Bad hard drives and active protection system

[t20user]

The hard drive in my T22 and T41 crapped out within a week of each other. Both worked OK until the last time I rebooted the drive was no longer recognized. The T41s active protection seemed to report a lot of activity before it died. Is it possible the active protection system caused the drive to fail? Is there a shorter life for laptop drives nowadays? I personally can't wait for the flash based drives to come down.

[davidspalding]

Had a HDD go bad on my work T41 last week ... system's been in use since 2004, two users. IT guy told me it was the second hdd to die in that laptop.

He got a Hitachi 7200 rpm 60 GB drive under warranty, so I'm betting on better longevity. (crosses fingers)

[t20user]

Hard drive problems like this wouldn't be coverd under warranty would they?

I just got the laptop so who knows what the previous owner did with it.

[davidspalding]

Why wouldn't they? Unless the Warranty on a laptop is 3 years, EXCLUDING the hard drive. But Hitachis have 3 year warranties, Seagates 5 years (if memory serves).

Another reason not to buy one of those other laptops where you have to pay to get > 90 days or 1 year limited warranty coverage.

[christopher_wolf]

The MTBF always varies a little bit for every batch of HDDs made. It still comes down to how it is used in the laptop; for example, if one turns on the defragmenter and run it along with a disk cleanup and a virus scan 24/7 or at least 5 times per day, the HDD would have some serious stress put on it and I wouldn't be suprised if that particular HDD would go kaput in a significantly shorter time than expected.

[t20user]

Well I submitted a service request for the failed drive and received the new one along with the restore CDs. The new one went in and reloaded without many problems.

My experience with laptops over the years indicates that the hard drive will fail, it is just a matter of time. I just hope the active protection system works in the users favor and extends the life of the drive.

I can't wait for the new flash based hard drives!

[christopher_wolf]

Well I submitted a service request for the failed drive and received the new one along with the restore CDs. The new one went in and reloaded without many problems.

My experience with laptops over the years indicates that the hard drive will fail, it is just a matter of time. I just hope the active protection system works in the users favor and extends the life of the drive.

I can't wait for the new flash based hard drives!

HDDs have always done that from the beginning, it just used to happen in laptops more often because they got moved around alot when the drive was working and, in general, had more wear on them than a similar desktop or workstation would have.

Flash has its own problems; right now, it is primarily cost right now.

I also think that Samsung has released "Hybrid" HDDs with sizeable flash portions in them.