Atomic Systems

Thanks for that Geoff, I'll have a look and see if I'm capable of understanding it all, not being very PC savvy and all that, I did read this last week, which was quite easy to follow, it's putting things into practice that I get worried about.

http://www.a3webtech.com/index.php/buil ... -disk.html

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

TransportSteve wrote:Thanks for that Geoff, I'll have a look and see if I'm capable of understanding it all, not being very PC savvy and all that, I did read this last week, which was quite easy to follow, it's putting things into practice that I get worried about.

http://www.a3webtech.com/index.php/buil ... -disk.html

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

Hi, Steve

Pretty good article and the pictures are helpful

What I use are these.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-box- ... -interface (NB no external SATA connector on this box - I have this style with that though)
Not saying they're the best but as a technician most of my working life they have one MAJOR advantage. NO MOVING PARTS!!! The Gauze you see in the picture forms ALL 4 sides of the box. The corner columns support them and the Base and Top. The Thumb screws at each corner hold the thing together and access couldn't be simpler. Standing on it's little stand as illustrated the gauze allows air in and heat out and the base (The HDD is attached by four screws) acts as a heat sink too. A SATA disc merely slots onto the internal connector and the sockets and switch are on the outside of this. (IDE discs have a ribbon connector to connect disc and power seperately but hardly rocket science.) The power supply is about 4"x1.5"x.75" and the whole thing comes with all necessary caples and screws. You just use any old disc or buy a new disc and attach it to the internal connector, screw it to the base and thumbscrew the lid on. Then it's "plug and play" (not "plug and pray" ) as the whole unit is so simple.

ONE THING. DON'T EVER Stack these discs. That's where my overheating problems came from and the same goes for prebuilt external HDD's too. Being as you can put whatever size disc you fancy into these cases and SOME also have a SATA connector as well as the standard USB one, I'd have to quarrel that the Home builds are dearer. Furthermore you can easily remove the disc and use any other similar HDD in the box for temporary use too. You can't do that with a prebuilt one.

These are excellent for using old discs for stuff like video editing or any other large file storage or editing. RAW photo's, Music etc. I ran MSTS from one of these for ages until I got a new box. just to keep the MSTS install seperate from other software.

Geoff

Hello again Geoff,

Thanks ever so much for your help, I'm sure a few others who are less PC technically gifted may also find your information very useful. If it costs me 30-40 quid more than a pre-built machine, then I think it'll be worth it in the long run, and to know where all the components have come from because you've actually purchased them yourself would be very handy, if ever there were any problems later on. I find that with obtaining things like these straight "off the shelf" can be a bit of a nightmare, especially as you read so many disconcerting reviews from folks, you don't know how they've been built, or, what's inside, and they use cheaper materials these days to lower the costs to their customers, so, I'll study those pictures and your information carefully and come up with a plan of what to buy and how it all gets put together. If I make a dog's breakfast of it, I'll be back.....

Sorry, to hijack Bazza's thread, I did look at the Seagate 500GB drive, so, I'm glad he came on here to warn us.

Cheerz. Steve.

I've got a seagate HD, must be a good few years old now and the only problem I had, was i once dropped it and buggered it. They took it away, fixed it and 20months down the line, still going strong!

Esurient wrote:I've got a seagate HD, must be a good few years old now and the only problem I had, was i once dropped it and buggered it. They took it away, fixed it and 20months down the line, still going strong!

The problem is with a specific group of discs and this is detailed at length on Seagate's support pages and their forums.

This post is not a "smear" against Seagate but a specific and REAL issue that has affected a lot of users.

Geoff

Shame that the saga took so long for Seagate to acknowledge and fix.

Yes, it was shameful, and IMO fraudulent (the manufacturer) to continue selling a product with faulty firmware that disabled the drive well within the expected life of the unit. This happened to two, repeat TWO Seagates drives of the same model and firmware in this household. I got less than three months use from mine, necessitating the purchase of a new drive, this time a WD. From what I read in various forums Seagate was just too long in denial about the scope of the problem and in the meantime many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the affected unit were still being sold. The fixes were just too complicated and fraught with potential problems for any inexperienced user to fix - I think that would be most.

