Yep, I was in the word processor last Thursday night when the box did the lock-up. I knew right away what had died. Reboots yielded clean POST's but Windows would not load. Next evening I swapped out the IBM with a Maxtor and the bits n' bytes started flowing again. Sunday evening I E-mailed the vendor but still have not heard from them. With the attitude IBM has taken toward it's data storage customers lately I don't expect too much from them.Lemonade from lemons version: I now have a clean install of the OS and applications. :-lol

Not to take issue with your statements, but MY top of the line Western Digital ATA100 80 Gig lasted 27.3 DAYS! Took me 14 days to get a replacement drive, which is just over HALF the time it had actually run :-lol6 months is just a tad better then 27 days in my humble opinion ;-)Seeing as you state you emailed the vendor, I find it rather likely that you have an OEM drive, not a retail IBM product, which you would have called up IBM and had the replacement drive shipped that day ...

27.3 days!!! OuchGo figure... in my shop I have an old 486 EISA computer used every day for programming some of my CNC machine tools. It has a WD 350MB HD and has been running for almost 10 years.I bought the IBM at Fry's. There was no documentation (which should have been a clue right there :-doh )Regards,

>I bought the IBM at Fry's. There was no documentation >(which should have been a clue right there :-doh ) My freind got Segate at Fry's too, and there was no ducumation or CDs that said it is included either. Maybe it's Fry's problem? (they rock though, ecpecialy on CPU&Mabo combo prices)I thought IBM is going to stop making HDs. Did I get it right or is it false information?Georgi

IBM is getting out of the HD biz, eventough I use IBM servers, the first thing that happens upon delivery, is I yank the OEM IBM HD out and install a Quantum. For my personal "stuff" is use Maxtor or WD.Where you been hiding Georgi? :-)http://fsgateway.com/images/frank.jpgwww.FSGateway.com

Greg, you bought the "OEM" version instead of the "Retail" version. I only buy OEMs because they are cheaper, same product without the pretty box.BTW, I am installing a couple of 80GB IBM DeskStar 120GXP drives today at work, these are fast and quiet disks. I've used the DeskStar 7200 RPM drives extensibly with relatively good results. I believe all hard drives are pretty much like the lottery but with huge odds of getting a bad one, regardless of brand and model.J. Padron---

>Where you been hiding Georgi? :-) >>http://fsgateway.com/images/frank.jpg >www.FSGateway.com Hi Frank. I'm not able to play FS2002. In Windows XP, all games freze and I haven't found solution.(ati2dvag.dll causes it)Updated all drivers I could think off, posted various forums, no solution. I haven't seen something like this, I've been using computers for 10 years.I believe it's uncompability between ATi running on XP with Ali Magic chipset. (Soyo mabo)I installed 98SE as my 2nd OS so I can play games and there is no freezes caused my ATI, but now Santa Cruz drivers for 98 suck and they make few games freeze.I can turn off acceleration of sound, but still there is some problem with sound in FS2002 when using Santa Cruz in 98.(it's listed in MS Knowledge detabase)I will be chnaging my Mabo just in 1 week (on 7th) and I will hope that everything will work on XP and I will be back to FS2002.As you see, I posted in non FS2002 related topic...I haven't played FS for 1 month now :'(

I agree, it's a crap shoot. But with all that is going on right now with IBM's Data Storage unit I replaced the bad drive with a new Maxtor. I may gamble somewhat with CPU, MB, Memory, sound and video technology, but I prefer to be more conservative when it comes to data storage.Regards,

Steer clear of Maxtor and IBM- Western Digital is your best bet. I've had bad luck with Maxtor, a lot with their product, and a lot more with their customer support and RMA policies.Maxtor Bad!!!!

>Steer clear of Maxtor and IBM- Western Digital is your best >bet. I've had bad luck with Maxtor, a lot with their >product, and a lot more with their customer support and RMA >policies. >>>Maxtor Bad!!!! :-roll Because you've had "bad luck" with Maxtor everyone else should stay away? Perhaps if you elaborated on your above statements they may actually be taken seriously... It's great when you can actually backup your opinion with facts - lends credibility to your argument ;) Max Cowgill

Max CowgillI would agree...IBM has, in fact, had a history going all the way back to the famous "junk" AT 20 meg hard drives that they would not acknowledge as bad, but I have not heard that about Maxtor.I would be curious and interested to know if it "really" true.Bob (Lecanto, Fl)AMD, Athlon XP, 1800+MSI, K7T266 XP ProPC 2100 DDR, 1024 MBXP, Home Edition Elsa GLadiac 920, GF3/64Mb andPNY, Verto nVidia TNT 2-M64/32WD, 100 MB, 7200, Ultra 100Sound Blaster, Audigy MP3+CH Prod, VPP Yoke - Sound CardCH Prod, Pedals - Sound Card

Well, I was having a similar issue with an IBM hard disk earlier this year - some of you might remember my help calls on this forum :-) . Last summer (must have been July or August) I bought a 40 gig IBM DTLA 305040 hard disk to be used as a "secondary" (i.e. only for data storage and "non-essential" software such as games). The primary disk was the same Samsung 15 gig HD that had been installed in my PC when I bought it about two years ago. One night I was doing a defrag on that 40 gig disk and had already proceeded to 98 or 99%. Then all of a sudden the defragger would seem to lock up, and even before I had completely realized it the disk started making "ticking" noises - much like a clock if you like. Of course I immediately went "OH NO!!!!", but after a few minutes of frenzy I got myself together again and rebooted the computer. The disk was back online again, and I figured I should start retrieving as much data as possible on the "healthy" disk and burn them on CD in multisession mode. Indeed the disk remained operational at least in a limited fashion - when transferring more than about 300 megs at once it would temporarily quit again. Well, in a long and nerve-consuming evening's session I rescued almost all my important documents, downloaded files etc. on CD and pulled the plug on the defective disk. I never really found out what had been wrong with it, though I speculate it could have been an overheating failure. Therefore, when I got a replacement disk (100 gig WD Caviar WD1000BB 7200 rpm) I purchased a twin HD cooling fan along with it in order to (hopefully) prevent another disaster like that in the future. Anyone who has been through a similar experience will hopefully agree with me that disk failures like these are no fun at all!

I'd have to agree it's a total crap shoot. I assembled 3 machines about 3 years ago and used the IBM Deskstar 20GB 7200 rpm drives. 2 failed in the first 6 months. The third drive is in this machine.Our company bought 25 new PC clones built locally. We chose the WD 40GB ATA100 caviar drives: 5 have died in the first 3 months. Never know what yer gonna get. I guess one thing to note is the high rpm drives tend to fail faster than the 5200 rpm units.Noel

Did you get proper licenses for the OS that came on your machines?I've never seen this happen yet!!!!

>Did you get proper licenses for the OS that came on your >machines? >I've never seen this happen yet!!!! What does that have to do with dying machines?