T41: Ebay -good luck & bad...

[Jiro]

Wow, Id have to say that i had a [censored] good deal here was the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %3AIT&rd=1

I had it for about a week and boy was I happy... when i first got it, i was so stoaked...even warranty! I never had this kind of warranty on anything before!... Even if it was 804.11b wireless and XGA monitor with a 7500radeon it still rocked in my mind... Wierd thing was that the harddrive was split into 2 partition... both being approx 30 gigs each and in FAT32. So I formatted it turned it into 1 partition (60gigs) and NTFS... it worked fine... for about a week...

Yesterday, the harddrive started clicking like... *click, click, click* for 5 mins straight, the mouse still moved but as i clicked through my folders and programs it was chugging along in slow-mo... until it gave me an error with that red stop sign with that x in the middle so then i restarted and then i was caught in this stupid restarting loop... so then naturally i tried safemode just out of curiosity, thinking that "even if i did get in then what would that solve?"... but it did, i got in...had nothing else to do so i decided to restart and just go straight in to windows normally... wierd it worked...and worked as if nothing had happened... I thought that was bizarre, since i worked as a comp tech during last summer... Scared, i backed up my important documents etc etc.

Bam! As i came home for lunch today, the computer was stuck in a rebooting loop again... grr... swearing to myself, i noticed that the nature of this restart was different, right after the IBM thinkpad splashscreen, when windows tries to intially load, i get NTDETECT not found and then it reboots right away... pressing F8 like mad and trying to get into the OS in every type of way possible (IE safemode) results in the same negative effect...

!@#$ i said to myself...I scrambled like mad trying to find all my old techie tools... Plugged in ERD and [censored] it didnt find a valid OS associated with the harddisk... so... then i tried the good ol' Seagate Seatools Harddrive diagnostics test but even that failed to load the GUI. hmm...

Never dealing with IBM warranty services and remembering how well they treat their customers i thought, "hey whatever ill give it a shot"... Mind you Ive never had to do something like warranty something before so it was a bit nerve racking seeing as IBMs are suppost to be like godly in their engineering so i thought "pfft why would i even need warranty anyway?" but there goes my way of thinking...

Anyway, after that call i felt that i didnt just buy a laptop... I believe i bought much more that that... felt all nice and tingly inside...

Ya, I called the wrong number hahaha and the guy named Erfan redirected me to the right one... I eventually told the guy my whole ordeal with [censored] thing and about ebay and whatnot maybe i even told him too much... the guy insisted that i should try this harddrive fittness test... gave me the url i think it was... www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
ya thats right... Then it hit me.

F-ing harddrives! Its always the harddrive! haha i thought this thing was suppost to have an Airbag lol... hmmm type 2373-7fu... hmm thats suppost to have a ibm hatachi 40 gig harddrive right? shiet... mine is 60 gig harddrive... hmm... its all adding up now... I didnt even want to go into bios and confirm that it was some non-ibm, therefore making it have NO WARRANTY FROM IBM... as it turns out, unfortuntetly, it turns out.. haha to be a Toshiba MK6021GAS... oh crap. pardon my language.

So out of all this suckiness i must find a solution... still contemplating over what to do... all the other parts are under waranty straight from from the factory... Im not familliar about toshiba's warranty policies... maybe the previous owner or something has registered it under his name or something... i dont know... even so... i doubt toshiba would have a warranty that would last over 1 year?! I recall Western digital Raptors had 3 years warranty and that was suppost to be totally good. BUT i maybe behind in that trivial knowledge...

[bfgun]

the toshiba drive you have is a fairly new drive. try going to the toshiba storage site and doing drive test. the hd didnt come with the laptop when it was built. i'd just contact toshiba and see if you can get it replaced. sounds like your hd too a dive. i've got a WD in mine. works like a charm.

[Jiro]

I was hoping if someone could walk me through then... alright, I believe i have 3 year warranty on this harddrive after all... but it is gonna be from toshiba... So far all i got is this vague info...

[Removed links]
Reason: too long

[Jiro]

Ok well i got a disposition code anyway of 0x72 with the DFT on the toshiba harddrive indicating somethings wrong with a sector:

" Error Code and first aid for your drive

The following table defines all the currently supported DFT error codes. For example if during testing of your hard drive DFT reports a error code of 0x70 as shown on page 14, this indicates that your hard disk drive has problems reading one or more of its sectors. In most of these cases the drive can heal itself of these errors. To do this first back-up all your data from the problem drive ( if possible ) then run DFT again and select either the Erase Disk or Sector Repair option which is under the Utility heading. If you already have a backup of the data on the hard disk or the data isn’t important you can opt to run Erase Disk/Sector Repair from the Test Result screen. Once the selected operation has completed you can then run one of the test options Quick or Advance to confirm that the drive has been healed. The result code, which should be displayed, is 0x00 if the test returns another code then you should check with your drive/system vendor if the drive can be return for warranty replacement."

Now if i can repair this myself ill... do it haha... should i use the hitachi daignostics tool here to "heal" it? or should i try to track down the toshiba one somewhere... i dont know where it is... gonna go look now. hmm.. Sorry to be bothersome but i really get this working asap so i can get back to work!

[Jiro]

nevermind... according to DFT user guide on page 29: http://www.hgst.com/downloads/dft32_user-guide.pdf

0x72 means Device SMART Error.

this is bad but im not sure if it is correct(since its not a hitachi drive) but it sounds right... and as i skim through the guide i can see that it is used to diagnos many types you just can't run repair sector on non hitachi or legacy ibm drives...great software im glad i found in spite of all this.

[LtTPfan]

The ad says two years warranty on parts and labor. It doesn't specify it only applies to parts IBM will warranty. The ad constitutes a binding contract on both parties. Sellers sometime seem to forget that they are held to it also, in fact they are held to a higher degree as they are the party who drafted it. Any ambiguity in a contract is interpreted against the party who drafted it, and in favor of the party who didn't. You did pay for it with PayPal, the safe way, didn't you? I'd suggest you explain to the seller that the drive crashed and IBM is not going to warranty it so it's up to him to fix it (remember the two year parts and labor warranty?). If the seller balks, dispute the sale with PayPal. But, you need to get on it right away and don't let him drag it out because there is a time limit for filing disputes with PayPal.

[Jiro]

Actually i paid via direct bank deposit. I don't think it matters anyway i think i have this situation under control all i need is a RMA number and off it will be sent to Toshiba America SDD... well there closed now so got to wait to at least monday for a reply...

But in my scramble to find a solution yesterday I did email the guy. I told him to send me the 40gig ibm drive that came with t41 and i said if it didnt work i would have the warranty taken care on it... i havent got a reply from him yet but i think its too early to say that he had ditched me but i dont care anyway id rather have this delt through Toshiba and get another 60gig harddrive!