So my D: Drive has finally cacked out...

[Mikeus Caesar]

Yes, the oldest component on my PC, excluding the fans, floppy drive and back-up files from 1994 has finally cacked out. I'll sometimes go to My Computer, with only C: Drive showing up and D: nowhere to be found, and today it performed a chkdsk on D:, which failed because it couldn't find it.

So, i need a new hard-drive. Any recommendations? I need you to tell me in the next week or so, before my birthday because if i get it for my birthday, then that means price is no limit!

[orangat]

Price range, disk size, interface -pata/sata?

[Taurus]

The best place in my opinion to buy a new hard drive is Maplins (depending where you live, I'm not sure if they have stores outside of the UK, if you live outside the UK that is). I got a 320gb internal hard drive from Maplins for around £80 which is dirt cheap really.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Orangat - price is no limit, and the bigger the better.

Taurus - yes, i do live in the UK. I'll check out Maplin's.

[orangat]

Get Samsungs or Hitachi's.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Get Samsungs or Hitachi's.

I'll probably get Hitachi, i'm not too keen on Samsung. The broken hard-drive i have now, and my last Hard-Drive which broke (and at the time was my C: drive) were both Samsung's.
They've lasted me for 3 years, which is good, but the problem is, when they decide to kick the bucket, they do it very quickly without warning, typically corrupting or destroying data stored on them, whereas my Dad's HD (not sure what make, not Samsung though) broke over a period of time, which gave him a chance to buy a new one and transfer his stuff.

[orangat]

What model of samsung was it? The v series or sp series or something older? The SPs are very reliable. Even the v30/40 drives are pretty reliable.

7200rpm drives generally require active cooling to last long. A small front case fan is good enough. I did notice that my 250gb samsung runs relatively cool even without active cooling, but its not something I'd recommend.

And about warning signs, check the smart status using everest or something. I'm very sure samsung drives give plenty of notice. By the time you get to whinny noises and bad data, its ready to explode.