My IBM/Hitachi GXP180 120GB periodically makes a strange noise - Is this normal?

"John123" wrote in message
ws.com...
Hi!

I have an IBM/Hitachi 180GXP 120GB HD which I just have bought. I've
noticed
that it periodically (every 5-20 minutes or so) makes a strange noise,
sounding like "iiiieee". The sound lasts for about 1-2 seconds. I've had
no
other problems with the drive so far, but I just want to know if it's
normal
that this HD model sounds like this? I've seen some people report that
they
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near but
indeterminate point in the future.

Ian

also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every once in
a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk is completely
dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting
IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the "squeeeeeak clonk-clonk"
sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?
TIA, ~Mike

"Miblo" wrote in message om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every once in
a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk is completely
dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting
IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the "squeeeeeak clonk-clonk"
sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:16:20 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP
series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this
noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too
noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise
from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes
this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the
heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at
some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every
once in a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk
is completely dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs
at boot 'Detecting IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the
"squeeeeeak clonk-clonk" sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been running
since April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)



I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing the
occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3 were
60GXPs, the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I mentioned them
on this newsgroup.

If you have killed five drives in a row in the span of a few months then
the problem is not with the drives. IBM drives may or may not have real
problems but they are not _that_ bad that five in a row will die without
external cause.

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars.

Or you can back up your data, which if you have been whinging to this
newsgroup over the course of killing 5 drives I'm sure you have been
told before.

There
are companies that dismantle the drive in a clean room and get it
back. As I understand it, there's no other way; it's the drive
mechanism failing, not the electronics, so swapping cards won't
achieve anything.

The only other way is to back up the data before the drive fails

Which one should do as a matter of course if the data are valuable.

When I first heard the squeak clonk clonk it took me a while to figure
out where it was coming from because it only happens occasionally for
a very short time. I thought it was the cat flap at first IME the
deaths normally come suddenly and with little warning other than the
squeak clonk. It tends to go; windows goes blue screen, "can't write
to drive, data may have been lost"; reboot machine-BIOS MAY detect it,
but on mine won't boot further; restart again drive completely dead.

It seems from anecdotal evidence that this design flaw which everyone
thought was limited to the 60GXP series actually affects the later
series(120, 180) too.

Ian




--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every once in
a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk is completely
dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting
IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the "squeeeeeak clonk-clonk"
sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been running since
April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)



I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing the
occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3 were 60GXPs,
the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I mentioned them on this
newsgroup.

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars. There are
companies that dismantle the drive in a clean room and get it back. As I
understand it, there's no other way; it's the drive mechanism failing, not
the electronics, so swapping cards won't achieve anything.

The only other way is to back up the data before the drive fails

When I first heard the squeak clonk clonk it took me a while to figure out
where it was coming from because it only happens occasionally for a very
short time. I thought it was the cat flap at first IME the deaths
normally come suddenly and with little warning other than the squeak clonk.
It tends to go; windows goes blue screen, "can't write to drive, data may
have been lost"; reboot machine-BIOS MAY detect it, but on mine won't boot
further; restart again drive completely dead.

It seems from anecdotal evidence that this design flaw which everyone
thought was limited to the 60GXP series actually affects the later series
(120, 180) too.

Ian

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:21:03 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"J.Clarke" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:16:20 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message

n...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP
series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this
noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too
noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise
from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive
makes this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well,
the heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at
some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what
that suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard
it every once in a while, but not paid any attention to it).
Now the disk is completely dead. The machine can't even
detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting IDE drives...' and a
endlessly repeats the"squeeeeeak clonk-clonk" sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the
disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been
running since April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)



I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing
the occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3
were 60GXPs, the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I
mentioned them on this newsgroup.

If you have killed five drives in a row in the span of a few months
then the problem is not with the drives. IBM drives may or may not
have real problems but they are not _that_ bad that five in a row
will die without external cause.

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars.

Or you can back up your data, which if you have been whinging to
this newsgroup over the course of killing 5 drives I'm sure you have
been told before.


I have not been "whinging" to this newsgroup,

Yes, you have. And you're doing more of it.

and I have backups. I
advised further down my post that the way to avoid data loss is to
back up. The point I replied to here was regarding getting back data
on a drive that has already failed. Read and understand what you are
replying to before being rude and making a fool of yourself.

