Lance A. Brown wrote:
How many sectors should generate read failures during a long selftest?
None?
Eek! Time to recover what data you can, and move on. In my experience, in your situation, the more you read from the drive the more it's going to go down hill. Pick your critical files, pull them off, then try and do a full backup. Take what you can and start to recover to a new drive.I'm up past 25 and counting at this point.
Every time I re-run the selftest it just coughs up another read failureI'm not sure if this is what you're running, but you should pull down Maxtor's PowerMax software to see what it thinks of your drive. If it passes both tests, you're drive is probably fine. If it fails, time to shop. Note: this software requires windows to actually make the floppies that you boot from to diagnose the disk (how amazingly annoying). You can find it here: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=22
on a new sector.
Time to start shopping for a disk deal?I'd recommend picking up something with a longer warranty than the (I'd guess 1yr) warranty on your existing Maxtor. The Western Digital 160JB is a nice pick (7200rpm, 8MB cache). It's a bit larger than your existing drive and (hopefully) with a 3yr warranty you'll have time to actually fill it up. :) Cost at NewEgg, $94.69 (after shipping)... although it's not in stock. Cost at your local Intrex, $109.99. Cost after your TriLUG discount (if you're a card-carrying member) $105.20. Yes, it's in stock. :) If you have the option to go Serial ATA, you might want to look at similar drives, although the prices and availability will be naturally different.
Unfortunately drives dying is par for the course these days. Falling prices have roughly equated to falling quality, when considered in aggregate over the past ~8 years. Hopefully the recent trend (led by Maxtor) back to 3yr warranties will hold the manufacturers to higher quality standards... but somehow I doubt it.
Aaron S. Joyner
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