Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

I am planning on replacing the HDD in my wifes old HP pavillion desktop. I'll edit this post later with the specs. It's around 10 years old or so and will probably keep it going for a little while longer. Only thing it's used for is to play online games, nothing 3d or anything just those facebook type games. Also sometimes she works from home on it. Anyway I was looking at from newegg. It's the only manufacturer that actually offers a 3 year warranty. I've never heard of the company though. It's pretty expensive but I'm purchasing it over a WD or other brand because of the warranty. Plus I'm thinking that this company is the only one that still actually manufactures these older type drives currently. The Western Digital ones I'm thinking are just lying around and just older stock.




Am I correct about WD not manufacturing these older type HDDs anymore?. I think it might be worth it to pay the extra for something that's not been sitting around for years before use. What do you think about all this Scott?

I don't know maybe I'm not looking hard enough. If I could find a comparable drive with a 3 year warranty than that would be good. Scott, is that the only reason it's cost is higher than most other enterprise class drives?. The warranty?. Or is it considered more reliable?

The only hard disk drive manufacturers left in operation today are Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba. Axiom is most likely relabeling drives from one of those companies. I don't really believe in drive warranties because that means you would have to send the defective drive in and as a rule I won't send back a drive with important or sensitive data on it. Scott.

Well I would wipe the drive first before sending it back. I've used the warranty for a few drives in the past. Just purchased a new one, installed it and wiped the old drive and sent it back and had the replacement as an extra one or for back up. I'll have to look more for maybe a longer warranty on a Western Digital brand.

I've just found it rare that a truly defective drive can survive (or even begin) the wipe process, plus it takes a lot of time and effort. I normally like to wipe drives via the Medieval "pliers and a blowtorch" method. <g>

Can't seem to find any other manufacturer other than Axiom that has the warranty by the manufacturer. All others I've seen so far are 3rd party warranties.

Well, I went with Should be fine, Will probably build a new pc next year anyway.

500GB is considered pretty small today but it should work well. Let me know how it turns out, Scott.

She's only used 72.1 GB total, so 500GB will be more than enough.

Did the replacement today. I used a bootable version of Acronis 10 with "plus pack" and did a clone disk operation. Worked flawlessly. The funny thing is I went to try out the current version of Acronis and it didn't even give me the option to clone in the trial version. It took forever to install it too. That software is so bloated now it's crazy. Uninstalled it.

Scott, I took the old HDD apart to get the magnets. Is there anyway to get the metal backing off of them?. I guess they are brackets attached to the back of the magnets.

I have done that several times by using a very thin knife to wedge between the magnet and the metal base, then tapping it in with a small hammer. Unfortunately in many cases the glue is so strong that it will take some of the magnet's nickel coating with it. Scott.

I found a different way. I used 2 pliers and bent the bracket. The magnet came off the bracket but now there is some kind of foil type material that came off of the magnet. I'm not sure what it is.

Should I even be touching this foil over-wrap?.

I just threw them out. I have a few other old hdd I can get more magnets out if I want to try this again.

Is there maybe some way I could do it next time with a chemical or something?. I think I might have cut myself if I continued to try the knife and hammer option. Would heating it maybe work to melt whatever adhesive is used to stick the magnets to the brackets?.

There may be a solvent that will work but I haven't tried any. I'm guessing the glue is a form of epoxy or cyanoacrylate, so maybe look into what might dissolve those. Let me know what you use if you have success, Scott.