My HDD just caught fire!!!!

[dracos]

OK, this is ridiculous.. first we have Dell Batteries catching fire, now my Maxtor 200Gig SATA hard drive jsut caught fire..

Seriously flames shot out of it!! Sacred the hell out of me.,..

I posted the story on my site (http://www.dragonsteelmods.com), you can check it out there, I'll post pics tomorrow, I need to go to bed...

I'm tired of this drive... Maxtor wants me to run this Powmax software on the drive to get the error code to be eligible for an RMA...

UMMMM DUH, Flames, fire, smoke... HOW THE HELL CAN I RUN THE PROGRAM ON THE DRIVE??

So I emailed customer support about it and we'll see waht they have to say...

with all these batteries catching on fire and exploding, this can't be good for Maxtor PR ..............

[werty316]

Holy crap now that is crazy stuff. Can't wait to see the end result.

[darkorb]

omg dude u serious? how did u turn the fire off before ur other components got damaged?

[BigD]

wow, hopefully i dont have something like this happen!

[Mirrim]

Yikes! Have the fire extinguisher handy! Glad everything (but the drive) seems to be in good order, and glad you're okay. Must admit I've never liked Maxtor drives. Let's hope the WD ones don't chime in...

[BigD]

yeah ive had two maxtor drives die... the original and a rma lol the new one seems to be working alright

[GIBSON]

Maxtor is going to hate your article :-D Man, this is some bad PR indeed.

[dracos]

Pics are up now!!

Enjoy!

http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/Images/articles/maxtor/thumbs/tn_EPSN0060.JPG

again just go to my site (http://www.dragonsteelmods.com)and you can see them, they are in 1024x768, so be warned!

By the way I think this should make the front page news of Bjorn, don't you? ::hint::hint::

[GIBSON]

One question though, are you sure you didn't short it somewhere?

[dracos]

Nope, I just hit the power button and that happened..

It has been fine since last June when I bought it..... I went to the store, came back hit the power button and that's that...

Edit: When it actually caught fire it wasn't even in the case, so it couldn't have shorted out..
at first I heard a crackling and then smelled smoke, turned the comp off, pulled the drive and it looked fine.. so I hooked it up outside the case and that's when it caught fire..

[GIBSON]

Nope, I just hit the power button and that happened..

It has been fine since last June when I bought it..... I went to the store, came back hit the power button and that's that...

Edit: When it actually caught fire it wasn't even in the case, so it couldn't have shorted out..
at first I heard a crackling and then smelled smoke, turned the comp off, pulled the drive and it looked fine.. so I hooked it up outside the case and that's when it caught fire..
I believe what you're saying, but IMHO it can be shorted a lot more easily outside a case than inside one ;)

[dracos]

It wasn't touching anything.. I was holding it in my hand by the sides when it burst into flames.... so it was basically hovering in mid air...

[dracos]

Slashdotted.... damn....

server can't handle it

[Miles]

Assuming you didn't burn the molex connector up that was going to the HD, check it with a multimeter cause I'm sure Maxtor will try and blame it on the PSU over volting.

I think Maxtor will want to keep this as quiet as possible to keep it from turning into another Dell fiasco, but they will probably fight to prove it was the system and not the drive that caused the problem. So a word to the wise check it out very carefully and have some independent witnesses when you do.

[dracos]

a little late for keeping it quiet....

Slashdot has it, and it's getting dugg

and everything is fine with the PSU and all the other components in the case.. I'm using the system right now

[whowalks]

Well thats what ya get for downloading too much porn, the ol hdd could take it all in;-) :lol:

[dracos]

oh no.. I put that on my OTHER drive! :wink:

[tomato]

Wow, and we yet another reason I will never again purchase a Maxtor HD (my previous Maxtor DiamondMax HD died on me within 6 months, lost everything :()

[whowalks]

Wow, and we yet another reason I will never again purchase a Maxtor HD (my previous Maxtor DiamondMax HD died on me within 6 months, lost everything :()
even the porn:???:

[dracos]

actually the last drive I had that died was a WD, which I lost EVERYTIHNG on that one.. now I have three drives in there and do regular backups to DVD

[Das Capitolin]

Dracos: When I saw the subject, I immediatly thought that one of the drives I sent you could have gone bad. Boy am I relieved that it was not my stuff burning your house down!

