P-7915u hard drive dropped a deuce...

So, my P-7915u has been acting funny for the past couple days and last night it decided it really hated me. I was at work all day, so I left it sleeping, and when I came home it woke up but none of my apps would respond. I listened closely and heard "whiiiir whiiir clickclickclickclick". I was like... Fantastic... Hard drive just took a dump...

I reseated the drive in the bay and it's still doing the same thing.

So, I burned the Ultimate Boot CD off my desktop and I ran GatewayScan diagnostics (which turn out to really be WD's HD diag). Says the hard drive had too many errors to continue the full test.

However, I'm sitting here thinking... Didn't I go through this a few years ago with a WD 160gig SATA drive? Darn thing couldn't hold onto a Windows installation without blowing up every two days. Gave me the same error then so I wrote zeros to the entire drive and now that drive is still working five years later.

Soooo... This Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545032B9A300 is getting zeros written to the entire thing as we speak.

Cross your fingers for me. If not, at least I did add the 500 gig WD Scorpio Blue, so I could swap that over as my primary drive while I wait for a replacement.

Is this the same 320gig drive that everybody else has in their P-series machines?

 

Well... The Hitachi just flipped me the bird. It threw up an error while writing zeros.

I've swapped the WD 500 gig into the primary spot and removed the Hitach, putting it in the packaging in which I received the WD.

Here's my only worry... Will Gateway just send me a new HD and want the old one back or are they going to ask for the entire system?

 

they should send you just the drive. Explain to them that you know how to trouble shoot computer hardware and that you've received failure codes when running the Hitachi diagnostics. They will send you just a drive if you present yourself as a competent person (its much cheaper for them too).

 

The actually Hitachi Diagnostics themselves do not run on this machine. It's actually a known issue. They hang up on any machine with the ICH9M chip, which this machine has.

I hope that's true, though. I'd rather just swap the drive.

 

OK, I'm back up on the 500 gig WD drive. Thank God I created restore disks when I got the system. LOL

Now to see about getting the 320 gig replaced.

 

Sounds like another 500GB Western Digital is in your future

I've never liked hitachi drives. Its strickly personal experience though so take it with a grain of salt. I've just always liked WD for mechanical hard drives.

You could take the opertunity to upgrade to SSD goodness

 

I have a seagate that came in my 7811. But i put a WD scorpio black in the second bay.

I've never had a problem with a hard drive in my life though....
*edit* knock on wood

 

Most people wont, so the "brand loyality" is a bit closed minded (yes i admit it). But i had bad issues with the acursed "deathstar" hard drive and lost ALOT of data.

I swore 2 things that day.
1) I will back up all important data in more than one way
2) I will never buy hitachi again

The number 1 reason is a great thing to have learned and i recommend it to everyone (the advent of the windows home server or a linux alternative makes it almost thoughtless to have a good back up).
The number 2 reason is pretty much just a once bitten twice shy reaction but has haunted me to this day

 

Has anybody had experience with RMAing just a drive from Gateway?

 

The famous Deathstar was the 75GXP, which was made by IBM
Hitachi bought the IBM storage division about 2-3 years later...

I've had a few Hitachi drives myself and they perform very well, never had one fail.

About the Gateway RMA, I've used it for 1 drive before, but it was almost 5 years ago, before they we're part of Acer.

 

I tried to RMA the stock Seagate 200GB HDD from my 7811, mostly because of the clicking noise got a lot worse, and the access times were terrible. Plus it was able to make roasted nuts . They told me that I had to ship my unit at my expensive to them to get the hard drive replaced...they wont ship me a replacement. I said that, as it will cost too much money to ship the laptop to them. Any ways, I replaced it with the Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM (9.5mm!) which was released not to long ago...very happy with it so far.

 

OK... I've been using their e-mail contact form and been told that I need to ship the entire system in because the hard drive is "not user replaceable". LOL I told them that's not only untrue but that their own site gives exact instructions on how to replace the hard drive. On top of that, I had already tested the system... Then they instruct me to remove drives not included in the system from the factory... Because they're not user addable? LOL

Below is the entire thread of conversation with them (a different "tech" for each response instead of one tech handling things from start to finish, which I think also adds to the confusion and silliness).

 

should we be worried with these issues from the 7915, and by we I mean people about to place orders for this rig. First, keyboard and mouse lag, then sound issues and now this. top it all off with their, apparently, poor customer service and its not looking all good for would-be buyers.

 

@GilmourD ha ha. too funny. I reckon that'll go on for a while.

 

I don't think it's an issue to watch out for. I just think it's the usual problems with tech support being outsourced to India... They're reading off a script and are completely disconnected with the realities of how the company markets things here in the US.

The keyboard and mouse lag is actually caused by the default setting for the Palm Check being set to high, BTW. I haven't had any sound issues.

 

check out this forum. by the way, how hot does your lappie get? and how hot is hot? its an off chance, but may be the reason for the hard disk failure.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=440474

 

Mine really doesn't get very hot. Before I got a lapdesk I was using it right on my lap and it was quite comfortable. MUCH, MUCH cooler than my wife's HP DV6000z.

