Freak369's Full Review: Seagate (L01P160) 160 GB ATA-133 Hard Drive
When my hard drive failed I felt like committing hari-kari with the closest sharp object. Everything I had saved up over the years was gone. Needless to say, it was a very unsettling feeling knowing that all my music files, reviews I've written, HTML codes, photographs, movies and assorted oddities were gone. I'd asked several people for help but always got different answers so I decided to go to a qualified person in the field of computers. That person was my friend that works at a local Staples store. Everyone I talked to said that WestGate was the best choice but when I got to the store this particular Maxtor hard drive was on sale so it was a much better deal than anything I could get on a WestGate. Since I am a complete computer moron I left it up to him to pick out the best one for my computer; being a typical man he went with "the bigger the better" mode of thinking and I ended up with what he called, "the muther of all hard drives". I am sure that there are bigger and better drives out there but so far, this has exceeded all my expectations. I do have to admit this, having such bad luck with computers in the past I was half expecting the computer to crash, freeze, reboot, lock up or just die when I was loading pages or saving things. After all, that was what I was used to in the past but now that I have this beast working hard, I have a little more confidence.
I do have to add this before I get into the actual review. I told my friend what I used this particular computer for and based on that he recommended this hard drive for me. If you aren't sure of the size or brand you should get, do some research. This model might not be the best for everyone but based on what I used it for, it was the best option at the time. I couldn't wait a week or two to order one nor did I have the luxury of spending hours reading about the wonders of hard drives on other people's computers or at the shop. If you are like me, part of the "clueless computer" crowd, ask around but take the information that you get with a grain of salt. It seems like everyone is a freakin' computer expert until it comes time to roll up their sleeves and get the job done. The exception, Kurt Wurmser. If he weren't already married, I would hog tie him to my computer desk so when I screwed something up, he'd be right there to fix it.
What You Get & Getting Started
Included in the box is an installation disk, installation instructions, cable connection cord, screws, the actual hard drive and warranty information. I know almost nothing about computer hardware but I was able to follow the instructions on how to install the new drive. To further embarrass myself I will tell you this, it took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to get the old drive out because there were two screws that were blocked by a side panel. Salvation came when one of the brood walked in, apparently after hearing me swearing like a rabid truck driver, and pointed out that there was a screw that needed to be removed on the front of the assembly and two small plastic prongs that held the floppy drive, zip drive and hard drive in place. Once I had that undone I could get to the other screws and remove the cables from it. I had no idea about jumpers and all that mumbo jumbo so I went with what it said in the book and used the old cable. This was something that my friend corrected for me; if you are doing a self install chances are you are going to have to move one of the pins in order for it to work correctly. Even so, after getting the drive in and the cables back on it, I was patting myself on the back and getting a little egotistical. I think my exact words were, "GeekSquad can bite me, this is a piece of cake".
All that arrogance came to a screeching halt when I reconnected the power to the computer. I put in the installation disk for the hard drive and proceeded to follow the instructions in the booklet. There was one tiny, little, itsy bitsy thing that was missing. What's that you ask? My boot disc. Now, 99% of the people that I talked to said [when I was going to install XP], "just format your C drive, put the XP disc in your computer and it will load everything that it needs to get you going". That's a nice theory but if your CMOS isn’t set up right or there is a problem with your CD ROM [and trust me, there are like 50 things that could be wrong with it] then you are essentially screwed. I learned this the hard way and it wasn't an easy pill to swallow. Without the basic drivers there you can't load anything for the new hard drive and that means you can't load any operating system. This was fixed with a Windows 98 boot disc, it had enough information on it to set up the CD to read and transfer information after which XP loaded perfectly.
My friend had help though, he was puzzled by the CDROM and why it would read certain things but not the XP disc. He installed it on another computer and it worked like a charm, then he tried it on another and it couldn't be recognized. This is why it's important to know the difference between a master and slave [get your minds out of the gutter], know that all your files are backed up or safe on some type of media and that your CD drives work. Sure, there are other things you need to do before you install a new hard drive but let's face it, who replaces a hard drive before it crashes? I certainly didn’t think that mine would crash. It wasn't like I was sitting there and a voice said to me, "Your computer is going to die in five days, start backing things up". Now I have a constant reminder on the wall. A huge sign that I made that reads, simply, "You Are A Computer Moron. Back Up Your Files. Do Not Delete Programs, Uninstall". Crude but effective.
I would have to say that if someone had even the slightest computer hardware experience, he or she would be able to install this and get it working in about ten minutes. Everything that I needed to install it was in the box but you will need a screwdriver and possibly a pair of pliers to remove or reset the pins. This was something that I didn’t bother with but it could have really screwed things up if my friend hadn't double checked things. When I asked him how bad a mistake it could have been he just shook his head from side to side and told me to go sit down and wait until he was done. I was surprised by the size of this; the box is pretty big but the actual hard drive is about the size of a DVD case [almost twice as thick though]. I'm not sure what order he went in to install things but I have to assume that the boot disc was first then the Maxtor disc then XP. I loathe XP and really disliked having it installed but I was left no option in the matter as my friend "accidentally" broke my copy of Windows 98. I don't think it was an accident. In fact, I know it wasn't. He kept telling me that it is "so much better than 98". If that's the case, why does it keep overriding my Belkin Wireless Adapter and settings? But I am getting off track as usual.
