An Unfortunate Electronic Device Purchase

[Greg Blank]

Bought a Lacie 1 TB drive about one week ago from Amazon I recieved the Lacie drive and it failed after being formated and I backed up 500GB of data two days later. Lots of digital photos, and business confidential files. The On Off switch fails to turn the drive off and none of the cables, USB,Firewire 400 or 800 allow the drive to be recognised.
My belief is that the interface PCB behind the screw on back plate is disconnected or some component is damaged by rough handling from Amazon or the post office.

Their technical support stated that the power supply was most likely the fault. I checked it with a volt meter and its fine....yielding the desired 12 volt output. I have pretty much decided that rather than send the drive back and have my data compromised I will void the 3 year warranty and try to fix the problem myself. Anyone out there with these experiences or experience fixing HD's?

I have two other Lacie devices, but I fear this shall be my last. And no more Amazon.com electronics :)

[Deane Johnson]

I have had multiple Lacie drives fail, for what it's worth.

[Paul Bujak]

I only have one Lacie drive and it's been working fine for 5 years.

[Mike1234]

I bought my external HD after inquiring about "reliability" and "customer satisfaction" directly from sales people, technicians, and the folks at the returns counter at Best Buy. I settled for a smaller drive in favor of maximum reliability. It's a Toshiba 400 GB and it works like a champ. I learned long ago not to buy strictly on size, speed, or brand name.

[PViapiano]

They all fail at some point.

It's not if, it's when...

I've had several Seagate and Western Digital drives fail, all of varying capacities.

[rob]

I assume it has SATA drive inside so I would open the case, remove the drive, and connect it to the SATA interface inside your computer, and see whether it would be recognized after booting.

[Asher Kelman]

Bought a Lacie 1 TB drive about one week ago from Amazon I recieved the Lacie drive and it failed after being formated and I backed up 500GB of data two days later. Lots of digital photos, and business confidential files. The On Off switch fails to turn the drive off and none of the cables, USB,Firewire 400 or 800 allow the drive to be recognised.
My belief is that the interface PCB behind the screw on back plate is disconnected or some component is damaged by rough handling from Amazon or the post office.

Their technical support stated that the power supply was most likely the fault. I checked it with a volt meter and its fine....yielding the desired 12 volt output. I have pretty much decided that rather than send the drive back and have my data compromised I will void the 3 year warranty and try to fix the problem myself. Anyone out there with these experiences or experience fixing HD's?

I have two other Lacie devices, but I fear this shall be my last. And no more Amazon.com electronics :)

First my empathy. I no longer buy La Cie hard drives. I've had too many crashes! When my data drive failed with 500 GB they refused to give me the software to tack the two component drives back together. In the end I recovered the data but it took me several weeks of work to do so and no file names to recognize anything, but I just dumped everything into iview media pro and sorted the data by size, dumping all the tiny thumbnail files and ended up with everything but about 5% of files were corrupted.

Since then I aim to have 3 copies of everything and avoid Lacie drives!

For my active data I also use a Drobo backup. That works but is slow if a drive fails. It can take 2-4 days to rebuild a drive.

http://www.thedambook.com/art/DAM_Book_Cover.jpg

So the best way is immediate archiving of files and on multiple drives, same when there is a derivative file. Read the DAM book, 2cd edition for more info.

Asher Kelman

[Deane Johnson]

I note that Western Digital has one of their "notebook" style drives available as a RAID 1 (mirrored). It's only $229 for 1TB of data (2 single 1TB drives together).

I have dual drives inside my computer with RAID 1. When 1 drive failed, I simply went over to Best Buy, picked up another one, plugged it in, and it restored the data to the second drive and I was back in business with zero loss. RAID 1 Arrays are very comforting.

[Marko]

Mirrored RAID is great for guarding against a single drive failure, but it does very little if there is a larger hardware failure or some other calamity such as fire that could affect the entire enclosure and fry both drives.

Using two (or more) physically completely separate drives provides for stronger protection. Keeping one of the copies completely off-site is the ultimate separation. Even the simplest backup software provides for simple automation of the task and better packages provide full scripting.

[MIke Sherck]

We bought a 1TB Lacie drive and it failed rapidly. The 512 MB drives seem to be much more reliable.

Mike

[Deane Johnson]

Has anyone tried these on-line backup services that advertise? Carbonite is one that comes to mind.

[Lenny Eiger]

Has anyone tried these on-line backup services that advertise? Carbonite is one that comes to mind.

I don't like off-line backup services. I don't trust them. I would rather have my data right here where I can access it. Of course, it isn't bade to ahve somewhere else in the case of a fire as a secondary mechanism, but that's another story.

LaCie has made a number of mistakes over the years. I am surprised they are still here. They do try to help when called. However, I will say that the earlier poster is correct, they have never been able to get a reliable power brick supplier. I have a pile of them here, all bad. They take about 3 months to die....

Everyone should remember the rule - if you have something on a drive, back it up to another. Or mirror, etc. Everything has to be backed up - or you will lose it.

