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After 4 years all four of mine still working fine.
By: Kevin
October 19, 2009 @ 2:41 PM
The summary pretty much says it all. I bought five 120GB versions of these about 4 years ago. Four have been in use the whole time. Two of them being abused by my teenage son for the last 2 years or so and all are still working just fine.
The fifth was in a shelf in an unheated garage (in Northern NJ with the regional temperature range) since then. Just took that out a couple of weeks ago and opened it today. It is also operating fine after being stored for 4+ years.
I can not speak to the issues others have reported but can only say that I have experienced none of them. Perhaps there was a bad batch of them. My only complaint with this product is that they are a bit slow.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Still works great
By: Jeremy
May 26, 2008 @ 8:16 PM
I have had my Maxtor 160GB for almost 3 years, and it’s fine even after months without use. Other reviewers say that it’s the cases that fail. Maybe some people are treating the case like crap.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Another Failure
By: Mike Kur
January 4, 2008 @ 10:10 AM
I just wanted to add my 2 cents to the complaining. My 200 GB 5000dv failed just after warranty. The Techs comments were “things like that happen”. I wonder if Seagate knew what they were buying when they bought out Maxtor?
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Great drive.
By: J Eide
July 30, 2007 @ 12:51 PM
Had mine for well over 2 years and have not had a single problem yet.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Don't buy
By: Henry
July 18, 2007 @ 5:10 PM
Had a very bad experience with it. Very unstable. One of our two drives never worked. Don’t buy.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Avoid them
By: Hitec_technical
July 17, 2007 @ 10:27 AM
We have 3 in the company, wish we didn’t! They are the most unreliable units I have ever used. Data will appear to copy (or not) then read back (or maybe not). There is NO guarantee of data integrity. Use them at your peril, Assuming its the interface not the drive we are going to scrap the casing and insert the base drive directly into machines instead. What a waste of money.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Screaming and making noises = dead
By: Spencer
June 13, 2007 @ 9:00 PM
Never really used this drive much but when we came around to test it after it was out of commission for about a year and a half it seemed to work fine but couldn’t see it, so removed wires and tried again. Now it is making loud noises and sounds like it is gonna blow up or something. We are assuming it is dead.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Died within a year of purchase
By: Wintermute
May 17, 2007 @ 10:42 AM
Cheap. No fan. Overheats. Dies. No more Maxtor drives for me. They are frequently the least expensive, but also the lowest quality.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Failed after 18 months
By: Henry Crawford
April 3, 2007 @ 6:34 PM
I use a LOT of disks in my I.T. job, and they hardly ever fail any more. Well, this one just did. I’ll pop it open to see if the drive inside is in OK shape, but 98% of the buyers of this drive will consider the data gone when the case dies, which is the best possible scenario here.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
another one bites the dust...
By: T.Geerts
March 18, 2006 @ 6:55 AM
after having 2 maxtor 5000dv’s crash in half a year…, i’m on to Western Digital from now on. The New Western Digital is – Silent! – and works…
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Very Poor - failed 3 times
By: Smithy
February 8, 2006 @ 9:45 AM
this drive is very poor, keep clear!!! Onto my 3rd drive!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
piece of junk
By: jay
December 27, 2005 @ 1:16 AM
i should have done some research b4 buying. just bought 200 maxtor one touch II two weeks ago. Worked fine for a few days then gone. pc don’t detect it nemore. and dantz backup never work. lost all my 3 gigs of valuable files. still under waranty but but DATA is the irreplaceble. no amount of money could replace it. never again buying maxtor never ever.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
DON'T DO IT
By: Joel
December 2, 2005 @ 1:26 PM
i also bought one of there crap drives, it wont even work, and Maxtor is NO help. zero tech support or customer service. boycott this crappy brand.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Same problem as everyone else
By: kevin
November 15, 2005 @ 12:50 PM
DO NOT BUY MAXTOR PRODUCTS !!! I bought a 5000DV, transfered lots of photos from family gatherings and trip to Europe. They’re gone. The f#$%ing drive failed after a few months. I hope Maxtor goes out of business or drastically changes the reliability and design of their drives. And I can’t believe DesignTecnica only lowers their rating from 8 to 7 based on all of these negative reviews. This drive should rate a 0. Worthless.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Hope for the Dead...
