Tuesday 5 May 2009

Review: Stay away from Rock Mobile Disk

If you use "External Hard Drive" as keywords on eBay, you will find that an image that constantly appears in search results is following:


I bought two of those in 2007. One in May and second in June, 500GB each. I paid $140+ for each. The one that I bought in May, I used to store enormous amount of pictures which are inevitable in this day and age of digital cameras. I had to use ACDSee to regularly organize pictures on it.
In about May 2008, exactly after one year after its purchase, it completely gave up on me and I regularly began to hear the dreaded click of death whenever I tried to access it. I lost all of my pictures. I had no backup. In fact I was quite satisfied that now I had this mass storage which had sole purpose of storing images, I had nothing to worry about. Silly me.
It all happened when I used Windows Disk Defragmenter. So I figured maybe this was the culprit. I checked the second hard drive that I bought in June 2007. It had videos on it and I did not use it as often. It had huge number of bad sectors. I had not used Windows Disk Defragmenter on this one. It was slowly giving up on me. By experience, I estimated that it would completely give up in June 2008, if I accessed it a few more times. I bought a 1TB external hard drive from FutureShop and transfered all of my data on to the new one and never used Rock Mobile Disk again.
Now I noticed something else. External hard drive that I bought from FutureShop, hardly ever got even warm, whereas Rock Mobile Disk heated up so quickly and so much so that you could hardly touch it.
Then I decided to open the disk with click of death.
I removed all four tiny screws. Two at the top and two at the bottom; see picture (only top screws shown):

Then you can pull the covers sideways to remove them. Following is a picture of front of the disk with the cover removed:

Following is a picture of back of the disk with the cover removed:


See following two pictures and see how they fit the hard drive in the casing. They used pieces of cardboard:



Here's another picture. I have pulled out all the pieces of cardboard and put them beside the hard drive:


Here's how to pull the hard drive out of the casing:


Look at the following close-up of the hard drive, and the close-up after that. Try reading the label and pay attention to the condition of the lable:


In above two pictures, you can clearly see that the hard drive is manufactured by Western Digital. The seal has been deliberately damaged. I assume whoever is selling these hard drives has got a bulk of faulty hard drives which are doomed to fail after much shorter than normal use and he/she is selling them as external hard drives by enclosing them in cheap casings. The label of the hard drive clearly instructs not to cover any holes and the casing is essentially airtight with no possibility of ventilation for the hard drive whatsoever. An over heated hard drive is more easily prone to failure. Any quality external hard drive's casing should have a way of cooling for the hard drive. The hard drive that I bought from FutureShop is from a well known company and, as I said before, doesn't heat up like a Rock Mobile Disk.
If you do a Google search for Rock Mobile Disk, you'll never find the manufacturer's web site. The only web sites you'll find will be either auction web sites or the forums with heaps of complaints about this product. Here's another assumption for your thought: Rock Mobile Disk is a phony company which only manufactures or supplies cheap, low quality casings for the standard hard drives.
There is no question, these external hard drives sure look good on internet and cause a lot of bid wars which result in inflated prices. These external hard drives with added shipping & handling charges, cost more than a high quality product with same capacity bought from a well known retail store.
Here are some tips to keep yourself safe from rip-off known as Rock Mobile Disk:
  • If you are bidding online on one of these, stop. Pull out your bid if you can or hope someone outbids you. Alert the bidding site about the possible fraud.
  • Do a survey of your local computer retail stores and compare prices. I bet you'll find a better hard drive at much lower price.
  • If you are currently using a so-called Rock Mobile Disk, make a copy of all the data in it and to prevent any possibility of data loss, stop using it. You have been a victim of internet rip-off like me. Don't lament. Help prevent such frauds.
  • If you have won a bid on one of these disks and haven't paid yet, then don't pay. Negotiate with the bidding site and let them know about the situation involving possible fraud. I hope they'll understand.
If you have any further information, if you want more information added to this blog entry or if you have relevant links to share please feel free to leave a comment. You don't have to register to do so.
Be safe and prevent fraud!

143 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info. I was googling & wondering what the story is.

I'd already left low bids with free shipping, so if I win & it fails after a while, not a big deal. It's only for backup of my computer - so as long as both don't fail at the same time.

Based on your info, if I win, I'll buy a better case, which will at least give the drive some air & a fighting chance.

I really was baffled. Now I'm not. So thank you for posting this!

Anonymous said...

yeah i am looking for a cheap external hard drive, a 250gb one from $35 to $40. I was just googling all the hard drives I found on ebay that met this criteria. Thank you for this post. It saved me from going any further.

Anonymous said...

I bought a Rock Mobile Disk on EBAY. Although it was supposed to be new it contained pornographic images and videos. The seller has still not contacted me.

Anonymous said...

Ebay seller buy-new-age has dozens of these hard drives for sale. I opened the case on the one I bought, it contains a drive from Magnetic Data Technology clearly marked recertified. It also contained hidden folders with pornographic images. The seller is supposed to refund my money. If I hadn't had my folder options set to reveal hidden folders, I would never have known those images were on my computer. It would have been a bigger concern, had I bought the drive for a gift.

Anonymous said...

I must say that I have used my original device for over 1 year and have not had a single issue. I have since purchase 5 additional drives from this great seller that have all worked perfectly. This are excellent products that I have recommend to my friends who are also using them at have nothing but praise. Tremendous value and support. What more can you aks for.

Anonymous said...

When anything is sold as NEW, it should be new, not recertified. If you haven't opened your drives, you don't know if they are new or recertified. If you haven't set windows explorer to reveal hidden files you don't know what it containes in addition to your files. If your product is new, then you probably got a good deal. If it is recertified . . . then not so good, regarless of how they are working.

Unknown said...

I too acquired a Rock Mobile disk via eBay. I became concerned about its overheating so I was moving the data to another drive when the Rock began to exhibit read errors that caused copy/move and other copying software to fail. Turned it off & after cool down, retried. Took 2 days of dedicated nursing with 2 disk recovery applications to copy all but 150mB off the drive before it became unreadable.

I contacted the eBay seller about warranty and never received a reply.

Anonymous said...

I have also purchased the product and must say the performance, service and overall experience has been excellent. I highly recommend the product and have told all of my friends that this is by far the coolest design on the market!

JRF said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
I have also purchased the product and must say the performance, service and overall experience has been excellent. I highly recommend the product and have told all of my friends that this is by far the coolest design on the market!

June 16, 2009 10:47 AM


and

Anonymous said...
I must say that I have used my original device for over 1 year and have not had a single issue. I have since purchase 5 additional drives from this great seller that have all worked perfectly. This are excellent products that I have recommend to my friends who are also using them at have nothing but praise. Tremendous value and support. What more can you aks for.

June 3, 2009 12:49 PM


Sound like the same person.

I was just about to bid on this at eBay but the majority says not to do it and you guys are usually correct, so thank you for taking the time to post.

Anonymous said...