Lenny

[Deane Johnson]

I'm wondering if one couldn't use a radio shack power brick of the proper specs to replace the original? I have several Lacie drives here that I suspect are just power problems.

[Marko]

I don't like off-line backup services. I don't trust them. I would rather have my data right here where I can access it. Of course, it isn't bade to ahve somewhere else in the case of a fire as a secondary mechanism, but that's another story.

The simplest method is to have one of the backup sets on a portable external HD - 2.5" ones in the range of 300-500MB are pretty affordable these days, can be powered through USB/FW port OR via external brick and are easy to unhook and carry.

I got two of those, one carries the most recent and/or current projects, the other carries the most critical files. They get updated overnight and are ready to go in the morning. I have a dedicated pocket in my laptop bag for them and they go with me wherever I go.


Everyone should remember the rule - if you have something on a drive, back it up to another. Or mirror, etc. Everything has to be backed up - or you will lose it.

This is an essential advice that cannot be overemphasized. The probability of a bad disk failure happening is inversely proportional to the number of current backup copies.

Hard disks are cheap. Don't complain when your only disk fails and you lose data, because by skimping on hard disks, you admitted that your files were even cheaper.


I'm wondering if one couldn't use a radio shack power brick of the proper specs to replace the original? I have several Lacie drives here that I suspect are just power problems.

Better get one of the external enclosures and simply transplant the HD from the original case. Those come with their own power supplies and can be had for $20-$40 a piece. Two good places to look for them are newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/) and frys.com (http://frys.com/).

[Deane Johnson]

[QUOTE=Better get one of the external enclosures and simply transplant the HD from the original case. Those come with their own power supplies and can be had for $20-$40 a piece. Two good places to look for them are newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/) and frys.com (http://frys.com/).[/QUOTE]

Good suggestion. I don't like the Lacie cases, they run awfully hot. Perhaps they are doing their job of migrating the heat to the outside, but it makes me nervous to have electronic stuff running hot.

[Greg Miller]

Has anyone tried these on-line backup services that advertise? Carbonite is one that comes to mind.

These services work fine, except that you are limited to the upload speed of your internet service. Even with high speed broadband service, that means that if you have a gigabytes of image files, it could take months to achieve the initial backup. A recovery, if ever needed, would also take quite a long time. These services weren't really designed for the storage needs of people involved with hard core imaging.

The process I use is a RAID 1 NAS device for my primary files (The NAS makes it easy to access files from any computer on my network). So the files are always mirrored real time. To protect against more severe problems I have a set of external hard drives for additional backups and that are rotated to another physical location on a regular basis. That way if my house burns down or a burglar clears me out, I will not incur any significant loss. If I am working on a critical project, I create backup and move it off-site on a daily basis.

[Michael Graves]

Imagine the archaeologists of 10,000AD, as they assume that 21st Century America achieved no technological advances...what what in the heck was the religious significance of all those irridescent disks and rectangular silver boxes with the wheels inside?

[Ed Richards]

Why are you wasting a second with it? The best thing about Amazon is the easy returns. Buy an external drive housing, an eSATA external cable card, and then you can just plug in standard drives. I paid $39 for the housing, $15 for the card (supports 2 drives), and $80 for a standard 1TB Western Digital naked drive, the green version that runs cool and quiet. Just buy it all from Amazon, not a TP vendor, and you can return anything you do not like or that fails.

[hassiman]

All of the LaCie drives our shop has bought failed after little use. A few years ago our department switched to CalDigit externals for all critical 24/7 data storage and we have never looked back. Never yet had a failure. I mayself have a VR and a VR Mini all running hardware RAID 1. from my experience here they are just the best there is... period. :D www.caldigit.com

I do NOT work for calDigit.

[Greg Blank]

Mainly because I have a lot of stuff on the Disk, that I don't want going back to China.

I did in fact open the enclosure. I found that the interface PCB is most likely the defect. It has a large white stain across all the various connections. Based on my experience fixing PCB's for Jobo equipment the traces are probably shorted somewhere, or another component on this PCB. I have decided to just send that PCB back to Lacie and hope for a positive outcome.

I think the drive itself is probably Ok, I was just reading in Range finder "Newer Technology makes a device for like $40 that you can insert eSata drives into like swapable storage. Since the drive has a connection which looks like the same Interface "eSata", I guess I could try it. Here is a picture :)




Why are you wasting a second with it? The best thing about Amazon is the easy returns. Buy an external drive housing, an eSATA external cable card, and then you can just plug in standard drives. I paid $39 for the housing, $15 for the card (supports 2 drives), and $80 for a standard 1TB Western Digital naked drive, the green version that runs cool and quiet. Just buy it all from Amazon, not a TP vendor, and you can return anything you do not like or that fails.

[BrianShaw]

Imagine the archaeologists of 10,000AD, ...

I look a little more comtemporaneously and wonder what the trash collector thought of the big pile of Zip, Jaz and 5.25 inch floppies I threw out recently. The 8 and 11 inch floppies are being mailed to the Smithsonian. :)

p.s. I've been backing up on WD 500GB drives with no failures yet.