By: SummitKing
July 5, 2005 @ 11:11 AM
I have the 5000dv which appeared to have died. I took those plastic strips off the sides and removed the drive from its case. Then I connected it via IDE and guess what? I am now transfereing my data to a healthy drive.
Apparently, the case is what failed. The drive is still working just fine.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Temp fix til warranty expired
By: Brad
June 14, 2005 @ 9:39 AM
Bought a 5000DV at Costco for decent price. At first it worked fine, as a weekly backup for my C Drive. About 8 months later I would try to access it and get the message, “drive not formatted, want to format it now?” Tech support said I needed to format it NTFS rather than FAT32, the way it came at purchase. I had to call tech support AGAIN and they finally told me how to reformat it so I got ALL the available space from the disk. A few months later the drive got twitchy again around tax time, and the warranty expired. Now, the drive is dead, can’t be reformatted at all. Never again with Maxtor.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
really liked it ,before it crashed
By: mira
June 1, 2005 @ 7:19 PM
The one touch button feature is(was) really cute.It worked(one touch) right of the bat on one computer,had to update to make it work on another,but the external drive still showed up and worked as another drive on any computer,even though the Retrospect did not always functioned.But now about a year later it crashe completely.Fortunately it did not take my computer with it.I was just looking for a new one when I found this website only to discover that I am not alone with this problem.I will miss the one touch,but I am not stupid enough to step in the same mess over and over again.Like everybody else said,reliability is the number one virtue of any backup system.
Wondering how such a company can stay in business , reminds me of Wagner Co products.(airless paint sprayers for homeowners-seen on tv or in any building supply store).They have all the right ideas that are appealing to everybody and even if we know it won’t work right or last long we are still drawn to it.Well it’s time for me to say good buy one touch and stay strong.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Seems OK
By: Bro Fred
May 22, 2005 @ 4:33 PM
Running Maxtor 5000DV at 160 GB for 20 months. Never stopped working, although One-Touch Backup never started working. Lack of power switch is an annoyance – have to unplug drive when it’s not needed. Which may account for the one partial data loss I experienced. Several gigabytes on a partition became unreadable after I unplugged the drive last week. I was able to recover most of it. Then, FORMAT fixed the problem. It’s working fine again (except, of course, One-Touch still doesn’t work). But, I bought a Seagate 120 GB external drive for mission critical storage. It has a power switch and its version of “one-touch” Dantz backup works.
Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
DOA
By: Danspar
May 21, 2005 @ 4:32 PM
My 5000DV external will not work in an XP environment. I have tried to find a fix but to no avail. It fails upon fails!! A totally useless product. No more Maxtors – ever.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Maxtor is junk
By: martin
May 17, 2005 @ 12:47 PM
Maxtor Drives are unreliable. I have come to that conclusion after the 80gig ATA HDD in my AMD machine failed, and my Maxtor One Touch 200 gig external also failed two weeks apart.
Sure they replace the drives under waranty, buts whats the point of saving anything on something so unreliable. Do I need to make a back up of a back now, just because they sell sh*^%! The most use I got out of them is about 6 months.
I certainly will not buy Maxtor again I can garantee you that, and the replacement drives are nothing more than paperweights in my mind.
Martin,
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
the heat kills these drives
By: rumblefish
May 13, 2005 @ 8:25 PM
This drive was great when it was new, I used both the firewire and the USB ports. Then my 5000dv started slowing down and getting bad sectors after it was out of warranty and it finally stopped working recently. It was always used on top of a desktop surface because I knew it ran really hot!
I’ve opened it up and it’s basically a standard 200gb Maxtor inside, sealed on the top and the bottom! How is this drive supposed to breathe?
