Well, it’s only been just over 1.5 months since my S had to have it’s hard disk replaced and it has died once again. This time it’s way worse than before. It clicks so loud that I can feel it under the palm rest area. So, Sony has sent out the box as usual; however, I had just finished working on a few projects and need the data off the drive. Sony doesn’t recover data so I have to go through DriveSavers (authorized by Sony to open their laptops and you get a 10% discount). Unfortunately, the price range for data recovery is $500-2700 depending on the means needed recover the data. The representative estimated it would cost $1800 based on the information I gave her and assuming they can do it. If they can’t then it’s supposedly only $200.

I’m still deciding if I want to redo all the work (lost time) or if I just want to pay to get it done (and even that isn’t guaranteed). $1800 sucks because I could buy a whole new laptop for that much. Oh well…such is life.

If puzzles me how my little TR has never been in for service or failed while my S’s hard disk has died twice within 7 months already. I’m thinking Sony may have got a bad batch of Hitachi hard disks. Well, once I get the data recovered, then I’ll send Sony the whole notebook so they can pop in a new drive. Sony won’t give you back the old drive if you send it in for service first. Well, actually they “can” but only if you give them a credit card number and promise to return it after you’ve sent it to a recovery place. It’s sort of a hassle. Of course, the upside is you get a working system back first while the data is being recovered. My only fear is that the technicians will forget that I want the old drive and trash it and I’ll lose all opportunities to get the data back.

More on this later…in the meantime…my TR saves the day!

My sister has an S series and had a fatal SMART error, we sent it, they sent it back, but all is good now, for now…i hope..

i didnt realise there was a problem with the s series, note; this is a UK model.

Yeah, mine was also a “fatal” SMART error. The system doesn’t even try to boot. It gives me a text screen that tells me to back all of my data…nice message…thanks for the warning…it’s a little too late for that.

lucky for my sis’s S it gave her an option to bypass the SMART which was fortunate considering the HDD needs to be replaced.

Damn, sorry to hear that again. Isn’t your HDD a special one, like 7200 rpms or something…I remember you saying they sent the wrong one last time.

Erik

ghost? sorry to hear the bad news… good luck w/it. 

that’s about how frustrated i was with my TR when it was clicking =/

It seems like the 1.8 hd’s are not very reliable. It seems there have been more hd dying that are 1.8 than any I’ve ever heard of.
I’m thinking that is probably why we are not seeing 60 and 80 gig drives yet. Still too many problems. Maybe it’s a heat dissapation issue. But I’ve already had one die in my TR. And when I searched the forum, it seemed like alot of you have had drives die also.

jc

I work in forensic data recovery and could probably get your data back pretty easily if the hard drive spins.  If it doesn’t, the method of restore gets quite complicated.  You basically have to get an identical workiing drive, open both up, and move the platters from one subsystem to the other.  That’s why it’s so expensive.

Data recovery from a corrupted hard drive is quite simple.

Let me know if i can help.

Sorry to hear that gr00vy, I also had a hard drive crisis of my own when the original Hitachi drive from my S that I put in an external case died a horrible clunking death two weeks ago. After hearing all the reports of DeathStar desktop drives I hoped that it didn’t extend to notebook drives, but at my company when a notebook hard drive fails it’s usually a Hitachi/IBM model. I go with Toshiba or Seagate now just to be safe. 

[quote author=“caseyatbt”]It seems like the 1.8 hd’s are not very reliable. It seems there have been more hd dying that are 1.8 than any I’ve ever heard of.
I’m thinking that is probably why we are not seeing 60 and 80 gig drives yet. Still too many problems. Maybe it’s a heat dissapation issue. But I’ve already had one die in my TR. And when I searched the forum, it seemed like alot of you have had drives die also.

jc

i believe groovy has as 2.5. 

and i can’t say they’re completely unreliable because there are a lot of ipod and rio karma users that have a 1.8” drive.

Yeah, it’s a 2.5” model. The weird thing is that I’ve always had exceptionally good experiences with Hitachi/IBM notebook hard drives. From all that I’m hearing it just seems like the 5400RPM Hitachi 80GBs have some problems. I plan on having Sony give me yet another Hitachi drive under warranty. However, I will replace it with a Seagate 80 or 100GB drive and put the new 80GB in an external enclosure.

And yes, the current hard disk needs to be put into a clean room and have it moved to a new unit. I’m still weighing the pros and cons of my data…haha. I plan to decide by monday. We’ll see what happens.

i guess that’s the cost of having high performance in a tiny package =/

it bothers me to know that my hd is performing at the past the recommended heat tolerence

64 degrees celsium when the max on toshiba’s site is 60 degrees

i don’t think any of my desktops ever ran remotely close to 60 degrees.

my brother in law had his TR3A about a month ago, crashed so, i ordered by mistake a toshiba but the connectors are not the same so i sent it back in UK and ordered a new hitachi this time.

the toshiba tha my TR2A has is far beter than hitachi’s i think.

Now, i am stuck with a dead (probably) hitachi 40GB 1.8 inch in warranty, bought his TR3A last June, since i did not sent the laptop over to the USA and have sony repair it.

can i do anything with it? reclaim a new one maybe?

tnx

Same here, I had a Vaio FRV series and upgraded it to Toshiba 80GB 5400RPM last year and when I got my S, I swapped it.. Becuase I know the S only has 4200RPM.. and ever since that day it’s very quiet.  And it seems faster..