[Greg Blank]

I sent the PCB back to LaCie today to see what and if they do any thing. I think what happened that was a refurbed PCB board of course I would have a hard time proving it but......coming from Amazon its hard to say.


Mainly because I have a lot of stuff on the Disk, that I don't want going back to China.

I did in fact open the enclosure. I found that the interface PCB is most likely the defect. It has a large white stain across all the various connections. Based on my experience fixing PCB's for Jobo equipment the traces are probably shorted somewhere, or another component on this PCB. I have decided to just send that PCB back to Lacie and hope for a positive outcome.

I think the drive itself is probably Ok, I was just reading in Range finder "Newer Technology makes a device for like $40 that you can insert eSata drives into like swapable storage. Since the drive has a connection which looks like the same Interface "eSata", I guess I could try it. Here is a picture :)

[domaz]

That "strain" in the flexible PCB you sent in the picture doesn't really look abnormal to me. It's to regular to be damage and is probably normal. If you are lucky the controller PCB is the cause of the problem, but if something's broken it's most likely a moving part (drive servos) or wear item (drive media layer).

[neil poulsen]

No more LaCie stuff for me. I've purchased three LaCie products and have had trouble with all three.

[Jim Ewins]

My wife & I both have 1tb Lacie ext HD that function well. We purchased a1tb Lacie Mirror set to Mirror 2 and we we unable to set it for Mirror One. Lacie replaced it without a hassle and it has been functioning well for over a year. Some years ago a Western would not function, when I called Western, I was told they make them, they don't tell me how to use them. Well... you spend your money... you takes yo chance.

[Richard M. Coda]

I have only had one LaCie (500MB) drive. It failed within a year and it cost me over $3500 to get 90% of my date back. Now I have twin 500MB WD MyBook Studio eSATA drives and back the main drive up every day. I will never buy another LaCie again.

[Frank Petronio]

They're all going fail no matter who makes them, the answer is to buy multiples. That said, LaCies are the prettiest looking and the worst built.

[Greg Blank]

I said it was a stain. I also was looking at the various components adjacent to that stain, some had a decidely resoldered or burned in look. In otherwords someone had reworked the board, instead of it being pristine like a robotically soldered board should appear. Not sure wether the boards would be made mass produced or via techs. I personally can't imagine any human being able to solder some of those small diodes into place. By the way I have had bad drives before, where the actual drive platter or "needle" hits the platter.....this experience was totally different.


That "strain" in the flexible PCB you sent in the picture doesn't really look abnormal to me. It's to regular to be damage and is probably normal. If you are lucky the controller PCB is the cause of the problem, but if something's broken it's most likely a moving part (drive servos) or wear item (drive media layer).

[pocketfulladoubles]

All drives can fail, at any time. There is no good reason to not run a RAID 1 mirror with drives being as cheap as they are. In my current PC, I have had 2 drives fail in the mirror, but have never lost data or had downtime, because I could just hot swap in a new drive. I run monthly back-ups to DVD. If you have lost valuable data, call Drive Savers. I understand they have a reduced price if you just need image files back, but this is 2nd hand information which could be inaccruate.

[PenGun]

An old trick is to freeze your failed drive overnight and then try to get data from it. Works surprisingly well for many drives.

[Greg Blank]

The interesting side to this is I have never had an aux drive fail..I do however have an almost full 250GB aux lacie that works-which was bought 4 years ago. I bought the 1 TB as a back up to my computers inbuilt drive. I reasoned that a 1 TB would do nicely with a 500GB drive I have on my Imac- with Time machine. Lacie responded back that my PCB inface is being sent back- last week but where is it? The somewhat snotty response I got from their support person was to be expected, after "I voided the warranty"- that the PCB is being sent back as is and there are no exceptions to our stated warranty and read xx page as an FYI :)

With all the negative lacie post on this thread and stuff I have found on other source i wonder how I could have decided to buy this drive initially?



All drives can fail, at any time. There is no good reason to not run a RAID 1 mirror with drives being as cheap as they are. In my current PC, I have had 2 drives fail in the mirror, but have never lost data or had downtime, because I could just hot swap in a new drive. I run monthly back-ups to DVD. If you have lost valuable data, call Drive Savers. I understand they have a reduced price if you just need image files back, but this is 2nd hand information which could be inaccruate.

[Greg Blank]

Just wanted to add the final information to this tread. I bought a Newer tech Voyager Q, which enables one to Plug in any raw Hard Drive and use it like a removable enclosed drive. This is pretty cool because it comes with multiple cable types, Firewire 800,400, USB2.0 and Sata. As I thought the Lacie 1Tb Hard drive which removed was a Hitachi drive was in good working order, I am backing up my existing main computer files on it as I write this. The drive as I contended did have my sensitive data on it when I plugged it into the Voyager tonight. So my guess seems accurate and the Lacie enclosure was defective. Specifically the controller, which allowed the drive to become unrecognized after two days of use.

Lacie was not friendly in all of this, I suspect what I got from Amazon.com was not a brand new drive but a refurbed one. Now that I have this Voyager device, I should be able to get HD's a lot cheaper than full enclosures.