New Laptop killed TWO hard drives!

Here's the story: I received a Samsung Series 5 13" ultrabook about a month ago as a gift. About two weeks ago the hard drive started clicking, and then a couple days later warned me to back up my files because the hard drive was failing. So I backed up the files and it is still clicking, but basically functioning fine.

I went ahead and bought a new HDD, a Western Digital Scorpio Blue, on Newegg (after Amazon sent me the wrong one, the 9mm size). Installing it proved very difficult because it wouldn't boot from the DVD (external), but I eventually figured out how to do it through messing with BIOS. I thought I was home free. Then I struggled to install Windows 7 but on the third try it worked and I thought I was really home free! I started restoring the backup image and after about four hours it crapped the bed - unfortunately I didn't write the error code down. When I tried re-formatting it to start over again, it said that I couldn't do it because it was going to imminently fail (!).

Since then, the new hard drive clicks - not quite the same way, it is more of a regular every three-second click. It won't boot up, nor will BIOS or another computer recognize it as even being there (I pulled it out and put it in a caddy and plugged it into my wife's laptop via USB).

I'm at a loss. This piece of crap laptop has killed two hard drives. Strangely enough, the first failing one is still plugging along after two weeks. I imagine that it really will fail at some point, so I won't use it for anything other than surfing.

Any thoughts on this? Evidently hard drive failing is sometimes caused by temperature and/or the power supply. Is there anything I can do to A) figure why they are failing and B) fix it? Or should I just chuck this thing, or maybe sell it on Ebay hard drive-less, explaining what is wrong with it (Hopefully I can pick up a couple hundred bucks for it to go to my next laptop)?

As a final note, I have the worst laptop karma - this is my third laptop fatality in less than a year! The first one, also a Samsung, died via beer spillage - my three-year old knocked over my Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre. I bought a replacement HP Probook, which actually was fine up until a few days after I received the ultrabook as a gift - I left the optical drive door open on the couch and my daughters seemingly did something to it because when I tried to close it, it stuck and I had to jam it in. Since then it hasn't been able to load Windows or do any kind of repair operations (I've tried putting other hard drives in and it still fails - I have no idea what's wrong with it, but the inside was filled with a mysterious white powder).

Anyhow, what to do? I'm a teacher so not exactly rolling in the dough. I'm probably going to go computer-less for a couple months, hoping to try to fix the Samsung ultrabook, and then buy a new laptop before the end of the summer. I'm thinking of finally going the Mac way in order to hopefully avoid a never-ending string of problems, but that's another thread topic...

 

I suggest you verify your installation procedures. Its more like that these errors are due to user error than hardware failure.

With what I can see, theres so many possibility its impossible to be sure where the problem lies. You're going to need more experience that what I've got to solve this one.







BTW, you might also want to include cliff on your thread?

 

After several similar experiences with many Samsung products I avoid them like the plague, it is impossible not to buy some because their components are included in many other products which I found out when our new microwave quit do to a samsung part.

 

Macs are not without their problems, contrary to what you may have heard.