Well, in my previous post, I mentioned that I had a massive hard drive failure with my external. As it now stands, I got a replacement back from Seagate less than a week ago and guess what happened; IT DIED on Memorial Day! Kind of poetic when you think about it.
Yup, it died when I decided to write data to it, giving me a cyclic redundancy error with the application I was using to download data to the drive. Not thinking too much about it (I initially thought that the drive somehow became over heated. WRONG!) I then fired up the software that came with the drive to see if there were any actual errors with the drive and to see if it could fix any of them. Turns out that it had some sort of fault when it was on part of the night as I attempted to download the data in question (around 250+ megs apparently) and the software couldn't do squat about it and blasted the error message stating that it needed to go back to its mothership for repairs/replacement.
As I sat there, miffed over the entire set of events with this blasted drive, I couldn't help but to wonder why this sort of craziness happened. Turns out on Seagate's own support forums and at this blog dating back as far as August 2007 (just about 1 year before I purchased the drive), there have been multiple problems with these drives and others under the same line of FreeAgent products. So, this made me think of why, why in the hell would the drive be built in such a way as to force it to keelover due to heating and cooling problems when making the case properly in the first place would alleviate most of the problems? And, why would Seagate also use a drive in these units that, according to their own acknowledgement, has faulty firmware that can disable the entire drive?
These sorts of questions and issues bothered me greatly as I made plans to somehow get Seagate on the phone the next day (well, this past Tuesday anyway). I even wondered about the reliability of the next drive that they would send me to replace the replacement!
So, after a lengthy call to their tech support and warranty department, they agreed to have it mailed back for a replacement, free of charge. That last bit made me cautious since their website generally states there is normally a charge for shipping, but thankfully that was free as well. I just need to get a shipment label printed and have UPS pick it up.
Now, this time I just hope that the damned thing will work as advertised and for more than 8 months!
In other news...
Deviant Art still does not work properly for me after nearly 2 months of issues. The DA admins claim my ISP and/or cache memory in my browsers are to blame for my misfortune and T-Mobile states that the site should load up unless the site is a severe bandwidth hog. Technically, T-Mobile is correct in that assessment since DA has all sorts of random ads, flash, images, web code, and etc. that had problems with my connection up until recently. Though, in my defense, I had enough sense to have an ad/flash/script blocker installed on Firefox to taper off some of that; though, it no longer matters since the site refuses to load for me anymore.
To make matters worse, Google Chrome 2.0 and IE 7 have the same issues and they don't have any plugins that block the ads or craptastic scripts DA spams to through my connection. So, I'm thinking they updated or changed some portion of their web coding and it borks my connection (and maybe others) with it's dial-up bandwidth. Just don't tell the DA admins that, since they could give a fly fuck about users in my situation.
So, without further a due, I might as well begin posting my next several project updates here and on my Fur Affinity page as I'm able. Screw DA and their incompetent customer assistance. I'm just glad I'm not paying for additional services at that site, I'd be even more livid!
Yup, it died when I decided to write data to it, giving me a cyclic redundancy error with the application I was using to download data to the drive. Not thinking too much about it (I initially thought that the drive somehow became over heated. WRONG!) I then fired up the software that came with the drive to see if there were any actual errors with the drive and to see if it could fix any of them. Turns out that it had some sort of fault when it was on part of the night as I attempted to download the data in question (around 250+ megs apparently) and the software couldn't do squat about it and blasted the error message stating that it needed to go back to its mothership for repairs/replacement.
As I sat there, miffed over the entire set of events with this blasted drive, I couldn't help but to wonder why this sort of craziness happened. Turns out on Seagate's own support forums and at this blog dating back as far as August 2007 (just about 1 year before I purchased the drive), there have been multiple problems with these drives and others under the same line of FreeAgent products. So, this made me think of why, why in the hell would the drive be built in such a way as to force it to keelover due to heating and cooling problems when making the case properly in the first place would alleviate most of the problems? And, why would Seagate also use a drive in these units that, according to their own acknowledgement, has faulty firmware that can disable the entire drive?
These sorts of questions and issues bothered me greatly as I made plans to somehow get Seagate on the phone the next day (well, this past Tuesday anyway). I even wondered about the reliability of the next drive that they would send me to replace the replacement!
So, after a lengthy call to their tech support and warranty department, they agreed to have it mailed back for a replacement, free of charge. That last bit made me cautious since their website generally states there is normally a charge for shipping, but thankfully that was free as well. I just need to get a shipment label printed and have UPS pick it up.
Now, this time I just hope that the damned thing will work as advertised and for more than 8 months!
In other news...
Deviant Art still does not work properly for me after nearly 2 months of issues. The DA admins claim my ISP and/or cache memory in my browsers are to blame for my misfortune and T-Mobile states that the site should load up unless the site is a severe bandwidth hog. Technically, T-Mobile is correct in that assessment since DA has all sorts of random ads, flash, images, web code, and etc. that had problems with my connection up until recently. Though, in my defense, I had enough sense to have an ad/flash/script blocker installed on Firefox to taper off some of that; though, it no longer matters since the site refuses to load for me anymore.
To make matters worse, Google Chrome 2.0 and IE 7 have the same issues and they don't have any plugins that block the ads or craptastic scripts DA spams to through my connection. So, I'm thinking they updated or changed some portion of their web coding and it borks my connection (and maybe others) with it's dial-up bandwidth. Just don't tell the DA admins that, since they could give a fly fuck about users in my situation.
So, without further a due, I might as well begin posting my next several project updates here and on my Fur Affinity page as I'm able. Screw DA and their incompetent customer assistance. I'm just glad I'm not paying for additional services at that site, I'd be even more livid!
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