I'm not making a fool of myself, and I can't make a fool of you because
you already are one.

The problems, and mechanical cause of the problems, with the
IBM/Hitachi GXP drives are widely known and understood and have been
widely discussed, on this ng and in many other places on the net.

Yes, they have. But those problems are not such that 5 drives in a row
will fail in a matter of months.

Even
IBM have admitted that their drives will not stand up to my pattern of
usage (at least 16 hours a day of active use).

That is not what they have "admitted". They have provided a guideline
for usage.

It is probable that reporting of these failures has dropped
significantly with the later ranges, because those "in the know" who
are likely to discuss and report them moved to other brands following
the fiasco with the early GXP ranges.

And your point is?

I myself have certainly read
many reports of people losing a slew of identical GXP drives within
days or weeks of one another. They are without doubt fundamentally
mechanically flawed.

Yes, I have ready many such reports as well. And they always make me
wonder why, having experienced two drive failures in succession, the
poster did not carefully examine his hardware and find out if there was
anything going on that could be harming the drive. They never report
voltages or temperatures for example.

I myself am now running WDs and Maxtors, except for that one last
120GXP, and am unlikely to buy IBM/Hitachi drives ever again. I'm only
keeping it in the system out of an interest in seeing how long it
staggers along for before failing.

Goody.

Perhaps you would prefer to make some positive contribution to the
discussion, or are you too busy showing off?

My "positive contribution" is to suggest that anyone who suffers a drive
failure examine his machine carefully to make sure that it is providing
proper cooling and power for the drive, and to suggest that 5 failures
in a row in a matter of months is generally indicative of an external
problem.

Also, read up on
probability before claiming that events which seem unlikely never
occur. I presume from what you say that you believe that tossing a
perfect coin will produce the sequence; heads, tails, heads, tails,
heads, tails, heads, tails...

Oh. I see. So your five failures in a row were mere coincidence and
indicate nothing about the quality of the drives. Do tell.


--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message ...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every once in
a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk is completely
dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting
IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the "squeeeeeak clonk-clonk"
sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?

Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi.

Urk. Those are called DeathStars for a reason |-(

Been running since April. Died in june...

You're likely out of luck. There have been no confirmed reports
that swapping the logic card on the drive allows the recovery of
the data with those 180GXP drives. I guess if the data is very
important, and you cant justify the very high cost of pro data
recovery, it would be worth trying give hard drives are now so cheap.

Its crucial to try it with an identical model drive, including identical firmware.

"Ian Bland" wrote in message ...
"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive makes this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well, the heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what that
suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard it every once in
a while, but not paid any attention to it). Now the disk is completely
dead. The machine can't even detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting
IDE drives...' and a endlessly repeats the "squeeeeeak clonk-clonk"
sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been running since
April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)

I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing the
occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3 were 60GXPs,
the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I mentioned them on this
newsgroup.

Did you ever resolve why you have killed so many ?

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars. There are
companies that dismantle the drive in a clean room and get it back. As I
understand it, there's no other way; it's the drive mechanism failing, not
the electronics, so swapping cards won't achieve anything.

Dont agree with that last. Quite a few IBM GXP drives can be
returned to usability again with the use of DFT, so the problem
cant be a physical failure of the drive, or that wouldnt be possible.

And just because that has been seen, doesnt mean that he hasnt
seen a logic card failure himself. That noise is normally just the
drive recalibrating when the data cant be seen, and there are
quite a few points of failure than can produce that recalibration.

The only other way is to back up the data before the drive fails

When I first heard the squeak clonk clonk it took me a while to figure
out where it was coming from because it only happens occasionally
for a very short time. I thought it was the cat flap at first IME the
deaths normally come suddenly and with little warning other than the
squeak clonk. It tends to go; windows goes blue screen, "can't write
to drive, data may have been lost"; reboot machine-BIOS MAY detect
it, but on mine won't boot further; restart again drive completely dead.

If the logic card is fine, and there is just a failure inside the
sealed chamber, the drive should be visible, even tho not usable.

It seems from anecdotal evidence that this design flaw
which everyone thought was limited to the 60GXP series

It was first seen with the 75GXPs actually, and took a while
before it became clear that it also affected the 60GXPs.

actually affects the later series (120, 180) too.

