IBM “Deathstar”
Settlement in the Works
IBM is close to settling a long-running class-
action lawsuit over its famously fast but flaky
75GXP Deskstar hard drives, the Dog has learned.
The settlement, which still has to be approved
by a Texas judge, would give owners of failed
75GXPs about $100 each. Maximum PC reader
Michael T. Granito Jr. filed the class-action suit
in 2001 after he had several of the drives fail on
him. Granito wasn’t the only person to suffer the
problem, though. Readers complained in droves
about the drives dying after emitting a “scratch,
scratch, katunk” noise.
The suit alleged that the drives contained a
manufacturing defect and that IBM knowingly
misrepresented the drives’ reliability to the
public. While the suit ran its course, IBM sold its
hard drive division to Hitachi Global Storage.
The proposed settlement covers drives pur-
chased in the United States between March 15,
2000 and March 4, 2004, and includes the DTLA-
307-015, DTLA-307-020, DTLA-307-030, DTLA-307-
045, DTLA-307-060, and DTLA-307-075 models.
Only consumers are eligible for the reimburse-
ment, not resellers. The suit covers consumers
who either purchased the drives separately or
received the drives with a new system.The proposed settlement outlines two ben-
efits: If your drive failed, you might be eligible for
a $100 check. If your drive has not failed, you can
receive a 25-pack of CD-R discs with jewel cases
(the Dog can hear the sound of 15GB hard drives
being dropped on the ground everywhere). If you
don’t want the 25-pack of media, you can opt for
a coupon for 15 percent off hardware at IBM.
com—you know, just in case you wanted to buy a
super-computer cluster.
Is a $100 settlement enough? That depends
on how you look at it. If you spent $600 on a
75GB Deskstar that went south taking home vid-
eos and digital images with it, $100 is a pittance.
In the scope of class-action lawsuit settlements,however, $100 isn’t something to sneeze at. For
example, a class-action suit against Iomega
over its “click of death” Zip drives netted con-
sumers a coupon for different Iomega Zip
drives and accessories.
But the IBM settlement seems paltry
when you compare it with similar
cases filed by the IBM suit’s class-
action lawyer, Jonathan Shub. If
you’re not up on recent history,
Shub and the law firm Sheller,
Ludwig & Badey successfully
sued Kenwood to get consum-
ers of its 40x40 drives a 72x
replacement. A lawsuit filed
against Philips got owners
of the company’s defective
2x burners new 8x replace-
ments (which was fast at the
time). And in a settlement with Fujitsu
over a defective HD, Shub and Co. got the
manufacturer to pony up $45 per bad drive and up
to $1,200 in data recovery services. Woah.
If IBM consumers aren’t as well compensated,
it’s likely due to the case’s relative weakness. True,
IBM documents unearthed in discovery and cov-
ered in this column seemed to show the company
had concerns about the reliability of the drive, with
an employee even calling
it the “worst product in
the field.” But the truth
is, the lawsuit was on
an uphill battle from the
get-go. An early setback
occurred when the suit
was denied nation-
wide status, so individual suits had to be filed in
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Had those individual suits succeeded, people in the
other 41 states would have received bupkis.
As part of the proposed settlement, however,
consumers in all 50 states will be eligible for
reimbursement for bad drives. Claim forms and
more information on the settlement will be made
available at http://www.deskstar75gxpsettlement.com.
Attorneys were also never able to unearth a
smoking gun that showed IBM clearly in the wrong.
In much of the discovery, IBM employees hand-
wring, kvetch, and allude to drive contamination,
hushed firmware updates, and other problems, butoffer nothing truly damning. To this day, IBM’s law-
yers maintain that the problem was caused by users
who installed the drives improperly.
So does this vindicate the reliability of the
75GXPs? Not in the Dog’s eyes. The Deskstar’s
reputation as the “Deathstar” is well deserved
judging by the deluge of complaints from
Maximum PC readers, a steady drum of consumer
complaints on the Internet, and our own personal
experiences. While $100 is something, it’s a
shame IBM never did the right thing by recalling
the bad drives or being forthright about known
issues. With the company’s HD division gone and
its PC division going, there’s not much consumers
can do to punish IBM for the 75GXP debacle.
IBM 75GXP Deskstar >Altec Lansing >CompUSA >QPS
Say hello to Roscoe,
WatchDog of the MonthWatchDog (^) Maximum PC takes a bite out of bad gear
24 MAXIMUMPC MAY 2005
THIS MONTH: The WatchDog goes after...
“
”
READERS COMPLAINED IN DROVES
ABOUT THE DRIVES DYING AFTER EMITTING
A ‘SCRATCH, SCRATCH, KATUNK’ NOISE.
Some 75GXP drives survive to this day,
but not even the bravest soul among us
will entrust data to a drive with such a
poor reputation for reliability.
Say hello to
WatchDog of the Month
Maximum PC takes a bite out of bad gear
A FEW GOOD DOGS...
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