Raaquim is 100% correct and thank you for the pics and the detailed post... i just bought the 500gb rock hard drive for 80.00( thought it was a great price until I was having trouble with it, it froze my computer, drive ran extremely hot and didn’t recognize any drive...I am running vista on a brand new laptop, anyway..After reading some of these posts. i opened the case and indeed it is a hard drive by Magnetic Data technologies and it had a sticker on the hard drive itself that said recertified and a warning: do not cover any drive holes. it also had card board holding it in place, what a piece of junk and what a great scam saying it was new. It was by the same ebay seller by new age...plus i am a computer tech and i found out that "MDT re-certified" drives. In fact, they are Western Digital re-flashed with a new code and showing a new manufacturing date sticker; the drive failed during format and reverted to "WD" code. I believe that MDT re-manufacture drives e.g. WD drives; calling these "re-certified" drives "white-box drives" is somehow misleading. Plus on MDA website it states that the person who sells it to you holds the warranty which this seller does not, he claims it has a six month warranty from the manufacturer..i am contacting ebay and paypal for a full refund and hope. Plus I am posting on ebay and hopefully this buyer will rethink his ad…. There is something to be said for buyer beware.. Hope this helps

Anonymous said...

This is being done by a few ebay sellers that are having issues with this excellent product. It is amazing that people could stoop to this levels. I hve had several of these devices and every single time the service and support has been outstanding. The device is be far the right fit for what we are all looking for. I have receommend this to all of my family members and friends you have purcahse this with the same service. Great product Great Price Great Performance

Anonymous said...

OMG, Thank you so much! I stop my bidding on this item thanks to your info.

Anonymous said...

Like everyone else, THANK YOU for information on this. I don't usually even search items, but am pretty broke and couldn't afford a problem!

Anonymous said...

I'm so happy with this device. The price was excellent and I received it in 2 business days after payment. Backed up everything and have since purchased 3 more for my office and home computers.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I bouth one 750 GB, received on Saturday, july 11th, and started use it yesterday, moved most of my important files to this drive. and now, it doesn't start, can anybody help me!!! please!!! how can I recover the files!!!

Anonymous said...

I just started the backup procedure in windows live onecare and I got a message saying that FAT 32 is not recommended. Usa a NTSF device instaed. Does anyone know if I can reformat this thing?
Thanks for any help
GB

Anonymous said...

I am the one who wrote the post about the RE-CERTIFIED hard drives being sold on ebay from an EBAY SELLER: NEWAGE...
BEWARE AND DONT BUY ANY OF THESE SO CALLED NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES NAMED ROCK( THERE IS NO COMPANY NAMED ROCK ITS JUST A STICKER STUCK ON THE OUTSIDE OF A CASE)!! Common sense tells you The other posts here that are saying the product is great AND THAT THEY BOUGHT 3 OR 5 OF THEM are probably the ebay seller himself..

You can try and format the drive.. use the quick format option but once you opt for this option all data on your drive will be lost.. also, if its in a enclosed case without a fan it will overheat, If you need to get data off of this drive, I would open the case to give the drive air, avoiding overheating the drive.... if you are having trouble with this drive now, I wouldnt bother trying to format this drive because you will have more problems with this drive down the road.. do yourself a favor and buy an external hard drive by Western Digital.. I just bought a Western Digital 750G exteranl hard drive from staples for 49.00 and it was brand new.. The nice thing is it comes with its own software and it runs very cool(it comes housed in a well made case with a fan)..With the size of hard drives increasing so quickly they always have 500 and 750 drives on sale.. Good Luck
Mary

Anonymous said...

We just ordered 5 of these for the office. Plugged them all in and with seconds they were ready to use. I need 10 more and will be going back to get them.

Anonymous said...

wow, why all the bad beef! I just got my in and just love the product. All my friends are amazed at the price paid and the delivery time. Nothing by praise.

Unknown said...

WOW! Thanks for the heads up, I was just on ebay about to bid and happened to google the item. Thank goodness your post came up on my search.

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone leave a comment on this forum giving praise for the product, and how they've recommended 10 to friends...unless it's the seller? Who, in their right mind, would go out of their way to defend a product like this unless they are profitting from it? The funniest part about all the "this device is great" comments is that they all share the same grammatical errors throughout them...it's a pity that there are such sleezes out there.

Anonymous said...

Thank God someone is seeing the light about the past postings, that the one giving praise to this product is the ebay seller buy-new-age himself.. Please do yourself and dont buy from this seller

Anonymous said...

well i am glad i was outbid on ebay for this item. i put in a bid before i had the chance to research it. and now, like everyone else, i am unable to find the maker.

yes i read the entire forum. and yes, all the praising words are from the same person who makes these things. they have the same grammatical errors. they have the same pitch about buying five or ten more.

so everybody should do themselves and everybody else a favor, and quit supporting this person.

Rohan said...

unfortunately i am one of those persons whom bought this item November last year and now it has completely failed. This seller is a sleeze and should be seen as such. Please do not spend your hard earned money on this item as this product is known to fail.

Ali Hassan Al Lawati said...

Thanks your post saved me from buying this thing

thanks a lot

kwncy said...

OMG! thanks a lot. I was really about to buy this product. but i decided to google the brand and i found this.

it saved me. thanks

Anonymous said...

think it's possible to take the drive out, get a different case and reformat it before actually using it?

Anonymous said...

For all you people praising this seller and the product, I have a question. If you knew that the drive was not new, would you still have bought it. Open the drive and remove all doubt about what you bought. If you bought several, chances are they are not even from the same Mfg. I got my money back. The drive I purchased had pornographic images on it. Notice that he does not ship by USPS. Could this because he could be charged with mail fraud if he did?

Anonymous said...

Same here. They said its NEW. The drive has been pry open from the center sticker and label has been remove and them put back. see picture.



PIC 1


http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/360/img2471small.jpg



PIC 2



http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/3127/img2474small.jpg

Anonymous said...

Me too. I need to thanks for this post. Now I am glad that I was outbidded by another person on eBay by $1.00. For which the biding price was ended as high as $92.00. After I got outbid I went Google and found this post. Am I lucky or what.

After that I Google more and end up purchased an external storage enclosure and an OEM Hitachi 1TB harddrive through Amazon.com. This is what I purchased.

1)Macally external storage enclosure.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P1NAMO/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

This enclosure is very well build. Solid Aluminum body with fanless design, very good looking, and reasonably cheap price, consider that it has eSATA/Firewire and USB2.0 connections, and did I mention that it comes with free backup software too.

2)Hitachi/IBM 1TB 16MB 7200rpm OEM 3.5" drive. (Brand new with warrenty)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q9EKU0/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

This drive is very quite and fast. I am using the eSATA and Firewire connections.

All in all, I am very happy with this setup ($20.00 more well spent). And I have confident that it will last.

Anonymous said...

