maxtor: extreme frustration
I submitting the following technical support question to Maxtor (the hard drive people) just a few minutes ago via a very hard to find contact form on their website. They have the worst website I have ever been on, and I look at shit websites for a living. My question from yesterday simply vanished, so this is the second time I have had to go through this. Enjoy my pain, or please, answer my question…
To whom it may concern,
I am doing my best to stay calm, but it’s barely working. My hard drive problem is minor at best, but your website is causing me so much wasted time and effort that I am about to start an anti-maxtor campaign. And I won’t be alone. I ignored internet buzz about how bad your products were, and bought a Onetouch III FW/USB 2.0 less than a week ago.
Yesterday, after some confusion over a blinking light on my power button, and HD unavailability, I went through the grueling process of trying to find this very form. It took nearly 20 minutes the first time around. I wrote up a detailed question, complete with model numbers, operating systems and other technical goodness. I also answered all of the detailed questions below about model numbers and serial numbers and operating systems, etc.
Upon submitting, I was greeted with the forced registration, which seems like overkill for email technical support, but reluctantly completed. I received no email confirmation of my registration or question. Thank you page only. In all, I spent nearly an hour on Maxtor.com.
Today, anxious to see if there was a response to my question, I came back. I looked for some kind of login area to go with my email address/password combination created yesterday. None could be found.
So, I started the process of re-finding this form (basically the same as yesterday). Not an easy task. Here are the steps:
1. Homepage
2. Products
3. Home & Home Office
4. Room for Digital Video (Onetouch III -> details)
5. Support
6. Onetouch III FW/USB (the second time I have model selected)
7. Contact Support (second time clicking a link for “support”)
8. External, Desktop (third time with the model already)
9. Contact Support Online (third time “contact support” FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!)
10. Use our contact form to submit your query
11. There is still no login box, so I click the tab for “My Stuff” hoping you will force the login.
12. You do. Login.
13. Questions
(That is fucking ridiculous.)
13 steps. For guess what? No questions listed! Even though I spent 25 minutes and carefully crafted a thoughtful question, carefully submitted it, and registered, it is all gone. Lost forever. Thank you very much.
So now I am sitting here, fuming, and I decide to write again. But guess what? No contact form anywhere!!! Click home, the navigation disappears. Click back, navigation reappears. Click everywhere looking for a link to this form. None. I LOGOUT, and click around. Finally, I search the knowledge base because I figure I’m on my own with this one. Guess what? A Contact Maxtor tab appears in the navigation. What is this shit!!????
This is the worst website I have ever been forced to use in my life. Had I looked here before buying your product, I wouldn’t have bought it. I may indeed return the product even if you can help me with my question, though I doubt even this question will get through. I’ll be posting it on my personal website, www.chrisdiclerico.com and submitting to DIGG, Slashdot, and anyone else who will listen as well.
Now for the question.
I have a Powerbook G4, OS 10.4.6, connected via firewire to the 300GB Onetouch III, firewire/USB 2 drive. I have repartitioned the drive into 80GB and 200GB drives. It seems that the hard drive is going into powersave mode very quickly with inactivity, less than an hour, and I have no way to get it out of powersave mode. The light around the button blinks on the left side only (indicating powersave mode according to the knowledge base) and the drives become inaccessible from the OS completely. I can see the contents, but nothing is accessible. Both partitions stay mounted, and refuse to unmount when tossed in the trash, giving an error that they are in use. Click the Ontouch button does not bring it back, Ultimately I have to power the drive off, enduring the Mac error that the item was not removed properly.
I found a knowledge base article (using google, not your internal shizzat search) that described a firewire driver update that was needed. The link to the software, guess what?, didn’t work. Document not found or some such error.
So my question still is, what do I do to get out of powersaver mode? Can I change the setting for how long it take to go into powersaver mode (or not at all – I don’t need to save power)? Do I need the mac firewire driver update? Where can I get the driver update software? Is it possible for this website to suck any harder?