We need to get together and form a class action lawsuit against Maxtor! This was a BAD design and failed right outside of the 1 year warranty for me.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Maxtor 250 one touch sucks
By: Shane
May 10, 2005 @ 8:07 PM
“cannot read partiton table”
“cannot identify device”
“chkdsk cannot continue due to I/O errors”
Maxtors answer ” send it to a data recovery business” and “we will send you a refurbished drive”
Why the hell would I want another POS?
We should start a class action lawsuit!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
"oh that hurt"
By: paul
April 4, 2005 @ 9:52 PM
my 5ooodv just died and took over 300 hours of stop animation with it. I can only say that i would hope that you read these reviews cause i wish i did.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Worse than USELESS!
By: Nomo Maxto
March 30, 2005 @ 3:34 PM
If it were just useless then no harm would be done. As it stands this piece of crap PRETENDS to be a hard drive, but it quickly becomes a “WRITE ONLY” device. Don’t put anything on it you need to get back.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Drive died twice during the first e
By: Anvik
March 5, 2005 @ 1:40 AM
My 5000DV 160 Gb died on me for the second time last week, taking all my files along to the Great Drive in the sky. In addition Maxtor wanted me to reformat leaving 200 Mb unpartitioned and try again before they would replace it! I’m about to spend $5000 on a string quartet recording session and they ask me to leave some free space and cross my fingers for the third time?! I’m never spending money on maxtor again. I’m just sorry I did not check out Maxtor before I bought the 5000DV. It is a ticking bomb.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Don`t buy!
By: Ansis
February 11, 2005 @ 4:55 AM
Hi! 80Gb HDD. 5 month and dead.Reason is too high temperature -about 70 grad Cellsius.It`s a Hell for HDD!!! Plus 7200 RPM and You`ll see what`s happen`d!!! I think the layer of magnetic material crash.And that`s it.I think in freezer this HDD can work…ha ha ha!!!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Drive failed after 18 months
By: Hans Steg
December 11, 2004 @ 1:25 PM
I bought this drive in may 2003 for extra storage and transportation. When I got the drive I became concerned because of lack of cooling (there is no fan). This thing runs hot! The build quality is not that good either. In december 2004 my suspicion was confirmed, the drive died, and I lost 150Gb of data. I was not surprised after reading all reports of failed Maxtor drives. The drive is still under warranty, and I hope to get a different model.
Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Avoid it !!!!
By: ATR
November 25, 2004 @ 11:45 PM
Do NOT buy this piece of crap! A much better solution is to buy a Sarotech external case and any hard disk of your choice. Matrox solution is much too expensive and the attached software cumbersome to use. AND ABOVE ALL YOU WILL NEVER BE SURE THAT THE DRIVE WILL SURVIVE THE NEXT HOUR.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Very Scary
By: JMA
November 12, 2004 @ 7:07 PM
1. Simple test copy of files to the 5000DV failed consistently Results were lost data unrecoverable.
2. Formatted to NTFS – drive was in firewire chain as logical drive H: on this system.
Upon reboot the system would not.
Complete remap of drives and the 5000DvV became the C: and mad the system not bootable with no recourse other that to do a parallel install of Windows 2000. Maxtor or Microsoft support do not have any idea how this could have happened.
My guess is that without warning this drive on this firewire chain became drive 0 by default and that without warning disc management reformats even a logical drive H: in this case as C:
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
replacement has crashed also
By: Carla
November 11, 2004 @ 8:45 PM
I am now on my 2nd replacement (#3 5000DV) for the 5000DV and was told the warranty is now only 90 days from when I received this replacement. Also, One-Touch button never worked, had to pay to upgrade to Retrospect 6.0 so I could backup (something about Fat32 or other, can’t remember now) and agree that one can’t depend on this as a backup system. After this replacement goes (which shouldn’t be long as #2 only lasted from February through October and original purchased 5000DV was about the same lengh of time), I will never purchase another Maxtor product. Very disappointed with Maxtor.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
2 drives failed in 16 months
By: Russell
September 22, 2004 @ 10:52 AM
I wish I’d read these reviews before buying mine. Don’t bother reading reviews that don’t report reliability past a year.