I have posted before..This seller on ebay is selling a used hard drive under the name of ROCK... I was one of the ones who bought the external hard drive..It was doa on arrival that’s when i opened it up and found out they are MDT
re-certified" drives. I did get my money back after I informed the seller that i knew what he was doing and that the hard drive was not in fact new and it was a scam ..I did report it to ebay but they have done nothing as of yet , but i plan to keep on top of it every day until this seller has taken this product down...
I know the seller of Rock ON EBAY has read these postings, and even responded if you read the posts from the persons who bought more than one and praises the product... and i am just afraid he will try to replace the sticker on the hard drives to look like a new one..which is very easy to do.if you were one of the unfortunate ones to buy from this seller .. Please check the hard drive and go to the manufacturers website and punch in the serial number for the warranty to see if its valid.... I am a PC tech and would advise anyone who needs an external hard drive to invest in one that enclosed with a case that has a fan... Western Digital has one called e-book ...they are quiet and the cost isn’t bad they go from 60.00 to 120.00, depending on the size you need.. the only down side is its size its a little big and that’s only a draw back if you need to carry it every day. ,,, i have 3 of these and none have failed me yet, PLEASE INVEST IN A GOOD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE, YOUR DATA IS WORTH THE MONEY

Anonymous said...

I now have a hart time with this "Rock Mobile" it stoped working on me and lost very very valuable data but most importantly, my babys birth pics. my advice is... Do not buy one of this.

Anonymous said...

please report them to Ebay and to Mail fraud or Internet Crime

https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/forms/MailFraudComplaint.aspx

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

i loss a lot of my important files. These crooks need to be put out of business for screwing us like this.

Anyone try getting a lawyer? how do we contact the person who posted this just in case.

Anonymous said...

You just saved me from placing a bid on ebay. There was 8 minutes left in the auction and I found your review. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review. I was thinking about bidding on one of these on ebay, then I figured I better Google this brand name first as I'd never heard of it. I'm really glad I did.

Anonymous said...

I just lost everything. My whole life was in that disk. It just suddenly stopped working. I'm actually crying as I write this. My home movies, studio recordings, writings, everything! Is there any way I can get my files back? Please. God I pray this is all a bad dream. Please someone help, please!

Anonymous said...

Looks like are selling on a different ebay account now.

1)buy-new-age
2)just-hardware
maybe more ebay accounts

Report them to Ebay and Internet fraud. They are under investigation RIGHT NOW.
www.ebay.com ->HELP-> contact us

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information! I too got scammed. I purchased my ROCK Mobile Disk off of Ebay. It ran well for about 3 or 4 months. Then suddenly I could not open my backup file for my Dell X1. I click on it and nothing happens. I have lost so much data I cannot tell you. I have lost videos, music, business files. I am trying to recovery my lost information but it does not look good. Backup is suppose to be reliable. The cost of the drive is insignifcant compared to loss of information. DON'T BUY THIS PIECE OF JUNK FOR ANY PRICE!!!!!

Homeschooler Link Dad said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I made the mistake of bidding on one of these before looking up the company. Thankfully I was outbid.

Bnax said...

I am on the phone with ebay now trying to get my money back, I bidded and won this piece of junk. The company has not even shipped the item and I don't want it. With today economy this is not the time to be getting took, money is to hard to come by.

Gaming Hotshot said...

I have bought 2 of these in the past, one that is 250gb and one that is 500gb. Personally I haven't had any problems with them. I was actually looking into purchasing another one. I looked for the seller "buy-new-age" and noticed that they now have no listings on ebay. I thought that was weird so I just searched "external hard drive" and then found a few under a new seller named "just-hardware" I noticed on the new picture it shows 2 extra ports so I tried to contact the seller. They never replied so I went and googled them and came across this blog entry. I am glad I did. Now that I know how poorly they are constructed I will not be purchasing another one. I will be backing up all of my information off of both of them just in case they decide to fail some day. Thank you for posting this.

Bnax said...

Won an auction for a 500GB Exernal Hard Drive. Lucky me, Hooray!!! Before Just Hardware could send the Drive out I contact Ebay and email the seller, I added the link to this page. Just Hardware refund my money. I was lucky, maybe the next person may not be so lucky. Buyer Beware.

Anonymous said...

Too late for me. I just bought a 500gb. Got a good price, though. Should have done my research before I bid. Fingers crossed!

Anonymous said...

for what its worth, i bought a 250 gb Rock Mobile Disk in 2007 and haven't had any issues. bought on ebay buy it now (forget price) and have stored about 140gb of stuff on it. never gets too hot and is recognizable on my new hp dv4 laptop windows vista 64 bit.

Unknown said...

Thanks, you just saved me from making a terrible deal. I couldn't find anything on "rock" hardware. I kept using all kinds of combinations of the words 120GB PORTABLE POCKET SLIM EXTERNAL USB HARD DRIVE +ROCK, and nothing. Then I decided to search images with +ROCK + EXTERNAL +"HARD DRIVE" and found your blog.

I wanted to archive business files. IMHO, if a file deserves to be saved it is because you might need it - so I am not taking any chances. Thanks again!

Unknown said...

Excellent blog. Thanks. It saves my day!!

Anonymous said...

...Too late for me as well. I just paid for one from just-hardware on ebay. Does anyone think supplying holes in the case might help much? or buying a casing with a fan?
me am S-u-c-k-e-r.
I've a feeling that once I remove the casing and examine the innards to see what they've sold to me, that will void the non existant warranty from the non existant company that sold it to me?
me am S-u-c-k-e-r.
thank you for posting this info.

Unknown said...

Thank you thank you thank you!! I believe you have just saved me from making a terrible mistake! I too had been trying to find anything about this "ROCK"company.....doens't exist I guess!
Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for saving me the misery of losing valuable data to these scumbags. Hiding a worn-out drive in a chep case and calling it "new" is fraud, plain and simple. EBay shut them down once, and they'll probably shut them down again, but like roaches they'll keep on coming back.

Anonymous said...

This is the s-u-c-k-e-r, from above. I received the cardboard RECERTIFIED META DATA TECHNOLOGIES disk inside the "NEW" ROCK MOBILE hard drive case, with THE CARDBOARD STUFFED IN IT ,just as the pictures above show.
I contacted ebay for advisement on this seller JUST-HARDWARE in New Jersey selling fraudulant items. They suggested I open a "significantly NOT as described" dispute through PayPal, (which I did) Paypal gives the seller 10 days to respond and 20 days to settle or paypal will reimburse me the $$ I spent on the transaction. I don't know what they do to the seller after that if they don't pay or respond, but it's been a week and no word from this "respected ebay power- seller". Because he's got more good feedback than "junk item" negative feedback,on average they'll probably let him keep selling the garbage.

Anonymous said...

Raaque you did a great job with your post. Thanks for all the people sharing their infos. I am a stundent and do not have time to lose data, and money to give out for crap.
Just to mention, it is not the same ebay seller on the ebay. They probably change their user_id every now and then. I have to complain about ebay's feedback system which doesn't allow you to categorize feedbacks by date, status and so on. Thus, there is no way of finding out a froud relying on ebay's feedback system.
I actually bougt some tabletennis rubbers which does not function as expected and now I am concerned that there might be also fraud involved :(

Anonymous said...

hello all, I'm probably screwed on this myself as I bought it about 6 months ago and never attempted to use until yesterday.

That's when I started searching for more info as it didn't include any instructions.

I guess I'm hosed as far as getting my money back, so I'm trying to use it as a limited backup only but can not even get my computer to recognize it.

