Sony VGN A270 hard disk physical failure

Three weeks ago, I received a SONY VAIO VGN A270 ordered from www.sonystyle.com . I wrote my first impressions in this thread: http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10652

The thing that bothered me the most was the clicking noise the hard drive made when *IDLE*. That it, it made noise when no application was accessing the disk. I wrote details in http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6139 . In that thread I also wondered if anyone had a hard disk crash after hearing this noise. Well, I had.

Yes, the 80Gb 5400rpm Hitachi hard disk from my SONY VAIO VGN A270 encountered a physical failure last night. I had left the laptop running during the whole week-end and when I came back Sunday night, it was turned off. After powering it on, it could not boot and I got the dreaded message:

"A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart".

The hard disk is a Hitachi HTS548080M9AT00, firmware revision MG40A53A. After running SpinRite 6 on it in an attempt to recover some of my data, here is what happens when I attempt to boot:

http://home.arcor.de/stasis/SonyHDcrash.jpg

("Pri Master Hard Disk:S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace
Press F2 to resume")
(In order to continue booting, choose "Exit (discarding changes)" from the Exit menu in the BIOS Setup).

Anyway, I think I'll return the entire notebook, not just the hard disk. I'll probably go for a Toshiba or Fujitsu.

So, if your Hitachi hard disk makes strange noises, back-up often and/or get it replaced.

 

That sux, I was going to order the 270 but I'm wondering if it might not be the right decision.

I do love that screen though.....Does anyone make a 17" with the glossy screen and WUXGA rez other than Sony?

 

This clicking problem is a known problem for the Hitachi 5400 RPM 80 GB HDD (and actually Hitachi HDD in general, to some degree, because I have one myself that clicks and I've heard the same complaints about some other Hitachi HDD) and it has bothered users of various notebooks, Toshiba, IBM, to name a few. There is a firmware update and supposedly it has been addressed in the manufacturing line in later batches.

From what you have said in the other thread, Sony A series is probably not the right machine for you and I wish you luck with your laptop hunt. However, if you encounter similar drive again, do a google search on firmware update or directly ask for a replacement. That said, my clicking HDD gave me no problem except the noise for the past two years.

 

GregP888, the screen of the VAIO A270 is indeed great, but be aware than WUXGA (1900x1200) might be a bit too much, even for a 17" screen. While you *can* change font size in most applications, sometimes the fonts will simply be too tiny, for example in the tabs of pretty much any Windows application (try the Display Properties tabs after you right click on the desktop; I found no way to increase the font size for that item alone). And images, in web pages for example, will be either too small or digitally zoomed with the familiar jigsaw effect.

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Dandy.....

I've been trying to see how webpages look on this system in a store, but of course none of the big box stores have their systems connected to the internet.

I've got money burning a hole in my pocket and I don't know what to do. I was hoping Sony's new FS series was going to have a WSXGA+ display, but it looks like only Japan will get that.

Decisions, decisions.....

 

The font sizes on a 17" WUXGA are about the same as a 15.4 WSXGA screen.

Cheers

Steve

Sony A190 WUXGA

 

Looks like Sony just announced the replacements for the A270/290 series with the 600/690. 600 is configurable.

Looks like they have SATA 5400rpm HD and 533mhz DDR RAM

 

i wish canada would get some of these dam it