Bought a OneTouch DV5000 160GB in May 2003. Failed in March 2004, losing all data. Replaced under warranty (had to pay for shipping) but this one failed yesterday (Sep 2004). It’s now out of warranty (1 year only from date of original purchase) so I must spend $160+ on a new one. Fortunately, after the first failure I learned not to store any valuable data on these things.
Very, very poor.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
any Maxtor
By: Mike McKen
September 6, 2004 @ 9:24 AM
Any Maxtor drive sucks….they all have crashed for me…sent back 10 so far…all my suppliers have switched to seagates.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Out Of Date & Poorly Thought Out
By: Steve
August 27, 2004 @ 9:14 PM
As far as I can see I was taken in by what I though was Maxtor’s good reputation. Following is what I have found out since I bought this drive:
It is SLOW due to the SLOW transfer rate! Maxtor is using a FireWire 1394a chip at 400Mbps rather than the 1394b chip which goes at 800 to 1600 Mbps, and which is VERY AVAILABLE. This means that actual transfer rates may be faster with the older USB2! I should have LEARNED the difference between the different FireWire standards…just because Maxtor states FireWire doesn’t mean anything!
Also, the Retrospect Software is an “Express” version – I guess not a full version. Although OEM somehow it is not even configured properly for the Maxtor drive. For example there is no advice in the Retrospect “HELP” for “One Touch.” It is ignored. When you go to use the One Touch button it does not allow you any but the simplest backup. The advanced options in the Retrospect software are NOT available through One Touch. For example I cannot find anyway to use that cute (One Touch) button on the drive using the encryption or compression options in the software.
In addition, due to the fact the Retrospect software is OEM (sic) it is not the latest version of Retrospect (6.5) and Maxtor has no upgrade that I can find on its website.
I made the mistake of buying this hardware believing that Maxtor, being a “respected” company would be using the latest hardware standards and would be using fully configured OEM software.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Dead drive
By: Gé Weijers
August 25, 2004 @ 9:00 PM
Maxtor is getting quite a reputation for bad drives. Mine just died as well, after only a few months of use. I’ve had more trouble with Maxtor than with all other manufacturers combined. I’m looking for another manufacturer.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Get out of this business!
By: Claus
April 19, 2004 @ 7:58 PM
My Maxtor drive just went out on me. The data recovery companies knew allready what the problem was as soon as I mentioned it’s a Maxtor drive. Getting my data back — five times the cost of my drive. Customer service at Maxtor did not care at all. I can’t believe these guys are still in business.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Another one bites the dust
By: Bertil F
April 10, 2004 @ 7:06 AM
It’s especially sad that this product is not reliable, since it’s more or less advertized as a back-up solution.
I was warned though, before the disk totally died, so I managed to retrieve all data with the help of ERD Commander. Now the drive plays a silly tune when powered on, but you have to be very easily amused to find any comfort or entertainment value in this.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Terribly unreliable piece of junk
By: Torgeir Ho
March 21, 2004 @ 8:35 AM
I had my first 5000DV crash and take all the data with it 7 weeks after purchase. I got a replacement from Maxtor (that took 4 weeks to sort out) which worked fine, but because of my experience with the first drive I was reluctant to use it for any important data. Good thing I didn’t trust it, because yesterday my replacement drive crashed too, taking all the unimportant data with it.
This HD is great when it works, and would get an 8 from me if it wasn’t for the fact that its unreliability makes it totally useless. Never buying maxtor ever again!!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
I would not recommend this drive
By: Joe
December 9, 2003 @ 7:22 AM
The 5000DV runs hot, is prone to crash and occasionally has erratic behavior. I would not recommend buying this drive. I have owned two of them and switched to Western Digital instead.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Lost five years of data...