I changed the device drive to x but when I click on it it says to insert disc into drive x.

I guess I probably need drivers for it but the website on the www.usbex.com/sata02 does not work.

Can any body that actually used their rock storage device advise me what to do for device drivers?

Or where you got your drivers from?

I opened the cover and it says its recertified Magnetic Data Technologies 750 GB 5400 rpm.

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Hi All, I posted the post just above this one. I finally got the hard drive to work.

The cord in the box was too short from my outlet to the computer....so I used a cord from my zip drive that plugged in and seemed to work.

Since it powered the drive up. I thought it was working.

Unfortunately, 6 hours later after doing much online research about the disc drive errors and finally determining it was probably DOA anyway.

And just as I was giving up and about ready to trash it...I wondered if the fact that I wasn't using the original cord would make any difference at all.

So, I plugged it in and had to move my computer closer to the outlet to make the short cord work....and surprise!

It powered on and my computer recognized it. DOH!

So now, I am going to use it for limited use, but also, I think I'm going to get another external hard drive casing with a fan and just be mindful that it can crap out at any time.

This post was just to update my previous post and to Thank Raaque for the blog. Regards, Mike

Anonymous said...

Well shit. I just won one of these on ebay. 1TB for under 100 bucks. We'll see what I get I guess. Was already planning on swapping it into another case, but I'll be pissed if it's a refurb since it was billed as New.

Anonymous said...

This is S-U-C-K-E-R.
I went through paypal dispute/claim over my cardboard recertified rock mobile... The seller responded once with demands that the device be returned..sent it back and never heard from justhardware/ buy newage again. Paypal only gave me the $$ I spent on this hunk of crap, and stiffed me with the return shipping bill. I should be glad I got anything back. I turned them in for mail fraud through the u.s. post office. And guess what...?... the scammers are still selling refurb junk on ebay.
Thanks Raaque, Buyer beware

Cody said...

thank you tremendously!! I cannot thank you enough. I'm a student looking to back up all my school documents, my computer hard drive, and everything in between. What a nightmare that could have turned out to have been. I have already bid on one, but thought i'd search a review for quality and ran into your blog. thank you so much. I'm sure i'll get out bid there's plenty of time and found this just in the nick of time to vanish a horrible nightmare from my life. Back up hard drives the first thing you expect is reliability, but this is everything, but quick money for them and a nightmare for you months down the road much to late to do anything about. thank you again. I'm going to search for a much more reliable hard working nicely constructed drive for school. Thank you once last time you don't know how much this helps and neither do I because thanks to this i avoided this garbage. This means alot to me thank you.

Anonymous said...

just bought one of these, but in black. I left in on all night coping files and it got "Mild" hot. I should have read this befor bidding, though. bought a 1tb. It's funny how on the box it says "We use aluminum for our enclosure for it's strength and heat dissapation, needed by the immence heat generated by these drives" What A Load. I should've researche before i bought it.
Now to let it Crash and Burn!

Thanks, Just-Hardware. Thanks Alot.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the detective work, Raaque!
Exactly the info needed to make the choice NOT to buy one of these tempting cheapo drives!

Anonymous said...

BEWARE!!!!!!!EBAY SELLER........ buy-new-age HAS CHANGED HIS EBAY NAME TO: just-hardware........ I CAN BET HE IS LOOKING INTO more ebay accounts as i write one more time to this blog... I have written many posts to this blog under the name anonymous... my real name is Kimberly and i am the computer tech,,,, If the external drive doesnt boot, it is possible that it can be retrevied, dont panic yet... you can take it to staples and they have cables that will go from usb to sata drives etc and most of the time data can be taken off of these bad hard drives... it will cost a little but it is worth it if its important data... i have done this for many when there drives go bad... my suggestion is: if you have bought this drive please back it up asap, dont wait, i think in some of your cases the power supply is going bad not the hard drive itself... they sell usb to ide cables on ebay... once the hard drive is removed from the case, you can hook up these cables, get the hard drive running and quickly remove the needed data to another drive... with this said, I will still keep trying to have ebay close this horrible seller down for good......

Anonymous said...

I received a 320Gb model as a gift about a year ago. Since I have had it running basically 24/7 as a backup and torrent download destination. Today it occurred to me that it was about the 1 year anniversary and wondered if others were having the same luck with such a cheap drive. Sorry to see all the negative comments. It has worked well for me, but since it was an unfamiliar brand I have never trusted it with any really valuable data. HD Tune reports that the drive is still healthy. I would not suggest this drive to others simply for the fact that the company has no website I could find-thus no support. The box merely came with the drive and a cable-no documentation or warranty card. As it was a gift I am very happy with the performance, but probably would not purchase this brand for myself or others.

MattF said...

Best advice if you have one/got one/may still try and get one:

-Take it out of the case and throw away the case. Seriously it isn't worth it because they get so hot they won't last due to the heat.

-Use it as an internal drive...yea you bought an external, but unless you want to go get another case elsewhere just throw it inside your computer.

-Format it. If anything left, it'll get removed.

-Run disk checks to ensure no bad sectors...otherwise return it if so.

Anonymous said...

I bought one of these 1TB drives from just-hardware about three months ago for $80.

So far, I have had absolutely no problems. It doesn't get warm, data transfers quickly, I have had no crashes, alerts, etc. Maybe it's just too soon for mine to crash, or maybe I got lucky. Either way, I plan to keep my data on this drive. I see no problem in doing so, as - to be honest - I had a crash from my MAIN harddrive just six months ago and lost everything from the past six or seven years. If my internal harddrive isn't even reliable, then I guess this is the best way to go. Either way, I'm still satisfied with this product completely.

I think all the negative reviews are a bit of paranoia... YES, these are clearly old harddrives, YES they come without instructions or a company website... But other than that, what's the big deal? Looks like an external harddrive, works like an external harddrive, and so far has been wonderful.

I'll comment again and admit to being a sucker if it does, in fact, die out on me. So far, though, I'm content with my purchase. :]

Anonymous said...

I GOT IT WORKING AGAIN!!

Hello all, I too, bought this POS and got a cardboard refurb'd magnetic drive. I keep getting "windows delayed write failure" and lost many hours of my life debugging it. After reading this post and combining it with a little bit of technical knowledge, I think the major flaw with these is the heat from non-ventilation. I actually got mine to a "working" state after it was definitely not working. I've been a computer techie my whole life and being so, all of that high level techno-speak knowledge helps me see through the confusion and come up with some excellent "duct tape and bailin' wire" soluions... So for those of you who lost baby pictures, videos, priceless data... HERE'S HOW I GOT MY DATA OFF:

1.) As described above, use a screwdriver and remove the junk casings fastened by 4 tiny screws on the top/bottom and use a fork or some other great pokie tool to remove the cardboard. Throw all of the parts you just removed in the recycle bin. (we want to stay green, you know.) :)

2.) Take this offensive drive and prop one of the flat sides of it up next to something that blows (or sucks) lots of air past it... I have 2 computer case fans close together on my machine that I just leaned the thing up against which worked like a charm. But if you have an air conditioning vent, desk fan, even a vacuum cleaner will get the job done as long as there is massive amounts of cool/cold air flowing over the drive.

