Western Digital Hard drive Recall (10/1/99)

Question

Western Digital Hard drive Recall (10/1/99)

Answer

This question was answered on October 2, 1999. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

Hard Drive Quality Alert -- WD Caviar

During extensive quality testing procedures, Western Digital has identified a hardware issue that affects a very specific group of WD Caviar 5400 RPM EIDE hard drives. This issue could cause the hard drives to fail to power-up after six to 12 months of full-time use. The affected drives were manufactured between August 27, 1999 and September 24, 1999 and range in capacity from 6.4 GB to 20.5 GB. None of Western Digital's WD Expert, WD Enterprise, and WD Performer hard drives are affected.

As part of our ongoing commitment to quality, we are providing a drive utility that identifies the affected WD Caviar hard drives. Even though this issue affects a small number of WD Caviar drives, we highly recommend that you test your drive using this utility.

Affected Model Numbers:

WD64AA (6.4 GB)

WD68AA (6.8 GB)

WD84AA (8.4 GB)

WD100AA (10.0 GB)

WD102AA (10.2 GB)

WD135AA (13.5 GB)

WD136AA (13.6 GB)

WD170AA (17.0 GB)

WD172AA (17.2 GB)

WD200AA (20.0 GB)

WD205AA (20.5 GB)

Retail Packaged WD Caviar Affected Model Numbers:

WD68AARTL (6.8 GB)

10100RTL (10.1 GB)

13000RTL (13.0 GB)

20400RTL (20.4 GB)

There is no need to test any model other than those listed above.

You can download a program that will test to see if your WD Caviar hard drive has a problem at:

<a href="http://www.westerndigital.com/fitness/drive-alertPC.html"><font color="#003399"> http://www.westerndigital.com/fitness/drive-alertPC.html</font></a>

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Posted by Ken of Data Doctors on October 2, 1999