It is my decision, as a customer, NEVER to buy another Seagate product.......I no longer have faith in their product line. Obviously their QC testing is a joke.

Cheers Bazza

Edited.

I bought a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 500Gb SATA II hard drive from Amazon last October.
Recently on a couple of occasions it has failed to register on boot up(although it did at a second attempt) and several times Windows has insisted on carrying out a lengthy Diskcheck.
Although the drive was purchased through Amazon the actual supplier was AWD-IT
AWD-IT insisted that I should return the item to Seagate rather than that they should supply a replacement and with some reluctance I agreed.
However the Seagate procedure for returning a faulty item is complex and involves running a program "Seagate Tools for Windows" to obtain a code. After nearly two days of continuous operation involving 50% of my CPU I have no code.
I then complained directly to Amazon and am now hopeful of getting some sort of satisfaction.

Tony

Tony,

I'd have stuck to your guns on this - your contract was between you and AWD-IT (not Seagate).

I believe that under the terms of the Sale of Goods Act; it is the vendors duty to prove that a failure of the product within a "reasonable" time after purchase is not an inherent defect.

It is therefore their responsibility to refund/replace your goods and they need to take the issue up with their supplier(s).

With reference to Windows carrying out a "diskcheck" I have found that this kicks in if I have left the external HD plugged in when switching off, and remaining plugged in when starting from scratch. It says it's checking it for consistency. I have wondered whether this relates to the HD being FAT32 and the laptop being NTFS?

I am looking at acquiring a replacement HD for my "working" one as it tends to play up at the moment - data is backed up - and a possible Samsung 320GB HD is a possibility. I understand that you can download a complimentary piece of software that allows you to change the FAT32 to NTFS, and I therefore assume that this will work better with the NTFS laptop.

Alec

Just to say, I have 3 friends with seagate drives, all 3 died.

thanks,

chaddockdk

Chaddockdk,

Didn't realise owning a Seagate was THAT dangerous.

Len

chaddockdk wrote:Just to say, I have 3 friends with seagate drives, all 3 died.

thanks,

chaddockdk

Just to put this into perspective. Hard Discs die for a number of reasons and Seagate WERE amongst the best for reputed reliability. The thread actually refers to a specific problem with a specific batch of Drives. I appreciate that not everyone will rip components in and out of their PC with the abandon that some including myself do but actually removing a hard drive isn't rocket science. Usually held in place by just four screws and with only a data and a power cable connecting them to the rest of the box they can be safely removed once ALL POWER IS DISCONNECTED and replacement is equally simple. Why would you do that? Well on the top of every Hard Disc is all the info you need to tell exactly what make and model your disc is. If you've a second computer or a friend with a laptop you can then go to the manufacturer's web site and there any problems or patches/fixes will be reported and downloadable.

The issue here was that the problem with THIS SPECIFIC BATCH (See earlier posts) was not reported or fixed quickly enough.

As we expend so much time and energy on our computers and quickly amass so much personal data it's unsurprising that few want to have a massive amount of faith in a fix when the bit of kit so nearly trashed everything in the first place.

If we look at cars however we all stick to our favourite badge .....and often totally oblivious to horrendous levels of recalls from most manufacturers!!! Some of the "mythical masterpieces of engineering" have actually got HIGHER levels of recall than much more modest and poorly thought of cars.

Bottom line is that all manufacturers of technology have good models and duff models. It's why it's SO importnat that consumers feedback is allowed as the real good guys are the manufacturers who listen, investigate and fix faults. Not those who hide behind mythical brand hype and deny all criticism?

Geoff

lenfish wrote:Chaddockdk,

Didn't realise owning a Seagate was THAT dangerous.

Len

crossposted so

Actually SWMBO's objection to my ranting at the computer was far more threatening in my case

Geoff