3.) Plug it up and try to copy the data off. If you are lucky like me, it isn't permanently damaged and you can get the data off.

4.) After getting your data off, take the USB cable and power adapter and put them in your personal "box-O-cables" for future use.

5.) Take the remaining piece of dukie and get creative with destroying it. I personally like to drop frustrating objects such as this off of a very tall parking garage building downtown and document the fall on video with a commentary on why I have sentenced the object to such a death. This one will make a lovely addition to my collection and will rank right up there with the "Parking Garage vs. Leaky Toilet" video and the 12-story slow-motion basketball stress-test video. Look for it on YouTube in the next few days. I will store the video on my external HD I bought on NewEgg.com

-Jason

Сергей Щербаков said...

I already have this problem. i live in russia and receive from ebay rocl mobile 1 Tb. And after 10min working I can't see it in MyComputer.
E[actly after I leaved positive feedback)))
but in System i see that all is OK. Hundred times I plug it in different ports but no difference . I thied google whats problem and read you post. Now I know... Thank you!

Anonymous said...

thanks dude, wanted to buy this one, but decided to read some reviews, USE DA GOOGLE PEOPLE!!! Thank you again!

Unknown said...

I really appreciate the info. I was attracted to the slim design, but I will stay away from waht appears to be a scam.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for this info. I was just about ready to buy this..
So glad I reviewed it first

Unknown said...

Hi! I should have read this blog before mine went down. Same problem! Was working fine for the past 2 years and suddenly it can't connect no more, red lights etc...
I was finging strange it was so hot when running but I thought it was normal.

Aeroxima said...

I have no experience with these drives, but for those that lost important data, you may (or may not) be able to recover it. If you search Google there is a LOT of information about "data recovery" and a number of options to persue, so don't lose hope but remember it could simply be too late, too.

Data recovery can be a long, painstaking, complicated, arduous task. If you want to pay a lot of money, there are places that you can mail it to for professional recovery, but it does cost a pretty penny. You can do it yourself if you do your research and are somewhat comfortable with computers (even if not HDs).

But be careful, data recovery is an in-demand thing and there are plenty of people out there preying on people in this situation. Don't get hurt twice over the same thing, if you can help it!

I felt I had to say this, I've had my share of drives die on me. Always backup, seriously, drives dying is an inevitability, it's only a matter of time.

Anonymous said...

I was just given one of theese hard drives from a friend about a month ago... everything seemed to be working fine for about a month now I am getting the dreaded click when you pick the hard drive up when turning it on you can feel the spinning off center and it wont even recognize the usb drive on my computer anymore... two months of working on a project all lost in the hard drive somewhere.... def do not reccomend!

Unknown said...

When I saw that Western Digital drive sitting in there... I was like "Oh crap!"

I saw these drives online and said "I've never heard of this brand..." did a Google search and bam --the ugly truth revealed.

Thanks for the heads up.

Still I'm thinking though, that drive might have lasted a good long while with proper care if it managed to last 2 years in there...

Anonymous said...

Thanks, You saved me! I have almost bought this piece of shit... I just wanted to look up the maker before I bet since it seemed strange to me that there was no maker and/or model listed on the ebay listing.

It is really sad that nobody could stop this seller from this malevolent fraud. It also does not give much credibility to ebay - how is it possible that they still let this crap to be listed?????

Petr

Anonymous said...

Good Insights.....I cannot believe that ebay would allow this fraud to continue. You saved me from throwing good money away for an item that would be holding all my keepsake family videos.

Anonymous said...

what is it that makes us search a product with prices to good to be true. Again we find fraud and something that isn't worth the money we paid for our so called good deal. Thanks for the internet and Raaque you are commended. You saved another custumer from fraud.

Anonymous said...

I am sorry I read these comments too late. I bought one of these last year. I may have used it a maximum of 10 times. The last couple of days it has died and does not start up. I have my whole life of pictures and other documents stored in this junk.

Please do yourself a favor and do not buy this. Pay a little more and buy from a manufacturer that gives you warranty and that is responsive.

Anonymous said...

I feel sick as I read these comments. I put all my daughter's wedding photos on the Rock Hard Drive. It was over a 1000 pictures of the last several years - and now I can't get it to work - as I read these comments I now know why. I am so sad.Can't believe it.

Dodolidot said...

Just so you all know here I have figured out that the rock mobile casing is actually really good but I highly suggest getting your own SATA HD like I did since by doing so it rarely had problems, but turns out the problems I had were because the HD got dislodged so it actually does need some sort of wedge in it to keep it from falling off (I placed a rolled up piece of tissue in it to experiment and it worked) just leave some space as it does heat up pretty quick.
Hope this helps for some of you...

Katie said...

I got mine for Christmas two years ago. I was really excited. I have all of my pictures(close to 15,000) and music(20,000 ish songs) on there. I didn't have any of these things on my computer because obviously, that would slow it down tremendously.
Last week, it wasn't working. I was just thinking, "Oh, it might just gotten unplugged, etc." I tried going to the website, which we all now know doesn't exist.

I have lost everything.

Anonymous said...

I purchased one exactly like your,s. It was a 250gb and failed after one year. It had several bad sectors and I lost all my data. The package does not come with any software and reads as a generic disk. I advise not to buy these. thank you

Anonymous said...

I didn't find this site until after I had purchased one of these crappy hard drives off of ebay. I opened it up and discovered a "recertified" drive. I filed a complaint with ebay and am in the process of working it out. Ebay still lets this guy sell these things even though numerous people have complained. A lot of people have left good feedback as they leave feedback right after receiving it and don't open up the case to see if it's a new drive. Hopefully I get my money back so I can buy an actual "new" drive...

Unknown said...

ROCK MOBILE DISK (IN MY OPINION IT IS JUNK)
My son just learned a valuable lesson in buying products off ebay.

Read the reviews or buy locally.

Just took possession of the Rock Mobile Hard Drive and can't get it to work. It has the card board filler inside the case and is recertified. Web site for support does not exist.

Cheaper to shop around and buy locally.

Anonymous said...

Ebay is not the problem, the people who sell junk on Ebay is the problem and it makes everyone look bad.

glenner said...

I am shopping for an ext. drive. I'm glad I found this blog because the Rock looks very attractive on Ebay. " Hail to Raaque " ! ! Has anyone contacted Western Digital? Are they not aware of this problem, and that the drive has their label on it? Were they stolen? . . removed from a QC "defective bin" and "repackaged" by someone? Western Digital needs to be made aware of this situation. Now I'm hesitant to purchase a Western Digital product.

Anonymous said...

Thanks alot for the facts about this product. I just won this in ebay and before paying, I was trying to know more and got this posting. I will not pay and max, my ebay a/c will be diabled. But I will get the mental piece. If I wud have read this after I paid. I wud have not used the device for what I was investing in for. Thanks a ton for the posting......