Not completely clear its the same problem tho, particularly on that
detail that DFT can return an unusable drive to usability again.

"J.Clarke" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:21:03 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"J.Clarke" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:16:20 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message

n...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP
series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this
noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too
noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise
from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive
makes this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well,
the heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at
some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what
that suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard
it every once in a while, but not paid any attention to it).
Now the disk is completely dead. The machine can't even
detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting IDE drives...' and a
endlessly repeats the"squeeeeeak clonk-clonk" sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the
disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been
running since April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)



I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing
the occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3
were 60GXPs, the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I
mentioned them on this newsgroup.

If you have killed five drives in a row in the span of a few months
then the problem is not with the drives. IBM drives may or may not
have real problems but they are not _that_ bad that five in a row
will die without external cause.

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars.

Or you can back up your data, which if you have been whinging to
this newsgroup over the course of killing 5 drives I'm sure you have
been told before.


I have not been "whinging" to this newsgroup,

Yes, you have. And you're doing more of it.

and I have backups. I
advised further down my post that the way to avoid data loss is to
back up. The point I replied to here was regarding getting back data
on a drive that has already failed. Read and understand what you are
replying to before being rude and making a fool of yourself.

I'm not making a fool of myself, and I can't make a fool of you because
you already are one.

The problems, and mechanical cause of the problems, with the
IBM/Hitachi GXP drives are widely known and understood and have been
widely discussed, on this ng and in many other places on the net.

Yes, they have. But those problems are not such that 5 drives in a row
will fail in a matter of months.

Even
IBM have admitted that their drives will not stand up to my pattern of
usage (at least 16 hours a day of active use).

That is not what they have "admitted". They have provided a guideline
for usage.

It is probable that reporting of these failures has dropped
significantly with the later ranges, because those "in the know" who
are likely to discuss and report them moved to other brands following
the fiasco with the early GXP ranges.

And your point is?

I myself have certainly read
many reports of people losing a slew of identical GXP drives within
days or weeks of one another. They are without doubt fundamentally
mechanically flawed.

Yes, I have ready many such reports as well. And they always make me
wonder why, having experienced two drive failures in succession, the
poster did not carefully examine his hardware and find out if there was
anything going on that could be harming the drive. They never report
voltages or temperatures for example.

I myself am now running WDs and Maxtors, except for that one last
120GXP, and am unlikely to buy IBM/Hitachi drives ever again. I'm only
keeping it in the system out of an interest in seeing how long it
staggers along for before failing.

Goody.

Perhaps you would prefer to make some positive contribution to the
discussion, or are you too busy showing off?

My "positive contribution" is to suggest that anyone who suffers a drive
failure examine his machine carefully to make sure that it is providing
proper cooling and power for the drive, and to suggest that 5 failures
in a row in a matter of months is generally indicative of an external
problem.

Also, read up on
probability before claiming that events which seem unlikely never
occur. I presume from what you say that you believe that tossing a
perfect coin will produce the sequence; heads, tails, heads, tails,
heads, tails, heads, tails...

Oh. I see. So your five failures in a row were mere coincidence and
indicate nothing about the quality of the drives. Do tell.

Here, you see is your problem. You have leapt in with insufficient
information, and attacked me based upon assumptions you cannot possibly
verify.

I have not lost them "in a row". They died in *batches*, because I run 3
drives in my machine at a time; two in a RAID array and one not so, as the
boot drive.

The temperatures and voltages in my system case are perfectly alright. The
drives are not all near each other. I have changed the PSU just in case.
Perhaps you would care to suggest a hypothesis as to what would cause the
same mechanical failure in a batch of drives.

If these drives are particularly temperature or voltage sensitive, my case
stands; they should not be so, and if they are then clear guidelines should
be given by the manufacturers, and none have been so given. IBM accepted
that there had been an abnormal number of failures and published the
"guideline" of a maximum 8 hours use per day, and that the drives are not
appopriate to heavy use.

Now, you can read into that what you will, but I think most people would
conclude that it means that the MTBF of these drives is lower than people
are used to, and the only way to get most of them through their warranty
period is to reduce the amount of hours they run for. Duh.

Now. I did not say that the drive failures are mere coincidence, and if you
understood statistics or engineering at all you would have understood that.
Even for a drive with a very low MTBF (say six months), many people will
have drives that last for years, while others will have drive that last days
or weeks, and there is no way to predict what will occur for any
*individual*.