By the way, in order to submit this form, I again have to select the exact product from a series of pulldown menus. How many fucking times do I need to tell you that I have the 300GB Onetouch III, firewire/USB 2 drive??!!!
Respond anyway you like.
Sincerely,
Chris DiClerico
The ads that google pulled for this post are hilarious. Control panic attacks, stress relief, and then ads for Maxtor drive. Fucking perfect.
Dear Mr Daclarico,
Thank you for writing to Maxtor Technical Support. Before we begin, are you on a Mac or a PC?
Sincerely,
Maxtor Technical Support
hahaha, they have a phone number. Give it a shot. Seriously, though, after getting burned once, you spent another day on a website you already knew was terrible getting angry, and then wrote on your blog about it. Stick it to the man, buddy! Or, just wait a month and exchange your drive for a Seagate one, then have the same problems, and blog about it again!
I found this link by searching for “Fuck Maxtor” (yeah, I’m bitter, too!), and I’ve never been to the maxtor site before today, but here’s an easier way to do it: 1) go to maxtor.com; 2) click on “Warranty Services”; 3) Click “contact Support to Create RMA”; 4) Intricately detail every step you had to take, and count each letter you had to type into the keyboard as one step, then post a blog about how it took you 5,352 steps to finally get to talk to tech support; 5) Feel that warm wave of internet vindication wash over you.
So funny Chris. Hey, remember that meeting at Pfizer when I tried to show some videos but couldn’t cause my hard drive died? Well that was a Maxtor. It was only two weeks old but my ‘on’ button just stopped working. Now it’s collecting dust under my desk. Have you tried calling? Don’t. That’s even more frustrating than the site. Trust me.
Dominik from Maxtor Technical Assistance actually emailed me back. It’s a shame he never really read my question. I am too lazy to try to find the “Contact Us” form again to respond. Of course, you can’t just reply to the fucking email. Oh fuck it. I am going to write him back:
Thank you for sending your MAXTOR E-mail inquiry.
Hello Chris DiClerico:
Sorry for the troubles.
The Maxtor OneTouch Manager provides a Diagnostic that when used, can check the overall health of your OneTouch III drive. The following are the steps necessary to perform Diagnostics on your OneTouch III drive:
1. Double-click on the Maxtor OneTouch Manager icon on your Macintosh Dock. This will launch the OneTouch Manager application.
NOTE: If this icon was not added or has been removed from the Dock, click Finder > Applications > Maxtor OneTouch™ Manager
2. From the OneTouch Manager’s main screen, select the OneTouch III drive you wish to diagnose.
3. Click on the Run Diagnostics button.
4. A status bar displays (at the bottom of the OneTouch Manager window) showing the progress of the test. Upon completion, a message appears showing, “This drive passed its most recent diagnostic test.”
5. From the Finder Menu, Quit Maxtor OneTouch™ Manager.
Also make sure that the power supply of the drive is working correctly.
First, disconnect the power cable from the back of the external hard drive:
If the power supply LED continues to blink:
1. Connect the power supply to a different outlet (or instead of connecting to a power strip, connect directly to an outlet in the wall).
2. If the power supply continues to blink after changing outlets, this indicates that the power supply is defective and needs to be replaced.
3. If the power supply stays solid, then reconnect to the external hard drive and see if the drive spins.
If the power supply LED stays solid:
1. Connect the power supply to a different outlet (or instead of connecting to a power strip, connect directly to an outlet in the wall) and then re-connect to the external hard drive.
2. If the LED on the power supply blinks only when connected to the external hard drive (with power switch ON, if there is a power switch) and the hard drive does not spin-up, this indicates a faulty external enclosure. Please contact Maxtor Technical Support at 1-800-2MAXTOR.
If the power supply LED does not light-up:
1. Connect the power supply to a different outlet (or instead of connecting to a power strip, connect directly to an outlet in the wall).