Oh, it seems they've seen the light of day and are now saying that I can replace the hard drive myself but the system won't be warrantied if I break it doing that. LOL I'm just confirming that they're sending me the drive free of charge as it is warrantied.

 

Well, i've convinced them that i'm not a moron and that I can install the hard drive myself. LOL They're sending an advance replacement of the drive. Should ship tomorrow.

 

Glad that worked out for you.

If they want people to send the machines in to the repair Depot for simple things like this they should really put warrenty void stickers over everything and not place the "heres how you do this" parts in the manual

 

Brilliant news.

If i do follow through on getting one, I'll be sure to run the hard disk scan immediately. Might you know if they ship internationally?

 

Warning-if you open this laptop, your warranty will be void.

Good to hear that it all worked out!

 

Honestly, hard disk failure is isolated to a very small percentage of drives shipped. I just happened to get a dud. It happens. I used to work in the tech department for CompUSA once upon a time and even the crappy brands with higher failure rates really didn't have a whole lot of failures.

Since I got my first computer in 1988 I've had so many hard drives of all brands (even brands that aren't around anymore, like Connor and Quantum) and this is only the second drive that's failed on me.

Inernational shipping is something I'm not all that sure about since I live in Joisy.

 

I need this shirt.

 

LOL Just my luck... I could explain, but I think the e-mail response I just sent Gateway says it just as well.

 

Wow thats insane... did they at least bubble wrap the drive?

Sticking a HD in a box and letting it shop is almost guarenteed to slag the drive.

Sorry you're having to go through the process again... thats pretty lame

 

There wasn't any bubble wrap but there was a supporting frame that would keep the hard drive stable. and safe. I don't think it was a shipping issue. I think it's that this may be a used Hitachi drive shipped to me in a WD static bag.

 

oh ok at least there was a support of some form.

Hey if the bad says WD then it must be WD right

Let us know what they say... it might be less of a hassle in the end to just get another 500GB drive yourself. Hopefully they will get it correct this time for you though.

 

While it would be less of a hassle... It would cost money. LOL It's Christmas and I just bought a car about a week after I got the laptop (old car was dying), so things are tight. LOL If they do tell me to go sod off, though, I did at least have the foresight to buy the WD 500 gigger, though. That keeps me going.

 

mine arrives on thursday, and im now officially worried as i dont have the cash to get a backup drive just now. fingers crossed I get a good one.

 

I don't think you'll have any problems.

When you get your system, though, please post which hard drive you have in the system.

 

Sure thing. I'm not so optimistic. I mean once is by chance, but two faulty hard drives?? I'll run the scan, and probably a review as you clearly dont wanna do it: )

 

I'm almost positive that the second hard drive has become an issue because it is most likely a refurb that wasn't fixed properly and also because it wasn't packed properly. Remember, I said above that when I opened the box, it's a Hitachi drive that I found hanging half out of a WD static bag. They should've taped the static bag closed.

I honestly believe that it's just a fluke.

 

I hope so. Otherwise i'll be screwed. what are the odds its anything other than a Hitachi drive?

 

There is a possibility of it being something other than a Hitachi.

I say that because I just got off the phone with tech support and they gave me the choice of Toshiba and Western Digital as replacements.

New hard drive is going out today, so I should have it by the end of the week.

 

You of course picked the WD replacement right

 

Duh. LOL

Ever since Quantum and Connor disappeared back in the mid-'90s, I've had a string of WD drives, except for my last drive, which is a Seagate 1.5TB drive.

 

mine just arrived. had a look at it this morning, hitachi drive. i'll test it later on and post my results.

 

I'm sure you'll be fine. Even with the worst brands of anything the actual rate of defects is quite low.

Do what I did, though, if you want to test it. Download the Ultimate Boot CD. It contains GWSCAN, which is what Gateway would recommend you run if you were to actually have a problem. Run the Quick Test and then the Extended Test.

 

So I've downloaded the cd, burnt it but when I try to run gwscan v3 and v5.11 , it asks for a few settings then finally freezes in a black screen. then if i ignore them, it tells me that it cant find any hard-disk. whats up with that!?

 

Oh, for some reason, GWSCAN won't run if the SATA ports are set to ACHI in the BIOS. Set it to IDE and GWSCAN will work.

 

Oh, BTW... I received the second replacement.

Let it be said that Gateways tech support is actually pretty good once you talk to somebody.

However... Their warehouse... They sent me another Hitachi in a WD bag with the same exact problem. LOL

I'm going to call them tomorrow and tell them to keep an eye on the warehouse guys. It shouldn't be a big deal since that's what they were supposed to send me anywho.

LOL I know most people would be enraged at all this... I find it to be a comedy of errors. It's different people making different mistakes and I just seem to be the target of all of them. LOL

I really, honestly can't find any good reason to be angry at Gateway.

 

Just ran a quick scan and it came clean. The extended scan, i've seen, runs for about an hour so I'll scan it alil later. Need to play batman arkum asylum