Anonymous said...

wow what a club, I purchased a ROCK Mobile DUD also,,, and after a year exactly mine puked also, wished i had all my data back and there is no way to get it, I dont know if its the power source or the HD itself, has anyone been able to get their data off the HD? if so could ya email me,, duane66@wildblue.net if ya did and how ya did it,,,,,,its a shame people like this are allowed to see but then again we are all looking for a buy,, guess we got nailed again,, Im calling ebay to protest the whole deal,,, if we all did hed be gone,,,,again thanks even tho for me its too late, duane

Anonymous said...

bought one of these rock drives bout a year ago...worked okay for a while..but just recently turned on the computer and got the message that the drive was not formatted...well lost all my data on it....reformatted it...and basically it is working really flaky...now it's a piece of junk...was gonna buy another one but after reading all these comments...not gonna be fooled again

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this info. I found you while searching for a power supple for my Rock Mobile. I have 3 back up drives for photo shoots and found some were only on the Rock Mobile and I had misplaced the power supply. I was going to ask to buy one from someone here but amazingly I found my today by accident. I fired it up and copied all the folder to another HD. I guess I was lucky and got a good one as I have had no problem with it but I did notice it does get hot. This is a good lesson for anyone to always keep multiple backup for important stuff as any drive can fail or disk can be corrupted. I thought I knew this but I became lax on keeping up everything and only had some folder on this one drive. I keep 3 HDs and burn 2 dvds to be sure.

Anonymous said...

OMG my dad bought one of these and its not working... i hate this piece of crap and whoever sold it to him... i dont know if i can return it now.. gosh that stupid seller i know its him giving praise to this stupid thing... SCUMBAG.. grrr

Unknown said...

I WAS ROBBED!! I BOUGHT ONE THESE PIECES OF GARBAGE AND IT FAILED AFTER ABOUT 2 MONTHS AND IVE BEEN TRYING TO REPAIR IT FOR THE PAST 2 MONTHS SICE IT DIED AND HAVE HAD NO LUCK! I AM A SINGLE FATHER BARELY GETTING BY AND SOME SCUMBAG STEALS MY MONEY AND GIVES ME THIS JUNK IN RETURN!!! I SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE RESEARCH, LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I just got fooled by this guy just-hardware (newage) too!

My drive arrived yesterday, I opened the case and it has a re-furbished drive inside.

I reported him to ebay & paypal & also wrote a direct email to ebay about him ripping everyone off. If enough people do this they'll have to close him down.

Anonymous said...

Thanks you saved me from wasting my money. Why buy refurbished WD junk labeled ROCK when you can spend $20 more and get the real thing new.

All of the positive reviews are a "false-positive" because buyers usually post a review after a few days while the device may still be working. By the time it stops its too late to let others know of the problems.

Thanks for this blog Ebay seller just-hardware should not be allowed to sell.

Pissed Off Buyer said...

I bought one of these. I didn't research it. I got it. I plugged it in. It worked fine. It has been working fine.

Last night I backed up ALL MY FILES before fresh installing Windows 7 on my laptop (win7 was already on, and Rock was working fine before).

This morning I used the Rock. It worked fine.

Tonight... IT WON'T EVEN TURN ON!!! I don't get a 'click of death' or a red light or anything.

ALL OF MY BACKED UP FILES ARE GONE! :(

How can I recover them?

Anonymous said...

I read your information too late, I bought one of this junk hard drives on ebay and the hard drive stop working 8 months later, there is not warranty to be found. Thanks

Anonymous said...

I got mine for 2 years and is still working very well. I supose you brought from a ebay reseller and not directly from an exporter. Next time I suggest you to check feedback and comments

Anonymous said...

E-bay has been tipped off on this fraud and the guy is still selling this junk!!!

News cases this time. Same cardboard "recertified" drives.

It may be time to go AG on this thing. Seems E-bay likes the money it makes off this guy too much to stop it.

Pathetic.

josh12241979 said...

OH MAN!!!!!

I have to buy one of those!! I did talk to ebay about it and they said that I have to pay for it! Becuz of Bidding agreement!!!!

If I had check those early, I WOULD NOT buy this!!!! So what I did.. I sent that person a message about this and I WILL open and check it out if it old hard drive. I WILL go to police and report on this person. and WILL talk to ebay about it too

josh12241979 said...

You know what? I changed my mind about buy this, I refuse to pay for it! I rather not to pay than get scam and make fool out me as "S-U-C-K-E-R" on my forehead. and that what I told ebay about it.

Anonymous said...

I knew about those rock mobile disk or hard drive. I told Western Digital company about this fraud. I got respond from them

here they said

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention. These are not Western Digital external drive. If some one chooses to put our internals into a third party enclosure we have no way of stopping them. Although the internal drive may be warranted by WD we would not be able to support the enclosure or failure of the enclosure. The only portion we would be able to warranty is the internal drive."

I was confuse about it then I asked what does it mean then I got respond again

here they said

"This is the same thing as if you were to go to an electronics store and buy third party external enclosures, or contact one of these companies and purchase a bulk purchase for enclosures. Then you go and purchase Western Digital internal drives from a vender or other location and then assemble them and sell them. Although they are not WD external unit they do have a WD drive. Provided the internal drive is under warranty, we would only be able to warranty the internal drive in the event of failure as this is not our enclosure. Also if a customer experience an issue with the unit not being detected, we would not be able to provide support as we do not support our internal drives in third party external enclosures.

From the information you provided and link, that is what this appears to be is a company that is putting our drives into their enclosures. I don't know who or what company they are from but they are not Western Digital."

wow!!! I was baffled about what they said about hard drive!

Just letting know what they were telling me about!!

Ben Osborn said...

Fuck, i wish i had known this, im using one right now. i got it like 2 days ago. wtf do i do now?

Ben Osborn said...

This is my real email, help me out plox. what can i do, i spent 70 bucks on this crap

Ben Osborn said...

Thank you anon, I filed a dispute earlier today. Hope for the best.

josh12241979 said...

Hey man,
I'm the guy who wrote few up name josh12241979...

Anyway I got email from that just-hardware few days. man, I told the seller that I'm not paying for piece of crap and the seller tried to tell me about the fee. I told the seller to F*** off and I'm not stupid to pay one of it. Then after that no respond from that seller again. I got into trouble with ebay but I didnt care becuz i didnt want to get burned by that guy.


By the way I found out the name of seller (might be his real name but might be fake) Jeff Brand (just-hardware)

Just saying and knowing what going on......

Anonymous said...

I have had two of these drives and they both failed. The sellers rating on ebay looks great... it wouldn't if customers over 90 days old could change their rating. Watch the Gold Box deals on Amazon and you can get better drives and better prices than 99% of the final auction prices.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for letting me know about that. The reason I found your blog is exactly because I'm having problems with the one I got at eBay. It gets warm and its icon just desappear from my pc making impossible for me to access the fille I stored there. This is very damaging and I do hope eBay exclude them from bidding.

Anonymous said...

BUYER BEWARE OF THIS BUYER!!!

unbelivieble!!!!!!!!!! That fool name just-hardware had changed the name to anb-bna!!!!! You better watch out from that f**ker. That fool trying change the name and trying to sell wrothless junk back to anyone. whatever you do, DO NOT BID!!!!