2. If the power supply LED does not light-up after changing outlets, this indicates that the power supply is defective and needs to be replaced
Thank you,
Maxtor Technical Assistance
Dominik TS27
1-800-2-MAXTOR (1-800-262-9867) (voice)
353 1 204 1111 (International)
http://www.maxtor.com (web)
Here’s my new response:
Hi Domenik.
I was very excited that you emailed me back, and even more excited that the email had a link in it that got me right back here to the login screen. It’s obviously wayyy easier to put that link in the email, than, let’s say, oh I don’t know, ON THE HOMEPAGE. In any case, enough bitching about the website, let’s talk about my hard drive.
Your canned troubleshooting email wasn’t very helpful for a couple of reasons.
1. All I really need to know is how to get the drive out of “powersave mode” when it gets in there. All I can currently do is shut off the drive, accept the error from OS X, and then start the drive back up. Not good.
2. I didn’t install the lousy software that came with the drive. The installation guide REQUIRES the installation of Retrospect Backup software, which I DO NOT WANT. After recieving your response, I did dig through the folders and find the One Touch manager software you referred to, and dragged into my Applications folder. I don’t know if that’s the correct way to install it even though that’s the correct way to install 99% of Mac software, because there is no mention of the software in any documentation I can find.
3. Once “installed” One Touch Manager fails to recognize either partition of the drive. Not useful at all. Basically, with no drives to select, there is nothing to run a diagnostic on.
So, I am in the same position as before. The drive seems to prematurely go into “Powersave mode” when not in use. When in use, during let’s say, an overnight download of 3 Soprano’s episodes, it works just fine. Once in Powersave mode, I can’t get it out.
Please just tell me how to get it out of Powersave mode and if it is possible to change the inactivity timer that enables it, or to disable it entirely. I don’t need to save any power. I don’t care about that at all. If you can provide any advice on how to get the OneTouch software to recognize the drives, I guess that would be good too.
One bit of advice that you can shoot up to Senior management if you get a chance:
No one gives a shit about the button. All we want is an external hard drive. Your overzealous marketing department and incompetent engineers put a blinking button on the front and mucked the whole thing up. I have purchased external cases at yard sales for $5, and they have never had a problem. I spend $400 on your OneTouch, and all I get is headaches. Stick to the basics. Make hard drives, and then make them connect to my computer. Leave the software and the buttons to the professionals.
Thanks again for your help.
“Sorry for the troubles?” “SORRY FOR THE TROUBLES???”
Unbelievable.
Even the greeting, “Hello Chris Diclerico” is canned.
I’m glad you wrote back.
Let us know when you something.
Hi Chris
the easiet way to fix this is to load the Maxtor software on a PC and connect the drive to it…. then open the one touch manager go to settings then power settings and set it to never. they are set to 1 hour by default.
in the PC version of the software the option is there for sending the drive to sleep to prolong its life. a MAC cannot wake up an external HDD as you well know also you will find that the one touch button will not work with USB on a mac these are limitations of the MAC.
the sleep mode information is stored in a log file on the external disc there is no facilty for a MAC to change this or wake up a sleeping external HDD even within the OS.
hope this helps JD
John Dory noted that Mac’s can’t wake an external USB HDD. But they can wake a FireWire Drive, unless it’s a Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo of course. I bought two of these and linked them up with a FireWire 800 connection. Sure enough, after 1 hour of inactivity they spin-down and nothing but a computer restart and switching both drives on and off and, in some cases, re-plugging the connections will wake them. Utter crap. I took John Dory’s cue and used a PC to set them both to ‘never’ spin-down. Thanks – that worked. I’ve also trashed the FireWire extensions that the Maxtor software loads and the drives now cope with my computer sleeping (previously, they couldn’t recover from this either). Now the only issue is that they need to be switched off after my computer’s been switched off or they won’t re-mount on startup. Again crap, but tolerable. Incredibly, these drives are sold at the online Apple Store here in Australia, clearly nobody at Apple has tested them.