By: Rob
November 30, 2003 @ 6:29 PM
Last week, during the unimaginable worse time (a system re-install), my 5000DV decided to fail. When I finally got back into WinXP, I noticed the drive was inaccessible and would only make clicking noises. Do-it-yourself data recovery tools have not been successful (I’ve tried many).
Needless to say, I was HORRIFIED AND SICK when I realized how much personal data I had lost.
So now I will be sending the drive to a professional data recovery service, which charge $1500 and up. Maxtor’s web site does list data recovery companies that won’t void the drive’s warranty. However, had I not ignored the negative reviews regarding reliability before buying, though, I wouldn’t be needing such services now.
I’ve only had my drive for four months.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
My drive also failed
By: Karen Williams (UK)
November 17, 2003 @ 6:14 AM
I bought a 5000DV 160gb drive from dabs.com last Tuesday and it seemed most impressive with a very good access speed, low noise and excellent software.
However, after just 3 days of light use, it failed suddenly, taking all my data with it. The drive now needs to be reformatted – whether it will then work or simply crash again is anyone’s guess. I’ve requested a replacement from dabs.com but now, having read these reviews, I’m having second thoughts.
I’d also noticed that the drive runs quite hot and there are very few ventilation holes.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
This Drive is a hot dogpile
By: RKON
November 13, 2003 @ 4:02 PM
This failed and took all of my data with it. It was used sparingly for backups. When I called tech support I spoke with one of the most condescending jerks I ever talked with in a tech support. Check out the Ximeta !!
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Very happy about it
By: Zyclone
September 24, 2003 @ 3:03 PM
Well, i had none problems so whatever with this drive, I use the 250GB 5400rpm on firewire and it runs24/7 and working, nada problems. Heat aint an issue either.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Nice when it works but unreliable
By: v
August 31, 2003 @ 4:58 AM
The drive (120GB model) is quiet and sufficiently fast. Unfortunately, the unrealiability makes these drives fairly useless. The first one died within a few months, and the second one seems to be dying about three months later.
Rating: 2 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
DON'T buy this !
By: Matt
August 6, 2003 @ 12:17 AM
I bought a 5000DV with 160gb about two months ago. It crashed the same week I bought it. I had about 60gb stored on it then. It really pissed me off. A new harddrive should really be more sturdy and reliable than that. It also has no power on/off button which is annoying. The support is really bad. Ok, you might get a replacement in advance, but you’ll have to pay for the shipping of the broken one, which is alot ! I live in Scandinavia so it cost me about 90$ just for the shipping !! I do not recommend this product to anyone, choose another brand instead. It will save you plenty.
Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
I HATE MAXTOR AND THEIR 5000DV 200GB
By: Carlos Valdes
June 29, 2003 @ 5:17 PM
First one I bought died within 48 hours..
The second (replacement) died within 30 days…
Ill let you know how the third goes
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Very GOOD Drive
By: Dr_Gribb
June 16, 2003 @ 3:55 PM
I now have used this drive for 2 week and can say: It is VERY good for stuffing stuff away. The speed is fair considerd that this is an external drive. In a summary: GOOD Stuff!
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Think this is the best external solution
By: Chris
May 18, 2003 @ 4:28 AM
For some weeks ago i was looking for a good way to store heavy files externaly, my zip drive was getting old and i was tired of the disks. I got my eye on a DV5000, and was not disapointed. The disk is formidable fast, and the noise is not annoying. I was using this with my onboard firewire card, i also tryed it with the usb 2 ports, but the firewire was superior. I never got above 5% cpu usage, with usb2 the cpu got more than 40-50% usage.
This drive got a big thumb up from me, only thing i miss is the power of/on button like stated in the article.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
I've had 2 of those 250GB things...
By: Dollar
May 17, 2003 @ 6:11 AM
… and they both crashed, taking 250gb of data with them (each) within 2 weeks of purchase. DON’T BUY THIS. It’s so hot, it’ll destroy itself if it’s left on 24/7 – and used.
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No