Seagate Drive has bad sectors again

[npolite]

Need some help here. I had purchased a Seagate 2.5" ST980825A 80GB 7200rpm drive (Momentus 7200.1 model) on 10/24/2007 to put into my Thinkpad T41. After numerous crashes I found out that the drive had a bunch of bad sectors. I had it replaced on March 3rd of this year, then again on June 17th for the same reason. I have been running scans every week or two to see if the issue would pop up again and sure enough it did again today. You can see by the picture below that it doesn't look too good. So I've been thinking, could me moving the laptop around be causing this problem because it is a 7200rpm drive? I had to screw in a cage on the bottom of the drive to get it to mount inside of my laptop. Could that be causing a problem? I very rarely move it and when I do it is with caution because I wanted to avoid this kind of issue. Should I call Seagate tomorrow and ask that they give me a 7200.2 or .3 model if they have them in IDE or downgrade to a 5400rpm drive? I have the old IBM 40gig 5400rpm drive that is about 5+ years old and not one bad sector on it.

 

[croc]

Need some help here. I had purchased a Seagate 2.5" ST980825A 80GB 7200rpm drive (Momentus 7200.1 model) on 10/24/2007 to put into my Thinkpad T41. After numerous crashes I found out that the drive had a bunch of bad sectors. I had it replaced on March 3rd of this year, then again on June 17th for the same reason. I have been running scans every week or two to see if the issue would pop up again and sure enough it did again today. You can see by the picture below that it doesn't look too good. So I've been thinking, could me moving the laptop around be causing this problem because it is a 7200rpm drive? I had to screw in a cage on the bottom of the drive to get it to mount inside of my laptop. Could that be causing a problem? I very rarely move it and when I do it is with caution because I wanted to avoid this kind of issue. Should I call Seagate tomorrow and ask that they give me a 7200.2 or .3 model if they have them in IDE or downgrade to a 5400rpm drive? I have the old IBM 40gig 5400rpm drive that is about 5+ years old and not one bad sector on it.





http://i28.tinypic.com/wmibdl.jpg

Download Seagate's diagnostics, and run them. Then call Seagate, they may want the output of the diags. They'll probably suggest that you RMA the drive, at which time install your old IBM drive to get by on. What you use the drive for should make no difference to the MFG, and I'd raise a cow with any MFG that suggested that my usage was the cause of the issue.

That said, it is never good to move a laptop very much with the drive running. (My partner, though, dropped her wee Vaio from chair height to the kitchen floor once (linoleum over concrete) with no damage done other than she disconnected her headset from the poor laptop - this while in a skype call with her daughter)

 

[amnotanoobie]

Or you could just be plain unlucky, it'd be advisable to rma it. 3rd times the charm?

* Unless if the idea of "moving laptop around" means dropping it five feet flat to the ground.

 

[kikireeki]

1- make sure that your laptop supports 7200 rpm hdd
2- Sorry to tell you that but to me, Seagate Momentus has proven to be unreliable. Try WD Scorpio but again be aware to the capacity and the speed your laptop can handel

 

[npolite]

According to IBM's web site the T41 supports:

•4200, 5400,or 7200 rpm depending on drive size

I also have the IBM protection system to help protect the drive. This 2nd replacement was the first time I used it.

•The Hard Drive Active Protection system protects your HDD when the shock sensor inside your ThinkPad computer detects a situation that could potentially damage the HDD.

So I'm ok with the 7200 rpm.

It isn't like I'm moving the drive all over the place. I should be able to move it around and theIBM drive has probably been moved around a lot more than the Seagate. I'm going to press for either having a downgrade to 5400 rpm or a change in model revisions to a newer one. This is the 3rd replacement and will be the 4th drive so this isn't a one off thing here; it's going to happen again.