You may also like to consider that, perhaps (and nobody can know this but
IBM) the manufacturing tolerances are very close, and so some manufacturing
batches may be more susceptible to failure than others. That would certianly
be one hypothetical explanation of the clustering of failures reported. And
perhaps there *is* some specific environmental factor that causes these
drives to fail; but since IBM refused to directly acknowledge the problem
there has been no proper collation of data so nobody can come to a judgement
on what this may be.

However much you may wish to ponitificate on your *theories* of what causes
these drives to fail, it is clear that *many* people have experienced
failures of these drives in environments that have not caused other brands
to fail.

My own anecdotal experience is that these drives run very hot compared to
the WD and Maxtor replacements. I have read that one theory of what happens
is that this causes a very fine aerosol of lubricant inside the drive that
gradually coats the heads and renders them unable to read the disk surface.
Whether this is true I do not know, since i have no facilities to test this.

It is up to you how you interpret the information, but flaming people is
pointless and stupid. Stop it.

Ian

"Ian Bland" wrote in message ...
"J.Clarke" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:21:03 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"J.Clarke" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:16:20 +0100
"Ian Bland" wrote:

"Mike Blomgren" wrote in message

n...
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Rod Speed wrote:


"Miblo" wrote in message
om...
also have this strange periodic noise from the 180GXP
series, but
then
others have reported that their drive *don't* make this
noise. But
then
again those that haven't heard it maybe just have a too
noisy
computer
overall, so that the sound of the HD drowns in the noise
from fans
and so
on?

Finally, is there anybody who knows *why* the drive
makes this
kind of
noise?

Thanks in advance.


If it starts making a squeak clonk clonk noise as well,
the heads
are
bashing into the end stops and you can expect a failure at
some near
but
indeterminate point in the future.


Man, this sucks! I just found out the hard way today what
that suspicious squeeeeeak-clonk-clonk means (I have heard
it every once in a while, but not paid any attention to it).
Now the disk is completely dead. The machine can't even
detect it - it hangs at boot 'Detecting IDE drives...' and a
endlessly repeats the"squeeeeeak clonk-clonk" sequence.

Any suggestions on how to save the data that was on the
disk?

Is it an IBM GXP drive ?


Yes, a 180GXP 120 GB, manuf'd in Jan 2003 by Hitachi. Been
running since April. Died in june...

~Mike

(Same guy, different mail account...)



I've been thru the deaths of 5 now and the 6th and last is doing
the occasional squeak clonk so not long for this world I guess. 3
were 60GXPs, the 3 replacements (2 now dead) were 120GXPs. I
mentioned them on this newsgroup.

If you have killed five drives in a row in the span of a few months
then the problem is not with the drives. IBM drives may or may not
have real problems but they are not _that_ bad that five in a row
will die without external cause.

You can get the data back for thousands (literally) of dollars.

Or you can back up your data, which if you have been whinging to
this newsgroup over the course of killing 5 drives I'm sure you have
been told before.


I have not been "whinging" to this newsgroup,

Yes, you have. And you're doing more of it.

and I have backups. I
advised further down my post that the way to avoid data loss is to
back up. The point I replied to here was regarding getting back data
on a drive that has already failed. Read and understand what you are
replying to before being rude and making a fool of yourself.

I'm not making a fool of myself, and I can't make a fool of you because
you already are one.

The problems, and mechanical cause of the problems, with the
IBM/Hitachi GXP drives are widely known and understood and have been
widely discussed, on this ng and in many other places on the net.

Yes, they have. But those problems are not such that 5 drives in a row
will fail in a matter of months.

Even
IBM have admitted that their drives will not stand up to my pattern of
usage (at least 16 hours a day of active use).

That is not what they have "admitted". They have provided a guideline
for usage.

It is probable that reporting of these failures has dropped
significantly with the later ranges, because those "in the know" who
are likely to discuss and report them moved to other brands following
the fiasco with the early GXP ranges.

And your point is?

I myself have certainly read
many reports of people losing a slew of identical GXP drives within
days or weeks of one another. They are without doubt fundamentally
mechanically flawed.

Yes, I have ready many such reports as well. And they always make me
wonder why, having experienced two drive failures in succession, the
poster did not carefully examine his hardware and find out if there was
anything going on that could be harming the drive. They never report
voltages or temperatures for example.