[dracos]

actually I am using one of the 40gig drives right now as a temp drive.. so it's really good that i got those from you...

[dracos]

and it hit Digg front page now...

I'm so surprised my server is not totally dead yet..

[Xero (1)ne]

thats why i love seagate and samsung, i still use a 6gb sam for some of my cd images :D

[Kougar]

I really like the SMOOTH written across the top of that fried chip... :lol:

Please, definitely keep us appraised of how Maxtor tries to handle this! Now that Seagate owns Maxtor... ;)

[dracos]

Well let's see, they said they would replace the drive with the same thing basically, except a different model number..

and, this makes me happy, I called maxtor and i don't have to send the actual drive back, just the top metal cover with the information on it.. i called them becuase this drive has all my credit card info, bank inf etc etc on it and I really didn't want it floating around, especially with all these 'leaks' of data happening lately..

they sent me a special 'High Security' form to fill out to request this to be done this way, so I can destroy the drive myself basically.. get my hammer out!

I tried to get them to send me a diffferent one altogether, but they wouldn't go for it, i thought at least maybe an upgrade to SATA300 instead of the SATA 150 that it is.. but they said no...

But, I got a lot of comments and emails from people experiencing the same problems...

I emailed Maxtor about this


"I just want to let you guys know that after I posted this on my site I got many comments and emails from other people stating that the same exact chip blew on their Maxtor drives as well. Is this a known problem to Maxtor that needs to be addressed but hasn't been?"

and they said:

"We do not have anything that states this is an issue."

Great answer huh?!? nice detailed answer....

ah well..... Seagate is here in Pittsburgh, maybe I should go knock on their door and get a statement...

[Xero (1)ne]

I really like the SMOOTH written across the top of that fried chip... :lol:

Please, definitely keep us appraised of how Maxtor tries to handle this! Now that Seagate owns Maxtor... ;)


when did they buy maxtor?

[werty316]

when did they buy maxtor?
One less company to compete against. Its like when nVidia bought out ULi and 3dfx.

[Kougar]

Great to hear Maxtor wasn't picky about getting the entire drive back, next time I have to RMA a drive I'm going to ask if I can just mail the top plate in to save on shipping and keep the drive to play around with... :lol:

when did they buy maxtor?

Deal has been in the works since at least December 2005, and was finalized earlier this summer-ish. Link (http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=25468)

[dracos]

Update September 1st: Well as per instruction by Maxtor, I only need to send back the top cover of the HDD with the information on it, so when I took the top off I discovered the platters were scorched as well, at least they look scorched to me..... but I am sure someone will correct me.... I've added a bunch of pics of the platters and drive without the top

[Kougar]

It does look like some of the smoke got in there... although are those scratches on the disc platter? With all that crud on the surface of the disc it was dead and gone, scratches or not...

[GIBSON]

K, that platter is looking pretty nasty

[Xero (1)ne]

is there any way to get a pin to stop bouncing around?
i have a 40gb maxtor and whenever it gets to a certian point, the pin just goes CLICK CLICK CLICK over and over and then the drive stops working, is it done for?
and why are maxtors crap?

but if maxtor was bought that doesnt meen that the product has changed, its like when dell bought alienware, you still dont see home dells using amd, or when AMD bought ATI, its not controlled by amd, just owned by it

[keepitguilleaume]

that story is crazy... never expirienced anything like that!!

I still love their answer that you got from them.. rediculous

[Kougar]

is there any way to get a pin to stop bouncing around?
i have a 40gb maxtor and whenever it gets to a certian point, the pin just goes CLICK CLICK CLICK over and over and then the drive stops working, is it done for?

Pin?? You mean the seek arm? Does the drive spool down and turn off, or just keep clicking? Safe to say, either way the drive is a lost cause already if it stops working, I'd RMA it right now if the 1 year warranty is still good on it.

but if maxtor was bought that doesnt meen that the product has changed, its like when dell bought alienware, you still dont see home dells using amd, or when AMD bought ATI, its not controlled by amd, just owned by it

I never said the product has changed. What I was saying was that now that Seagate owns Maxtor and has pretty much taken over the administrative/business side of the company, that I would be curious to see how they call the shots. Maxtor is not a separate corperate entity as Seagate bought them completely out and folded the company into their own business, and fired off everyone else they didn't need.

And actually, Dell home does or is about to sell AMD desktops. It made the news a little awhile back... ;)