I should clarify that at the time of my hard drive crashes, I only had one hard drive, so the heat issue to which you refer didnt apply in my case. The first drive failed in February within a week after installation, following carrier despatch, and the second in August. Both were Maxtor. The slowness to which I referred applied to each individual drive and neither was capable of recovery, although the second was partitioned and the data on the partition was recovered with Norton Ghost, the C: Drive corrupt.
I have a Dell Dimension 8400 with 250 GB HD and double 1024 MB RAM, not low end or old. I note otherwise what you say. Janet ----- Original Message ----- From: "N. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Actually I've stating this because of two things. > That particular model and series of Maxtor had NOTORIOUS problems with > unexpected failure. That was mainly because the drives are only 1/2 > height and this is insufficient housing to properly cool the drive. > This leads to abnormally short service life. I've seen on average > lifespans of 14 to 20 months of service in a normal non-commercial > setting. Installing one near another hard drive raises internal > temperatures and can dramatically increase failure rates. > The slowness you have experienced in that case is typically due to > error recovery. The drive may be constantly trying to recover from > errors which causes the drive to 'pause' momentarily, for even several > seconds or down to milliseconds. > > As for the dust cover, that's a 100% chance of overheating even a > low-end computer or older one. The system MUST have airflow to > operate. Failure to do so will increase temperatures and: > 1. Cause the CPU to overheat which will lead to a crash within minutes. > 2. As above, heat shortens all electronic component lifespans > significantly. > > Factory computers use specially designed chasses that have dust > filters, but must still move air through them. > > > --- In [email protected], "Janet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> I would only speak from personal experience, because I am no techie. > This year I have had two Maxtor hard drives fail and both times, I > remembered the PC slowing. I now have two Western Digital and am > crossing my fingers. A technician at my preferred supplier suggested > that Seagate also had bad press for a while. >> After that experience I'm probably listening to my PC too much, but > that's the effect it has had on me. >> >> As an aside to this, I would like to ask a question. It is, do the > plastic protective covers one can buy to protect the tower from dust > cause over heating? Can they be used permanently in a dusty > environment, say in a factory? ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery. http://us.click.yahoo.com/.QUssC/izNLAA/TtwFAA/67folB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you have any questions or problems with any aspect of this site, please feel free to contact me directly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please do not post personal issues directly to the group. To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you for using A-1 Computer Tech Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-1-Computer_Tech/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
