My 30gig 7200rpm maxtor drive is having issues; every so often, it will hang with no disk activity with the HD access led lit as W2k loads tasbar items.

It trashed my FAT32 filesystem and installation last year. Now with NTFS, it lasts a few months before it buggers up. Leaving the computer on 24/7 has helped significantly, but it's buggering itself up again. I think I'll buy a bigger hard disk, copy my files over, and have the 30 gig replaced under warranty.

What brands do you recommend for a 60+ gig disk? I'd much prefer a 7200rpm drive. Will not consider an IBM hard drive because I see how frequently they fail at work ;(

Search for WD600BB here.

That is the model number for Western Digitals' 60gig 7200rpm ATA100 drive. I have 4 of the 30gigers, and 2 of the 20gigers, and not one of them has given me any problems...And the ones I bought are OEM versions. Best-Buy has them on their shelves, but be prepared to pay about 35% more from there.

Also, be sure you're getting the BB version, because the AB is the 5400rpm.

Also, I have 2 IBM 30gig 75GXP's in one of my servers, and one of them took a major sh*t on me last year, taking out my 60gig Raid 0 array in the process. I only lost about 1700 mp3's, and thousands of .jpeg's...So no big deal I will say, the IBM drives run alot cooler than the WD's...Alot cooler! So if heat is a big concern to you, you might want to look at IBM's 60GXP series, which I have read is doing much better than their previous 75GXP series.

Good luck...

Maxtor, IBM and new Quantum drives are absolute guarantee for me. I've got 4 systems running on Maxtors and i never had any issues. New Quantums are really fast and IBM is, as always, top quality hardware.

My preference is Western Digital. Second to that is Maxtor for me. These are the only 2 top brands I have never had a problem with.

I ordered a WD1200BB drive. 120 gigs, 7200rpm. I'll save my data from the 30, format it, and use it as a slave. Works fine as long as you don't try to boot off it ;(

Krex.com IBM 40 GB 7200 8.5 seek. 84 shipped. Loving every minute.

84+shipping. Anyway, I also picked up a promise IDE controller. Had run out of room before...