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Hitachi laptop hard drive = Toast

#1 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 18 August 2010 - 08:47 PM

Never thought it would happen to me, but it did :S

Data was not much an issue, since everything is backed up -- but it is an issue since I hate hardware failures, dealing with warranty, and paying for shipping :S That's not to mention that I am on trip right now, and I won't be back until next week.

What happened was I was chatting on WLM last night, and suddenly my Thinkpad went BSOD. While Windows 7 never BSODs, it wasn't a biggie -- until I fired up my computer again, which failed to boot. I reseated the hard drive, then it made it to the Windows loading screen, but can't even begin the animation for the Windows flag.

So I booted into Windows startup recovery and ran the automated startup fixing tool, which detected no hard drive errors but had some file system errors. Now it loads up to the Windows welcome screen. but won't load past this. Later on, I removed the hard drive and plugged it into another computer, and ran chkdisk to fix a few more file system error to finally get the computer started again. Unfortunately, my Windows user profile is corrupted so all my app data is gone :S Now I am stuck with a somewhat working laptop (for now), but unfortunately none of my program+settings suck as Windows Live Mail work without a new setup.

We'll see how the RMA process for Hitachi goes, in which I will report on, and see if they would do a cross-ship.
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#2 User is offline   shc-boomer 

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Posted 19 August 2010 - 06:50 AM

Well hopefully the RMA with Hitachi goes well, personally I have only RMAed a Seagate drive and that one was quick and painless. Best of luck to getting that Hitachi HD fixed.
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#3 User is offline   Big Bang 

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Posted 20 August 2010 - 01:50 PM

Ouch that sucks it's Rare that hard drives die with little Warning. Esp. if you're on vacation. Time for a Sandforce SSD?
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Camaro SS FTW
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#4 User is offline   TL6MT 

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Posted 21 August 2010 - 09:16 AM

(Y) At least you have all your data backed. +1 for SSD.
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#5 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 21 August 2010 - 10:54 PM

Yeah, a lot of people are asking for SSD reviews as well, so might as well :P
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#6 User is offline   shc-boomer 

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Posted 22 August 2010 - 12:27 AM

I third the SSD call.
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#7 User is offline   TL6MT 

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Posted 24 August 2010 - 12:33 PM

Any replacements you have in mind? Hows the warranty status?
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#8 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 25 August 2010 - 09:45 AM

No word on it yet. Hitachi is being ridiculously unresponsive as far as email support is concerned -- I emailed them and contacted them via the online form with no response. I might have to give them a call if I don't get a reply by tomorrow.
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#9 User is offline   prestonyuen 

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Posted 25 August 2010 - 06:45 PM

Ouch man. Yeah Hitachi support isn't all that good from what I hear now a days. +1 SSD Posted Image
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#10 User is offline   shc-boomer 

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Posted 25 August 2010 - 09:58 PM

Trust me some companies are that bad, some take up to a month to respond to a email...
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#11 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 26 August 2010 - 11:42 AM

They FINALLY responded this morning (After a week!) and said they won't cover OEM hard drives :S So I just went to Memory Express and bought a brand new Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drive. Pricematched it against Newegg.ca and ended up just a few cents under $60 with taxes. I almost bought a Momentus XT, but I simply can't justify twice the price for a hard drive of the same capacity since I'll go full SSD down the road. This thing is pretty fast -- I read reviews about its performance being comparable to older Seagate 7200.10 desktop HDDs, not to mention that it's actually more power efficient than Momentus 5400.6 drives.
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#12 User is offline   redeemed 

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Posted 26 August 2010 - 08:13 PM

Wow. Did you get a 3-year warranty when you bought the laptop? Isn't covered under Lenovo's warranty? :|

Anyways, $60 is pretty cheap for a 2.5" HDD. Enjoy it, haha. :D
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#13 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 26 August 2010 - 09:49 PM

1 year only. Oh well. Small price to pay :P
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#14 User is offline   shc-boomer 

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Posted 27 August 2010 - 12:35 AM

$60 isn't too bad, but there goes that excellent Lenovo/Hitachi quality. WD and Seagate FTW! :thumbsup:
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#15 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 27 August 2010 - 10:09 AM

Not really... nothing wrong with Lenovo quality. The Western Digital drive is a lot faster and quieter though, but it seems to vibrate more than my Hitachi drive -- I can feel it under my palm rest.

The funny thing is my 4 year old Hitachi 160GB drive that came with my Dell still passes every diagnostic I throw at it.
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#16 User is offline   TL6MT 

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Posted 28 August 2010 - 07:21 PM

How much data do you have on your laptop? 500GB is quite a bit - but I read reviews that this drive is pretty damn fast for a 5400.
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#17 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 29 August 2010 - 05:19 PM

Same as my desktop. 80GB of documents. I don't store videos on my client computers (They're all on the network) and there's no point in keeping multiple copies of large files. I did this since 3 years ago when I had 20GB of Simpsons on my computer, haha. Now I have nearly 70GB.
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#18 User is offline   TL6MT 

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Posted 30 August 2010 - 08:29 PM

70GB docs no videos? What do you have?
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#19 User is offline   Big Bang 

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Posted 30 August 2010 - 08:53 PM

500GB laptop hard drive - GG man thats a large Mobile drive.
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#20 User is offline   chconline 

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Posted 30 August 2010 - 08:56 PM

View PostTL6MT, on 30 August 2010 - 08:29 PM, said:

70GB docs no videos? What do you have?

~ 50GB of photos :P
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