Western Digital Scorpio Blue 250GB 2.5" PATA Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Comment:
When I had initially gotten this drive it was all great. It is the biggest capacity wise and performed quite well. I am however disappointed now due to a sudden death of the drive. The system was fully running overnight with some downloads but when I checked it this morning there was a black screen and a ''disk read error'' has occurred. How can a good drive change or corrupt files like this just overnight???

Comment:
I purchased first a 160 GB to replace my 80GB in my 2004 Dell Inspiron and at first it was great. I created a 70GB and a 8 GB Partition at startup. After installing XP SP3 and several boots the system doesn't recognize the remaining space on the drive any longer. All attemps with WD and other low level formatting tools failed. Attaching the drive as exteral device to other computers showed the same mess. My Harwarevendor exchanged the drive with a 120GB but after installing an rebooting I now face the same troubles. The remaining Diskspace os no longer visible and cannot used for a partition

Comment:
I bought this about three (3) months ago and installed into a 2.5'' USB enclosure. Filled it with 175 GB and used it sparingly. It failed with the dreaded ''click-o'-death''. I'm now waiting for WD to RMA a replacement. This has been a disappointing experience for me with WD. My experiences with Seagate have been much more positive.

Comment:
This works excellent on my Compaq EVO N620c. I'm using Linux (Ubuntu) on my PC and the drive is performing not just great but excellent. The file transfer rate for me is from 10MB/s to 25MB/s. It is very fast and have fast access to files on it. I Recommend this to everyone that use Linux. For Windows, well, I have installed it several times in this Hard Disk and every time I turn on the PC it says ''Windows Failed to Start. A recent Hardware or Software Change might be the cause''. I don't know why this happens as with previous Hard Disks Windows worked excellent. Well, however. In Linux, which is my primary OS, it is performing faster than any other drives I had. I'm 100% Satisfied with this Hard Disk Drive.

Comment:
I just got one of these for my laptop (Apple Powerbook G4 12''). I need the capacity. Even as I was copying my data on it, I had a problem - the harddrive stopped responding. When I unplugged it and plugged it back again, I had the dreaded clicking sound coming from it. If you are not familiar with what that is, the clicking sound is caused by the harddrive's logic trying to recalibrate the position mechanism of the head as it is not finding track 0. All harddrives need to do it every once in a while, but if it just keeps doing it over and over, then your harddrive is dead or dying. I have had A LOT of harddrives die on me this way from every brand! This one was dead less than 12 hours after I first plugged it in. Bad luck? Maybe. I have no choice, I need the capacity, so I am getting another one of these, but Western Digital is not my brand of choice. Stay away from it if you can. All WD harddrives I have ever owned have died within a year, save for one - a very old 250MB one

Comment:
I purchased this to replace my 80GB in my 2004 Dell Inspiron and at first it was great. However, twice now in the first two months of ownership my computer has suddenly been, first, unable to boot XP, and then wasn't able to read the disk at all (disk read error). These both occurred in the morning after I had turned them off the night before with no problems what so ever, it just would not work. I've already had to reformat everything once and am now so sick of it I will just have to wait to purchase a totally new computer. Similar to the others, my HD was shipped with a plastic container and the HD wasn't even in it, it was in the box loose, just as the other described.

Comment:
The only reason I gave a low rating for Quality is the packaging that Tiger Direct used when shipping this. It came in a relatively large box with very little filler material. The hard drive had no problems moving around freely and hitting the side of the box. When I opened the box, the hard drive had been removed from the OEM packaging and placed into a plastic sleeve. I can only assume that this was done to free up shelf space in the warehouse. Other than that, I haven't had any problems with it yet, but I did get the extended warranty just in case all of that bouncing around messed it up.

Comment:
I have 2 of these installed in a Toshiba Magnia SG20 low-profile server. There is nothing else even close for such a capacity in a PATA 2.5'' drive. They've been quiet and reliable for the past 3 months. Be aware, however, that these OEM drives ship without directions (on the WD website) and mine came without jumpers. They could not coexist with each other jumpered for cable-select, but get along fine jumpered as master-slave.