3DO ZONE Forums

This is only a reading for those of you interested in fellow 3DO gamers' lives.

Ok I've been gone for a few days because the C: drive on my PC died, luckily after a total crash of my laptop I only put things on the desktop temporarily (nothing like loosing a book you are over 100pages into). So I had everything on that computer backed up... BUT ONCE AGAIN MY VIDEO GAME DRIVE DIED TOO.

Last time it was do to physical shock while writing, this time due to using a crappy Seagate drive! Last time I got almost all the data back as most of it was from other drives and I had been too lazy to sort it all out and delete everything. YAY procrastination! Mind you I had also done a very large project of ripping all my 3DO CDs and they would have only been on that dead drive if I hadn't been ripping them to a different one while I was sorting them out. But this time I have somewhere around 396GB of new data that I never had before, in fact it was all that writing for weeks that probably cooked the drive.

Sooo luckily it's not completely dead yet and I've spent the last 2 days copying everything to the new Western Digital drive. I don't really trust anyone other than Maxtor and they are gone. Every brand drive I have had has died including WD, whom everyone swears by, yet I still have a 6GB Maxtor that still works.

ONCE AGAIN I am saving all my data, I have almost all 750+ GB saved, all except the 3DO disc archive, since it's completely backed up between two other drives, and my Nintendo folder which I am copying now. I really wasn't that upset the first time because I knew that I could get almost everything back. This time it's taking less work because the drive still functions, messed up but it's readable 70% of the time, but I'm really ticked because this is the second time!

Oh and if you are wondering how I'm doing this all on a dead C: drive, I'm not. My laptop that I had to format and reinstall everything still works as long as it gets plenty of cooling from the fans under it. I really don't think this would even be working if the air conditioner wasn't blowing on it 24/7.

ughh. that sucks. I used to swear by maxtor too. I've had ok luck so far with WD drives though. I put a 1TB WD drive for storage in my desktop and it has been ok so far. Had it for about a year or so. I dont put much stress on it though.

I work my Maxtors hard (mmmmmm) and they have been living for ever. Just don't play soccer with one. Yet WD always died within 2 years on me in the past. But I'm hoping the quality has improved in the past 5 years or so.

I do wonder if when solid state drives die, from lots of use, if they go out completely or if you can read but just not write. I know you can kill them in thumb drive size by making them overheat from writing.

On my side, I had 4 or 5 Maxtor drives that failed or died on the past 6 years, so no more Maxtor for me.
It seems there is a part of good or bad luck with drives, whatever brand they are.

so far all my HD are still working, the years listed are whats on the HD

1999 seagate 4gb HD - its in my 1st Emachines computer
2003 WD 40gb HD -- this one has been acting funny lately (its my OS HD and its been that way for 7 years)
2004 WD 80gb HD
2007 WD 80gb HD -- this one was only used for 2 weeks in another computer before the motherboard died
2008 seagate 80gb external

i try not to keep stuff i dont want to lose on my OS hard drive, so if it does die i wont have to much to replace or try and transfer to another HD
i lost alot of good 3do pics and emails in 2003 because i didnt have a back up HD, and i got a virus so all i could do was wipe it and reinstall everything. and it didnt help that i was a major rookie with computers and my friend was out of town who usually fixes or tells me what to do

I've only had one harddrive die on me in the past 10 years. WD I think died in work Laptop, saving me from having to do any work. So I was quite pleased. That said, I have a draw full of old 3.5" and 2.5" that I have acquired over the years.

That's really weird that you had that much trouble with Max. I do think there is some odd connection between people and computers. I know I've had a few pocket computers and they all scrambled on me within months. God I was such a nerd, maybe still am.

But it's like when you change computer cases.... nothing should change other than the physical space. You take parts out and then put them back in the exact same slots and when you turn it on it acts differently. Even mechanical parts. I had taken a computer out of a "bleeder" case and put it into a metal and plastic one, same power supply and all sure enough does the CD burner now respond to software commands to open and close. Before it just ignored them. In the past I had pulled it changed from master to slave, changed place on ribbon, changed the ribbon itself, and even tried a different power feed and I always had to push the actual open button.

Then again it is all electrons so it shouldn't be surprising that small changes can affect complex systems in a large way. Body electromagnetism combining with different manufacturing techniques could be what causes one brand to repetitively fail and another survive AND have the opposite outcome when a different person is taking place of the other.

No matter what all my video game data has been backed up. I was given another 500GB as well by a family member so I'm using that to toss other data that was filling up another drive onto.

I used to sel them at retail - and your right it really is "horses for courses". I personally saw quite a few Maxtors come back with issues , and Seagate and Western Digital - but my 500gb Maxtor has never missed a beat and save me quite a few times (as did Norton 360's external server)

One of my video cards decided to die on my desktop today. oh well. I haven't been doing much gaming on the desktop anyways. Was a nice card though. Nvidia geforce 8800 gts 640 MB.

Wow I've never had a video card go on me, but then again I used to change them all the time. My saddest change however was when I had to take out my Voodoo 5 5500, *sniff* I loved that card.

I still have 2 voodoo2 cards somehwere. That was back when sli was a 3dfx technology! I also had a voodoo3 but I think my sister lost that one somewhere. Never had a voodoo 5.

My problem with video cards has always been the fans. The fans die out before the cards. I once twisty tied a different fan to a video card so I didn't have to replace it. It worked for quite a long time too, lol. I also once wired in some different fans into a power supply so I didn't have to buy a new one of those. I even ended up putting that power supply into someone else's computer. It lived a long time.

This video card that just died on me though, I have no idea why. Im going to take it apart and see if I notice anything. But I doubt I will find anything. When I hooked a crt monitor to the card, it had about 10 corrupted lines down the right side. It wouldn't even display anything on my lcd tv. it's a goner. Doesn't mean I can't have fun taking it apart though.