I got a box of old computer stuff at a yard sale a while back like $5 had 2 external drives in it. I tried both showed in windows, but one failed format, and bios tests. the other the enclosure was shot, one was IDE the other sata so no combining =( disappointing part was the bad was 500GB. I was looking at box I gently slanted them side to side heard nothing lose or retelling after trying them the 500GB out of case makes a lot of noise. hear like a whir type noise I think from the arm assembly. I was thinking why would it start after using it unless jammed, and why would it make like whirling sound. usually in use they make like churning sound. only thing I can think is bearing, and drive is only like 4 yrs old. I was kind of surprised something like that fail that quick. I have 20GB WD from 98 that still works perfect. I'm starting to agree which what a lot of friends say Seagate/Maxtor are best avoided.

 

You could go dig in the manufacturer website, see if they have some diagnostic tools.

But yeah. The only drives I buy new are the WD. Not saying WD is perfect, they have their share of dudes. But all the ones I bought have been working to this day. Used, if cheap, I buy any brand. I got a couple of drives right now that I got used, they are going to trash, they are no good, neither drive was made by WD.

 

I looked around some the Seagate diagnostic failed I don't recall error, but like first test. Even low leveling did nothing. It would format, then it would just lose the file system. Then act like format but immediately after say raw. chkdsk, fix mbr, etc no help.
I was kind of leery of Maxtor, since Seagate bought out. The other I didn't know until opened because enclosure kit, HDD used. price was ok, and some other things I could use also so not too bad.
Personally not had that bad of luck with any new disk WD, Samsung, Toshiba is ok, but not best enclosure setup.
I got like 30 old maxtors from local college when they were cleaning up for nothing. so far about 5 failed. But what I understand they took a lot of abuse students dropping, etc so kind of expected. My one friend said he got like 3 Seagate drives, and within about a year they were all dead. others have said similar things too. think worst one I had was a ibm deakstar put on OS was using went to reboot, and bios saw nothing, tried testing as slave nothing just out of nowhere like that everything disappeared. no signs of issue than bam reboot and gone. I ran across something online people were calling them death stars. I saw something platters were glass I took it apart for magnets dropped something on a platter and a big chunk of it just broke. I was thinking this seems pretty junky, and why glass that isn't even magnetic then paint with something just seemed stupid to me. luckily haven't ran into another death starts.
I was using a lot of the old Maxtor's I got from the school for testing OS, but now popularity of X64, and requirements are just too much for my old systems. so just use usb 3.0 external 3TB for virtual storage, occasionally I use an old Maxtor on usb converter if I want to use something special. E.G hyper-v wouldn't work with external 3TB something with sector type, but old disk worked.

Even had some issues with SCSI disks those are kind of annoying to fix. some reason disk just like locked up the whole bus, eventually puling devices, checking connections I found it. Funny part was it was in a system I was given after upgrade. I opened it up and there were 2 drives just sitting inside still had power, but no data. I think OS was put on disk in the hot swap raid cage and I'm not sure if mirror was kept of OS (I doubt it). I had issue OS installing then eventually worked drive failed of course was OS, then after removing that disk no odd bugs since. I suspect the admin was too lazy to diagnose toughly, and just disconnected both and put OS in raid cage instead of replacing disk. While I was trying to fix I was like no wonder nobody likes SCSI, later I was like it's more work, but not bad. I've actually had friends in IT industry tell me SCSI is something very good to know. especially now since it's getting hard to find people that know much about it. I kind of agree, but would think more people would know it than they make seem like. from stuff I've seen fibre channel, ISCSI, infiniband, SAS are all variants of SCSI. some of stuff I've learned about these other things knowing old SCSI helped a good bit.