I myself am now running WDs and Maxtors, except for that one last
120GXP, and am unlikely to buy IBM/Hitachi drives ever again. I'm only
keeping it in the system out of an interest in seeing how long it
staggers along for before failing.

Goody.

Perhaps you would prefer to make some positive contribution to the
discussion, or are you too busy showing off?

My "positive contribution" is to suggest that anyone who suffers a drive
failure examine his machine carefully to make sure that it is providing
proper cooling and power for the drive, and to suggest that 5 failures
in a row in a matter of months is generally indicative of an external
problem.

Also, read up on
probability before claiming that events which seem unlikely never
occur. I presume from what you say that you believe that tossing a
perfect coin will produce the sequence; heads, tails, heads, tails,
heads, tails, heads, tails...

Oh. I see. So your five failures in a row were mere coincidence and
indicate nothing about the quality of the drives. Do tell.

Here, you see is your problem. You have leapt in with insufficient
information, and attacked me based upon assumptions you cannot possibly
verify.

I have not lost them "in a row". They died in *batches*, because I run 3
drives in my machine at a time; two in a RAID array and one not so, as the
boot drive.

The temperatures and voltages in my system case are perfectly alright.
The drives are not all near each other. I have changed the PSU just in
case. Perhaps you would care to suggest a hypothesis as to what
would cause the same mechanical failure in a batch of drives.

Can be vibration. Even something as basic as having the case on a wooden
floor that bounces the case around a bit when you walk up to the PC.

If these drives are particularly temperature or voltage sensitive,
my case stands; they should not be so, and if they are then clear
guidelines should be given by the manufacturers, and none have
been so given. IBM accepted that there had been an abnormal number
of failures and published the "guideline" of a maximum 8 hours use per day,

No they didnt.

and that the drives are not appopriate to heavy use.

Now, you can read into that what you will, but I think most people would
conclude that it means that the MTBF of these drives is lower than people
are used to, and the only way to get most of them through their warranty
period is to reduce the amount of hours they run for. Duh.

Thats just a conspiracy theory.

Now. I did not say that the drive failures are mere coincidence, and if you
understood statistics or engineering at all you would have understood that.

It could still be a coincidence. Not likely tho.

Even for a drive with a very low MTBF (say six months), many people will
have drives that last for years, while others will have drive that last days
or weeks, and there is no way to predict what will occur for any *individual*.

And basic stats can bite you on the arse and end
up with a result like that due to a coincidence.

You may also like to consider that, perhaps (and nobody can know
this but IBM) the manufacturing tolerances are very close, and so some
manufacturing batches may be more susceptible to failure than others.

No evidence that tolerances are relevant to the IBM GXP failures.

Particularly when an unusable GXP drive can be returned to
usability again by the use of DGF, cant be a tolerance problem.

And hard drives use the embedded servo info to seek the track,
precisely because there will inevitably be thermal effects with
any modern hard drive with the track densitys used today.

That would certianly be one hypothetical
explanation of the clustering of failures reported.

Nope. Because head positioning is a closed loop system.

And perhaps there *is* some specific environmental
factor that causes these drives to fail; but since IBM
refused to directly acknowledge the problem there
has been no proper collation of data so nobody can
come to a judgement on what this may be.

Correct. And since IBM aint saying, it looks rather like there is a
dirty little secret involved, that they aint got the balls to fess up to.

They did stop using glass platters, maybe
there is something like that involved.

However much you may wish to ponitificate on your *theories*
of what causes these drives to fail, it is clear that *many*
people have experienced failures of these drives in
environments that have not caused other brands to fail.

Correct. That might be something as basic as the GXPs
being rather more sensitive to power supply glitches that
while they are out of spec, dont affect other drives.

That would certainly explain how DFT can return
an unusable drive to usability again. The glitch did
the damage to the data that was reversible by DFT.

My own anecdotal experience is that these drives run very hot compared
to the WD and Maxtor replacements. I have read that one theory of what
happens is that this causes a very fine aerosol of lubricant inside the drive that
gradually coats the heads and renders them unable to read the disk surface.
Whether this is true I do not know, since i have no facilities to test this.

It is up to you how you interpret the information,
but flaming people is pointless and stupid. Stop it.

Thats just waving a red rag in front of a bull. You can get gored |-)