for a few days ( because of the other drive, a maxtor sata 250 gb crashing and burning... ), and when i went to put it back in, i too got the singing/beeping every 15 seconds or so.. and you can feel the drive vibrating during the beeps. after reading about the tapping/hitting in this forum, i was able to get the drive to start spinning again by moderately tapping my knuckle against the side of the drive. with the power on, i kept the drive horizontal, and i tapped in a horizontal motion against the vertical side wall. as soon as it started spinning, the beeps went away and i moved the data to another drive.

my appreciative thanks to this site..

..george

[jens198]

Hi all,

got the same problem as you got boys. A Maxtor 250GB external HD with familiy pictures on it (the only difference is my wife. She will give me hell if the kids photos a gone). A few days ago the HD started making that meldoy. I tried tapping and knocking the drive, but I had no success.

Can anyone (who was successful) give me a hint where to push/hit exactly?

Jens

P.S. Any other help is also welcome

[Xtreeme]

Hmm maxtor is slipping. Like Ive said before I had the 30gig when it first came out. diamond max series. Had it 5 days-then it dropped 10 sectors with a screeching (ching ching ching) sound at startup! Returned to store and guess what-all the 30gig'ers were gone. None on the shelves and the manager said the orders were being refilled (IE no stock in 30gig in warehouse). Sounds like a bad batch of drives he told me. I agreed. Worst they disapeared from other stores aswell. Very quietly like. I think maxtor is doing it again. Covering their mistakes. And folks are trusting their name with their data! Nice maxtor. Well WD, Samsung, Seagate and toshiba will take your buisness gladly. Personally I went to WD, now samsung. Anything but maxtor.

"Anybody know whether these drives (or all drives universally) spin in the same direction? Ie. when looking down onto the platters (pcb underneath) does anyone know whether the platters should be spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? Knowing this might allow me to optimize my twisting technique."

The dead drives Ive torn apart were older but they all spun clockwise.

[happytheman]

Hi

just reporting another instance of banging a Maxtor making it work. A gentle knuckle tap didn't work. A slightly fiercer tap just damaged me. A couple of knocks with, oddly enough, the TV remote (nearest thing) made it start up.

New HDD tomorrow I think. In the meantime, thanks lots to you folks on the thread. My blood pressure is lower because of you.

[SpaceSquad]

Ppl have got to stop reviving these old topics--> 80Gb hd?! No way lol

[CES]

Just an update. I RMA'd the drive and received the replacement drive from Maxtor and installed it. However, Windows scandisk wanted to check the drive on every boot so I put a new ribbon cable in and checked the drive with PowerMax. Sure enough, it's defective. Time for another RMA.

I now have 2 Western Digitals in there and they both work just fine.

Assuming Maxtor sends me a good drive this time, I'll save it for another build.