This was selling for about $90.00 at the retail store but it was on sale when I got it. It was selling at two dollars less than a smaller Maxtor hard drive so it made sense to get this one instead of something that had less 'power'. I use the word power loosely because, to be completely honest, I have no clue what exactly a hard drive does [ok, I know what it does but not exactly what its capabilities are]. How is my computer different now that I have it? Oh let me count the ways.
1. I can download programs without the computer freezing or rebooting.
2. I don't hear a lot of noise coming from the computer case [yes, I am rolling my eyes, why didn't I pick up on that before it crashed?]
3. I know that my data is safe and there is plenty of storage space.
4. There is a three year warranty on it so even if I do managed to screw it up [within the limits of the warranty that is], Maxtor will replace it.
5. It has more space than I will ever, ever be able to make use of but it sure feels nice knowing that I don't have to check the C drive every week.
6. It's backed with a three year warranty. My old hard drive lasted six years, if this lasts as long I will be really, really thrilled.
Now, since I am a computer moron I can't say for sure that some of these things aren't being influenced by having XP on my machine. When I hit websites things process faster, graphics and heavy animations don't make my computer reboot and I can use the 'back' button on my browser without it freezing my machine. Of course time will tell in regards to how this is going to perform. I am still in the honeymoon phase of things; at this point in time I am happy to actually have a computer that works and a connection to the internet.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I know what data transfer rates mean or what "8MB Cache" has to do with anything. All I know is this, my computer works and when I save something to it, I can open it or run a program without it failing, giving me an error message or any of the stuff I had with the old hard drive. Maybe there were warning signs that I ignored, maybe there were things going on that should have been clues that there was trouble on the horizon. All that is dust in the wind and there isn't a thing that I can do to change it. All I can do now is move on and rebuild.
The actual install of this hard drive was done by me but I didn't have the jumper set correctly; thankfully the person that redid the install caught it and fixed it before anything went any further. The disc that comes with it may or may not be needed depending on the operating system that is being used. If you have a newer computer it might not be needed but I am not a computer person, I am simply going on what I was told by the person that did the actual software installing after the hard drive was put in. He checked the jumpers and redid what ever needed to be done in about five minutes, couple that with the time that it took me and everything took about fifteen minutes total minus the amount of time that I spend trying to figure out how to get the old hard drive out. Now that I've seen the process I think I can handle installing another hard drive on my own but it isn't something that I would look forward to doing. Back up your files and back them up often is my new motto.
What are the system requirements for this? First you have to have an open bay for the hard drive if you are adding this as a secondary storage option. You also need a functioning CD drive to load the software for this. You need to have Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000 or XP for this to work so if you have Windows 95, you are pretty much out of luck. For Mac computers you need OS 8.6 or higher. When I set this up I just unattached the old cable and shoved it into this hard drive, that was part of the problem but not the entire problem. My friend installed the new cable on the off chance that there might have been a problem with the old one. He said it was better to just replace it than to have to rip the computer open again and replace it. For the techies out there this has a spin rate of 7200 RPM and an average seek time of less than ten ms [is that milliseconds?]. I took that right off the box so please don't think that I am getting all high tech on you.
The Bottom Line
So far things have been working great with this new hard drive. I can whip through web pages without my computer rebooting for no reason and so far I haven't had one single error message or out of frequency failure. I can't say that the new hard drive was what cured my computer because I know I was probably missing drivers, running outdated programs and using Windows 98. Things got so bad that I couldn’t even use Internet Explorer, when I opened it, my computer would crash. I know that there were traces of the Friday The 13th virus on my hard drive, something that I couldn't remove no matter how hard I tried. Any time I installed or tried to download or use any type of virus killer, my computer would reboot. I guess in a way it was good that my drive died. I was forced to upgrade to Windows XP [I still hate it and doubt it will ever grow on me] but I am still having issues with XP killing my internet connection. That has nothing to do with the hard drive but I will complain about XP every single chance I get.
As far as the negative reviews are concerned, I didn't read any of them before I purchased this. It was a little unsettling to read over some of the titles and see that people had problems with it but I look at it this way, if they were that bad then most office supply stores wouldn't sell them. I also look at it from another view; people in real life situations rarely stop to say something positive about a product or service that they received but they voice their opinion when something goes wrong. I am hoping that this lasts as long as the old hard drive did but I'm not taking any chances with my information. If it is worth anything to me it gets burned to a disc or saved to my faithful but slightly outdated zip drive. I also openly admit that I have probably just jinxed myself and will power up my computer tomorrow to see some evil message that I don't have a hard drive installed or all my information has gone missing. Wait, maybe I just jinxed myself saying that. I better stop before I give myself an anxiety attack!
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