At the time of the acquistion, a Seagate press release stated that the Maxtor
brand name and current technology would be retained, and that the Maxtor line
would be positioned as a consumer product. Ergo, Maxtor remains cheaply
designed and manufactured low quality stuff sold to consumers who are often
ignorant of brand name quality and who do not have the financial clout to stuff
broken products back down the Seagate-Maxtor throat. Sure enough. Maxtor
drives turn up in retail big box stores and in cheap consumer-oriented computers
such as HP Pavilions, Compaq Presarios and GateMachines.

The best we can all hope for is that the Maxtor tarnish does not rub off on
Seagate drives and that Seagate finishes its production runs of Maxtor drives
and substitutes its own more reliable technology to sell under the Maxtor name.
AFAIK, the latter has not happened yet... Ben Myers

On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:45:34 -0700 (PDT), "William R. Walsh"
wrote:

Hi!

Sandisk Cruzar 4 gig flash drive -- $17.99

That's a pretty good deal from a well respected name. Sure, why not?

Maxtor 500 gb ext. hard drive $89.99

No, no, no, no, no, no, no and no. Did I say no? g

I have exactly three Maxtor drives that continue to give reliable
service. The rest (and there have been lot, both belonging to me and
others) have been bad news. I don't know if they've gotten any better
since Seagate bought them. I doubt it and don't plan to find out.

William