Maxtor 120GB 7200RPM USB2/FWR PUSH BUTTON (Maxtor-T01J120)

• Reviewed by: Honest_John65

  Strengths: none

  Weaknesses: unreliable

  Overall: PC crashed during t-storm when APS failed, corrupting beaucoup drivers. Had to reinstall XP o/s and XP Office 2003. Then proceeded to restore disc from Maxtor 5000. Couldn't do it. called Maxtor and was told I needed to disconnect Maxtor drive BEFORE reinstalling software. Too late. Maxtor techies should have anticipated this sort of sequence but instead blamed Miocrosoft XP for peculiarity. Maxtor referred me to Ontrack data recovery co. $200 and several days later I still do not have my data back although some files are recoverable from Maxtor using Ontrack software. Expensive lesson. Avoid Maxtor. No warning label or other explicit advice or even an off switch. When needed most, Maxtor failed.

• Reviewed by: alfre2

  Strengths: Package comes with USB-Firewire cables and with a good set of instructions. Quick and easy instalation.

  Weaknesses: Unreliable at best.

  Overall: Just in a week of usage after format as a Mac disk, the disk present an "unreadable" message. Although try any software means to get the data from the disk, it is lost to date. Make presents this as a reliable disk for backup, but the customer support only give two options: "reformat and lost the data or send to a data recovery service".

• Reviewed by: notlaw99

  Strengths: High Copasity USB2 & Fire ware DisK Drive Formats to 189 GB

  Weaknesses: Unit Produces excessive heat and had to be stored verticle to keep cool could not be stacked with other devices. Device eventually failed probable power supply problem.

  Overall: I usins the device for storing my photos I scan 35mm negatives up to 3600 pix/inch and 4x6 prints at 300 to 1200 pix/inch on flat bed scanners. Device failure lost about 31 GB od Data and Photos. When it worked it worked well I am using the device on and older Compaq Deskpro 6350 running MS 2000 PE Service Pack 6+, 384 MB of memory. Now I will find out of Maxtor honors it warantys Maxtor did honor thwir warranty very promptly. I was able to duplicate the problem and failure with in three days with the replacement drive. The problem relates to the lack of a power switch and that the drive is formated in FAT32 Mode. There is a bug in Disk Cleanup on Windows 2000 Professional Edition it will clobber the directory if it finds a FAT32 device resulting in loss of all data unless you are good at patching FAT tables. The best solution is to reformat the drive in the native disk format of your Windows Version. Yes you will lose some transportability but you won't lose data either. Reformating the drive solved the problem but it cost me 31GB of lost data to find out that undocumented Microsoft Bug in Disk Cleanup on Windows 2000 PE. The drive also proform well under Windows XP Home edition But I have not tried Disk Clean up since reformating the drive to NTFS format. Recomendaions get a tape back up system as large a capacity ias possible partition the drive into segments just under the max size of you tape back up system. Then do regular full saves followed by incremental saves. Microsoft still can't read a file while changing or in a quary mode, so the Maxtor Backup software still has problems with busy files. I am a disabeled veteran living in a state veteran's home in New Hampshire

• Reviewed by: mrcoons

  Strengths: easy to install, lots of storage space, USB and Firewire connectivity

  Weaknesses: No power switch

  Overall: I recently purchased a digital video camera but my Dell laptop only has a 30GB harddrive. And that is not enough space for even short term storage of my DV's. The Maxtor 5000DV's 120GB's of storage (actually it's only about 112GB's in reality) I can now download my DV's in their highest quality without worrying about space. I can also take an image copy of my C partition in minutes now rather than the lengthy time it took to write it to CD-R's. One thing to consider for any potential buyers though. I am using this drive with a Firewire connection. The Firewire cable supplied by Maxtor is a 6-pin to 6-pin cable. I needed a 6-pin to 4-pin to connect the Maxtor 5000DV to my laptop and my camera (so I needed 2 cables!). Not a big deal but something to consider.