Unknown said...

I purchased a 500MB external hard drive from this Crook on Apr-28-10.
It was no good from the start and my Dell would not recognize it. He sold it to me calling himself J-hardware but I am sure we have all been shafted by the same guy. His mailing address (for now) is 5 SICOMAC RD #321,NORTH HALEDON , NJ 07508. And he currently goes by the initials EBS. I sent it back to him. I am out the return postage but when I refered Ebay Customer Service to this website, they refunded my $61.00. I consider myself fortunate. The guy initially refused to refund me with the astonishing lie that I had pried open the case and crushed the drive and that he had pictures of how it looked upon return. I retuned it in perfect condition - minus the fact that it was inoperable. I am a veterinarian, not an IT guy and wouldn't know how to open a HD or what to do if I managed to.
Hope Ebay will black list this crook. He is a blight on Society and a real threat to public confidence in Ebay purchases.

Anonymous said...

hey ronald!!

That fucker ripped alot of people and I have been trying to get that fucker arrest or kick out of ebay but somehow that fucker stop using his seller name just-hardware and changed to anb-bna. I know why. It common thing for the person who are con. He keep changing the name all the time becuz when thing like ebay are getting notice about the seller like just-hardware and thing getting to hot. He will change different name to avoid getting notice. Ebay must be stupid. They should know better than this. That fucker is giving ebay a bad name!! You need to tell ebay no matter what!!!

Anonymous said...

Is to late for me ,i lost VERY important data , and videos of my baby in this cardboard junk called ROCK MOBILE DRIVE , keep posting your comments and PLEASE let ebay know about it, the name of the ebay seller is JUST HARDWARE AND IS LOCATED IN NEW YORK.
but i think he just change his seller name , because the dont have more "products" listed.

Anonymous said...

Hey
do not buy from this seller name anb-bna!!! I think this just-hardware change to this name anb-bna!! do not buy from this seller!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Tooo late for me! Just as I paid for the item and then I decided to research the name... And WOW. About 2 hrs ago a paid for a 750GB drive. I should have known to do the research first!
I was suspicious as it is was the first i was seeing this brand, but thought little of it. I have since contacted ebay and the seller who goes by the name anb-bna. I havnt heard from him as yet.

Anonymous said...

Too late for me as well. =/
Bought a 250gb drive from this guy a couple years ago. It still works- barely. Every time I want to use it I have to leave it on until it finally decides to spin up, and turning it off restarts the process. I feel like the drive itself is fine, but the casing is effed up, since the drive WILL work if it's on long enough.

ABA-USA said...

I believe we need to report this guy :
1) to NJ Department of business so he must stop this fraudulence.
2) YOur state department of agriculture so that the Federal Business bureau can leanr about this

Also, you can call the bank to take our money back by claiming that we had received a fake product. But you must claim it within 90 or 60 days from payment day (it depends on the bank). HOpe this tip will help.

Anonymous said...

Just found out today that he's no longer selling on eBay!

About 2 weeks ago, I purchased a 640 GB drive, and it came DOA. Emailed him and he wouldn't respond until I opened a case with eBay support. Then, and only after the case was opened, he told me to return it.

Immediately after I discovered the drive was DOA, I looked up Rock Mobile Disk and found what everyone else found.

I asked him for a full refund if he could not ensure that the drive he was sending me was new and not a recertified or faulty drive with a shiny new plastic exterior.

He could not answer my question. So I forced him to refund me. After the disk was sent back, and the tracking number confirmed delivery, he STILL would not refund my money until I contacted eBay support and told them he was withholding my money even though I sent the drive back.

They promptly sent me my money within 15 minutes. Goddamn con.

If anyone of you guys buy a drive in the future, make sure the mailing address is NOT from 5 SICOMAC RD #321,NORTH HALEDON , NJ 07508, because it will be the SAME guy.

Anonymous said...

to anonymous above,

GOOD JOB!!!!! I was telling everyone about this motherf**ker about the scam. I'm glad you took care of this f**ker!! I have been trying to get rid that f**ker for a long time and also just in case, you should report to
http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

give this f**ker a hard time ! If your friends or anyone know who bought from this F**ker, report it right away!! dont wait!! Just do it!!

again GOOD JOB!!

Unknown said...

Yup, I got screwed by this SOB. Just receive a DOA 1TB hard drive and the s---head won't respond to me. Opened e-bay case this evening so hopefully this will get resolved soon. Do your homework people. I didn't and got burned. Dammit. Oh well...lesson learned.

Anonymous said...

I bought one of these in November or so last year when I was going to wipe my computer and reformat. Honestly, I haven't had any issues to date. It's worked fine, aside from the fact that is takes a while to get going and read.

I thought I would post this website for you all. I searched for rock mobile, and sound this website for the company that supposedly sells them. They are called mediasonic.

http://mediasonicinc.com/store/index.php?osCsid=3a2b3ffec3093082749468ad6a9169c3

Very generic "About us" info too. FYI

Unknown said...

eBay just doesn't respond to such stuff as they should. Mine worked fine for over a year (powered up 24/7). Now it's a dud with collector-item type stuff saved on it (because I trusted the back-up more than my PC). I took the covers off to see if it might rejuvenate with air, but it just sits there being as shitty as the dude who sold it to me. Damned if I do & damned if I don't is my result.

Anybody know of a way to retrieve the data? It's there on the drive, should be someway to retrieve it, y'think?

Anonymous said...

I found out that there was a Rock Mobile Disk on ebay!!! One thing is that seller is only selling one a time. I'm not sure if that seller is the same as before. if it is, then goddamn fuckin con!!! so low that he would sell it one a time. check it on this link

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rock-Mobile-Disk-120-gb-external-HD-/270604170517?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0143f515

That shitting item is still selling on ebay!!!

Again DO NOT BUY FROM THIS SELLER!!
seller name is akaisha1

Anonymous said...

Well yes it is all true.
I took mine apart after is failed at the 6 month mark.
It disassembles very easily.
And yes, the photos shown at the very top are exactly as it is.
The OEM has identified sub-standard product and defaced the labels confirming this, for their own records.
This clown is removing these from Western Digital, at a charge, for disposal, but is "re-manning" them and selling them!!!!
EBAY allows this and PAYPAL endorse it.
Very disconcerting.
Buyer has to do his homework because EBAY is not monitoring.

Anonymous said...

I bought a used Rock Mobile 120gb back up drive (looks exactly as pictured in this blog but it is not a 500gb) from a guy on Craigslist here in NYC. I ALSO used Windows Disk Defragmenter to re-organize files on the disk....I used the defragmenter once or twice on this drive and, sure enough, I ran into the same problems this blogger had experienced. Mine, however, did not completely fail. It would make the "noise of death" sound about 50% of the time, and when it did, I could not access anything! I would turn it off and then on again and then try to move files batch by batch until the noise of death sound would return. I eventually succeeded in moving all my files off of it and on to another more reliable back up drive (a new 1TB Western Digital MyBook RAID World Edition - and so far so good).

