How reliable are toshiba HDs?

well, i got a L655 close to a month ago and the HD is starting to die, making a high pitched but low noise, am i just unlucky or got a lemon? i ran diagnostics and indeed i have a fail

 

toshiba branded laptop hds are terrible.

ive had two die within a year.

Im not sure your toshiba laptop has a toshiba hd though.

 

I've owned two Toshibas over the years and worked on several more for friends and family. I don't think I've EVER seen a Toshiba-brand hard drive in a Toshiba laptop?!?

All of them had Hitachi or Fujitsu hard drives and the Hitachi drives were the ones that died every 4-6 months! The last one I dealt with was over three years ago in my Satellite M45. Hopefully, they're not as crappy as they were. But I'd be interested to learn what brand they're using now in their lower-cost models like the L-series (or the new C-series).

I'd rather deal with a slightly noisy Seagate any day compared to those pieces of junk.

 

maybe it is a Hitachi deathstar , ironically i have a desktop with a hatichi that is still perfect after 6 year., who knows, i will send it in for repair, see what happens. i mean it works perfectly fine, it just makes a low but high pitched noise, usual ppl won't notice. it kinda sounds like the inkjets, the older ones, but higher pitched

 

The HD in my girl's new at the time M115 laptop was dying when I got it.

I took it to a Toshiba service place in South Florida, and they replaced it for free.

The HD in all my other Toshiba laptops have ran great for years. You'll replace the drive with something faster like a SSD before it ever dies on you, or just be looking for a whole new laptop.

 

i called toshiba, i should be getting a box today, customer service was actually pretty good

 

I have a Portege r700 and the HD just started to die on me. It's about 4 months old and let me tell you, I'm pretty bummed. It's a Hitachi 500gb, and I've heard bad things about them, but 4 months? Come on.

Question to anyone who can answer it:
Can I put the 320gb Western Digital HD from my old HP laptop, which ran Windows XP, into my Portege r700 while I wait for the HD to be replaced? Is there any problem with putting a Windows XP drive into a computer that runs Windows 7 on its HD? I know that this sounds stupid, and I don't *think* that there'll be a problem, but if anyone knows definitively I would appreciate the info.

JerryCobra, what did you ask of customer service? Did you just tell that your HD was failing and ask them to send you a new one, with the understanding that you would send in the failed one after getting the new one? Or did you have to send in the whole laptop? Or have to send in the HD before they would send a replacement?

Thanks in advance.

 

yep, hatichis have been known to be failure prone. back in the mid 2000s they had a line of desktop HDs called the deskstar, and it earned the name deathstar, lol but funny thing is, mine is 6 yrs old and it runs perfectly

i am not too sure about swapping HDs it might cause conflicts with the bios, but i know nothing of it so yea, just a guess

i just called support and told them of my situation. after they got the stuff like the serial number down, they just told me that i had 2 options. i go to ups and send it in myself, pay the shipping. or they send me a prepaid box, which i chose. i did not mention of sending just the HD cuz i don't want to run the risk of a voided warranty. so i believe they are going to diagnose the problem, fix it, and sent it back to me.

 

Thanks, Jerrycobra. I did the same thing today: called Toshiba and got them to send me a prepaid box. I have the express service but it's still estimated to take 7-10 business days overall, which kind of stinks. But the local authorized service center said that it would take them just as long to do a drop-off repair, AND they would only give me a blank replacement drive without Windows on it. That stinks even more, so I'm going with the mail-in service.

 

toshiba failed to detect a problem, fail much? lol, i emailed them a screen shot this time