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Michael Mol writes: |
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|
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> My point is that the numbers aren't what mattered here. My point is |
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> that SAMSUNG sold me a shoddy product, replaced it with another |
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> instance of the the same shoddy product, wouldn't replace it again, |
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> and never addressed a detailed technical report of a systemic problem |
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> in the same. Bad tech, bad customer service, and it looked like this |
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> was a more common scenario than among other manufacturers. All of it |
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> boiled down to a nasty case of being a bad candidate for spending time |
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> and money. |
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|
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Samsung, uh? Here's my story of today. My fried just bought two external |
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USB drives. I wanted to know which brand the HD is, so I checked with |
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hdparm -I, and googled for SAMSUNG HD204UI. I found a story about a bug |
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which makes the drive sometimes forget to write a block when it is |
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attached to a SATA adapter in AHCI mode and when the ATA command |
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"IDENTIFY DEVICE" is sent (like in hdparm -I or when using the |
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smartmontools). There is a firmware patch for this, this is good. But on |
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the annoying side: |
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|
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- You need to make a DOS boot floppy and copy the patch there. I don't |
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know how exactly to do this, and I read about people using Linux who |
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needed over an hour for this or even failed. Can't they just let me |
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download an image I can boot from? |
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|
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- It doesn't work over USB, so I would have to install the drive in a PC. |
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|
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- The new firmware has exactly the same revision number. How stupid is |
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this?? I cannot even find out whether the drives have the problem or |
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not. Except by trying to reproduce the problem. |
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|
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Here's a link to the but I described, but It's German only. |
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http://www.heise.de/ct/meldung/Firmware-Patch-fuer-Samsung-Festplatte-EcoGreen-F4-HD204UI-Update-1150154.html |
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I also read some angry comments about Samsung there. Question is, are |
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other manufacturers better? And wasn't Samsung Electronics bought by |
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Seagate anyway? |
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|
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|
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Any idea whether an external USB drive case might count as a SATA |
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controller in AHCI mode? I tried to trigger the bug, but that did not |
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happen, so I guess it's fine, at least when being in the USB case. |
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|
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Another problem is that data access frequently stalls on her PC, like when |
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transferring data or doing a mke2fs. After a while, this message appears |
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in syslog, and the process continues for a while, until it happens again: |
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|
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usb 1-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7 |
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|
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Same problem with a GRML boot cd and on another USB port. Happens with |
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both drives. But it is fine on my PC. |
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|
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Wonko |