Rock Mobile is SUSPECT and there drive gave me nothing but headaches and anxiety over potentially lost data (such as tens of thousands of photos and music files).

BUYERS BEWARE...AVOID ROCK MOBILE!!! DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE YOU BUY!!!

Meredith Peruzzi said...

Yikes...I have been using a 500GB drive for over a year, but I haven't touched it in a while. Now I'm worried! I think I am going to the computer store today so I can buy a reputable drive (will be bigger, too, prices have dropped) and copy all my stuff off the Rock Mobile Disk. Then I will open it up and let you know what I find. I just hope I can get my stuff off!

Anonymous said...

Different person, same sorry story...

Our power went out on Saturday night. When it came back on, we have a blinking red light on our Rock Mobile External 200GB hard drive.

I am working with the experts on the WindowsBBS.com website posting boards and trying to recover my data.

They have been helpful. I am trying to connect the drive directly to the desktop computer in an effort to salvage all the pictures and videos from my two children's lives, my wedding, etc. What a nightmare.

My wife is on me to get this fixed. She is freaking. If any of you are married, you will make sure you NEVER put yourself through this one. It has truly opened my eyes to the importance of a sound, file backup system that has a backup to that as well!

Meredith Peruzzi said...

I'm back. Bought a replacement drive today, got all my stuff off the old one, and opened it up. I took pictures, but there was no need - it's identical to the one pictured here. Down to the model number and the cutout on the label.

I am so glad I found this site. I'm lucky I got my data off - there was a lot of precious stuff on there! Who knows if this drive would've kept working another five years, or failed tomorrow.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

HELP>>>>>>>>>>I purchased this hard drive over a year ago......sure it WAS great WHILE IT WAS WORKING !
NOW IT STOPPED running and the computer recognizes it but the hard drive itself stopped running and every thing that is important is on this external hard drive and now what !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do I do to get it off ..... All my my pictures and Documents that I saved on here because it is a back up drive and sill me I thought it would not fail. Is there any way to get my stuff off here?
Stella

Unknown said...

Hey!
My brother has this Rock hard drive, hd2-u2, but we have lost the power cord for it. Does anybody know how you can get a new one? I asked some guy at a tech store about it and he said that the chord was probably specific for the company and that I would have to contact them about finding a new one, which is hard since the company, as you say, doesn't appear to exist.

We have a lot of old pictures and stuff on the hard drive that we don't want to lose, so I would be really grateful for any help.

Unknown said...

After having the HDD die on my laptop and losing everything on it and my flashdrive I bought the ROCK. I didn't use it much but it did have all of my research from projects in Belize and Crete. After about a year I noticed it wasn't recognized on any of my computers so I replaced the power cord and the USB cord twice- no go. I opened it up today and it does have a new label and it fits nicely in the case (no cardboard) so I turned it on again and lo and behold it is recognized again. I am not taking chances with 3 years of research, I'm transferring everything to a SeaGate FreeAgent drive.

Anonymous said...

THanks for your post! I have one of these - it's still working, but I lost the power supply, and there's no documentation on which power supply I need for a replacement. Do you still have your power supply? Can you tell me the specs? Or would you be willing to sell it?

Many thanks! My email address is hagrid_scrabbler[at]yahoo.com

Yan said...

The problem is NOT with the Rock Mobile but the hard drive. I got 3 of these and all of them came originally out of the box WITHOUT any hard drive. Its up to the user to choose the drive for their choice. There is NO drive option. All their products comes WITH NO drives. Unlike Buffalo, Linksys who provide a preinstalled drive, ROCK does not provide any. Hence I would believe that whoever sold you the unit took his own initiative to install a drive in it and obviously he did not do a very good job at it.

Anonymous said...

I've got Rock Mobile Disk for more than 5 years and so far it's the best external harddrives I've ever had. I've got WD external harddrive and it crashed within a month. It also took forever to save something to it. I've been trying to buy another Rock Disk but I don't know where to buy. I looked on eBay too and it's not there anymore. If anybody knows where I can buy this drive, I'll appreciate very much if you can let me know.

Anonymous said...

Mine worked for less than a year. Now it will not power on, just clicks and then shuts off. I have almost 400 gigs of music that I can't get. Anyone have any ideas?

justme30052@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

I've had a 160 gb for about 5 years. No problems.

Anonymous said...

I am commenter above with 160gb drive. Words of advice: Hard drives fail. Back up your back up. don't expect miracles.
r:ob

Anonymous said...

i bought one of these a year ago without doing research because it was such a great price. after reading these comments, I'm surprised that mine lasted as long as it did. I'm going to try to recover what i can off of it before i open it up and see what the drive actually is and how poorly new age packaged it.

he's a con artist, but I've gotta give him props, as slick as it was, he's done a pretty great job of making some high profits for minimal work. i would never stoop to his level, but if my moral compass was pointed where his seems to be, id want to get in on that gig. props for being an douchbag, new age.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great post. I didn't find this until my drive failed of course! The drive failed after only being used once every other month for two years. The problem turned out the be that the USB adapter (the casing) failed and the not the refurbished disk drive. I guess the USB connector is as shoddy as the drive itself. I was able to recover my data by taking the disk drive out of the casing and connecting it directly to my PC.

Anonymous said...

I have rock mobile disk and seagell as backup. Both failed at same time. Seagell asked me send back the disk for service fee. I have been trying the rock mobile myself. 1. trun on the RMD till light green. turn on computer, connect rmd to computer, does not work.
2. with rmd on, restart computer with rmd connected. does not work.
3. plug - upplug usb on computer - does not work.
4. conected computer, turn on and off rmd. - worked.

I am backup all the files now. Going to using online storage. Not sure what is the best way backup.

Anonymous said...

I have been getting the RED light and it wouldn't power on. Scared me for a couple days. But I was able to hook it up to a hard drive case for USB to SATA & IDE. Luckily my files are safe and sound.

JAS said...

I've had mine for years without issue. Naturally, the cardboard was suspect, but in all these years I've never really had any sort of issue with it.

It sucks that so many have had such bad experiences, but I feel fine with my purchase and it continues to serve me well.

Anonymous said...

I got my old one somewhat works with a lenovo 4334eau laptop.

Luck me I guess huh.

Nelson said...

I just attempted recovery on a friend's Rock Mobile Disk unit, 750GB. It was giving the Click'o'Death, never showed up on the desktop/Windows Explorer, etc. It's possible the device had been dropped, because the USB port on the back was noticeably displaced from the hole in the back of the enclosure. When I opened up the enclosure, I found 4 strips of cardboard like Raaque did in his. I also found that the hard drive unit itself was branded Magnetic Data Technologies. A quick bit of Google-fu showed me that MDT takes refurbished WD and Seagate drives and relabels them for sale. This drive appeared to have been a WD device in an earlier life.

My recovery attempt sadly failed. I'm returning the drive to my friend with a list of professional recovery services. The drive contains only personal data, photos, etc., but maybe one of them will have reasonable prices.

fullowaferstik said...

I just bought second hand rock mobile disk 1TB, it's clearly no reason of damage for this time. I hope it will be good for a long time in the future.

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