Wow. What a pain in the arse. I have the exact same problem with one of these OneTouch III drives.. It’s on loan and I don’t have the software that I can load on a PC to set the power save ‘feature’ to never. Any idea how / where I can get hold of a copy? Of course I tried the maxtor web site.. but if it’s downloadable from there, I couldn’t see it easily..
Thanks in advance.
FINALLY! I found someone who’s having this problem too!! The solution sucks though. I don’t have access to a PC to change the setting. All I want is a freakin’ hard drive that works and won’t fail on me. (I’ve lost 2 in the last year; LaCie and Western Digital.)
AMEN on the one-button sentiments!
UPDATE:
I thought it was important to update you all with some ACTUAL information on how to fix the problem. After repeated emails back and forth with tech support, I grew tired of posting them here, I kept hearing over and over again to install the software. So I did. “Installing the software” means that you cannot just install the Maxtor Management thing, you HAVE to install frigging Retrospect, that piece of shit backup program. When you do, then the Maxtor software installs along with it, and the drives actually show up to make changes to.
But here’s the best part. On the Mac version of the software, THERE IS NO OPTION for changing the Powersave settings. Ha! After all of this SHIT, there is no option. I went through everything, seeing if there was anything even remotely similar to Powersave or Sleep or whatever, and there was nothing.
So I trashed Retrospect, left the Maxtor software, and went on about my busy day, disappointed and aggravated. And guess what…
Somehow, through all of that, Powersave was turned off. Again, I never selected any option for it, but the fucker simply stopped putting itself into Powersave mode. I’ll assume this is because once “connected” via software to the host computer it begins using the powersave settings of that machine, but I have no idea. The drive just works now, and it never powers down, and it runs for days, and it is fine. SO FUCKING STUPID.
Clearly, all of these companies making money from bundling software that you don’t want are making extra revenue beyond the overprice they charged you, by screwing you in the A. Absolute bullshit.
I will never buy another prepackaged external hard drive again – I will only buy cases and drives and pull them together myself, like I used to before I got lazy. I will never buy another Maxtor drive. I will never install some bullshit software on my machine again. I’d rather return what I got.
Good luck to everyone also having troubles with their Maxtor drives.
UPDATE:
I took Chris’ advise and installed the whole kaboodle. And that has seemed to fix it. No clue why but there you have it.
Cheers!
Maxtor needs to change the wording of the instructions that come with this drive. The way I read it, the drive was already formatted for Mac and ready to use. I too didn’t want to install Retrospect so I didn’t install the software – which appears to only be Retrospect by the printed instructions. Maybe after they get a slew of returns they’ll wise up and put a notice on the box that the software MUST be installed. And while I’m wishing… they should give people the option to NOT install Retrospect. I didn’t buy the drive because of the One Touch, nor will I use that feature.
1) this thing blinks, and blinks, and blinks, SO annoying
2) retrospect sucks like before. I lunched and it didn’t buckup anything. I put user folder. It should have be worked!
BTW: your site sucks too. I didn’t put the email and I lost all the post I wrote before, but at lease you don’t sell hard drive.
I made the mistake of buying this drive today before reading reviews. Naturally I soon experienced the same problem. I bought it at Costco, so it is an easy return. Back tomorrow!
I put all of this info into my case #060923-000166 on the Maxtor site. We can only hope that they address this issue.
Ron
Yer math thing isn’t working….
I had many nice comments and thank you’s typed out, but yer web site ate them….
Like the other guy said… YER site is 2nd to Maxtor and you should FIX it.
But, before I digress any further… ALL the things you said about Maxtor are true… they suck beyond sucking…. If they hadn’t already gone out of business… Id wish it on them….
THANKS for the way to fix the sleep wake problem.
Blessings…
PAX!
“And while I’m wishing… they should give people the option to NOT install Retrospect.”
If wishes were horses, we’d be eating steak.
Hilarious post!!!!
My experience was nearly identical to yours. Same problems. Same canned responses. Same lack of reading of my message. Same back and forth as they failed to see the actual problem and sent canned responses.
If the “offshore” guy writes me 15 times for a problem that someone trained could have answered in one or two emails, are they really saving money by outsourcing?
Did anyone happen to find a link to download the mac or pc software for the Maxtor OneTouch III software?
-jd
I found this Maxtor OneTouch III software download at Maxtor.com:
http://tinyurl.com/up4gl
It seems to be for Intel Macs at first, but I successfully installed it on a G4 Tower (Tiger). I rebooted, then opened the tools. Didn’t see any power management options, closed the tools.
I left the drive on for 3 hours without using it or touching it. Came back and the lower light was flashing…. but…. the data was there and accessible when open the drive. IT’S ALIVE! (also, my mac went to sleep in that time, and the drive still woke up.)
Seems to be working. I will try again tomorrow.
After another day of testing, the “OTMacIntelUpdate.dmg” software update is still working. I left the drive usunsed for 5 hours, but it never went to sleep this time, and worked immediately when I clicked on data in the drive.
Amazingly, “OTMacIntelUpdate.dmg” is searchable through google and brings up the maxtor page with the download.
Ya I’ll be returning my Maxtor tomorrow….this light is ridiculous!
Here’s my most recent email to Seagate:
My original Maxtor hard drive died within a year. As a replacement, Seagate sent me a refurbished hard drive. Within 90 days, it was diagnosed with a faulty external enclosure and returned. The second replacement was just connected and guess what? Another faulty external enclosure (per your troubleshooting tip below)!!! Got myself a nifty solid green light when I connect the power adaptor, but a nifty flashing green light when I connect it to the hard drive, which doesn’t spin up!!! What kind of company did Seagate purchase? And why do you insist on sending refurbished products as replacements?
I promised myself the last time I would never do business with Seagate again, but I relented. Big mistake. I’m tired of spending my money shipping these things back to you only to have the replacments fail so quickly after installation (90 days the first time around and then upon connection the second time around).
For the amount of money I spent on the “special treatment” service the first time around, packing materials, and shipping costs, I could have purchased a decent external hard drive THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!!!!!
You couldn’t convince me to ship this piece of crap back to you on my dime even if you paid me! I’m going to purchase an external hard drive from one of your competitors instead.
Oh, yeah … (1) Remember when Seagate bought Maxtor? Big mistake. (2) Your website sucks. Navigating this thing is like getting stuck on the island in “Lost.”
***********
If the power supply LED stays solid:
Connect the power supply to a different outlet (or instead of connecting to a power strip, connect directly to an outlet in the wall) and then re-connect to the external hard drive.
If the LED on the power supply blinks only when connected to the external hard drive (with power switch ON, if there is a power switch) and the hard drive does not spin-up, this indicates a faulty external enclosure. Please contact Seagate Support.
Hi all,
I know this posting is ages old now and most people with this problem will have by now drop kicked your Maxtors over the nearest cliff or canyon, but for those of you still hanging in there or new to the problem, the new place to get the software that actually FIXES the MAXTOR ONE TOUCH GOES TO SLEEP on a MAC in OSX (I’ve put all that test there for google meta, etc) problem the new link is:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/downloads/OTMacIntelUpdate.dmg
the actual page address is:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=ot3-downloads&vgnextoid=35c6069f356d3110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD
Although it says it’s an update you don’t need to have installed the original. In fact I suggest you do not.
Just install the software, restart, and it is fixed! Well done you!
All the best to the best of you all.
Mr Pi
Maxtor is garbage. 3 external drive failures in the last year alone. Absolute fucking garbage. Hundreds of gigs of lost data. Hard drives are supposed to be bulletproof, meant for backing up the most important data. Maxtor fails in every way possible. FUCK YOU SEAGATE and MAXTOR. I hope you choke on the fumes your shit products create.