Forged Maxtor Corp.’s MaXLine II hard disk drives (HDDs) have emerged on the Japanese market, according to local press. Alleged swindlers supply 320GB flavours of the HDDs, whereas Maxtor officially produces only 250GB and 300GB versions of the products for retail channel.

Instead of Maxtor MaXLine II hard disk drives, some unnamed suppliers shipped hard drives that mimic products intended for Maxtor’s OEM clients to several stores in Japan. The products do not seem to be genuine, though. The products identify themselves with model number 5A320J0 and come with 320GB capacity, which is not in the MaXLine II lineup intended for retail customers. Such products are not supported by Maxtor, according to Akiba PC Hotline web-site, who quoted Japanese representatives of the HDD maker as saying.

The counterfeit hard drives can be distinguished by incorrect font on the label as well as usage of lower-case “X” letter in the brand-name: on forged HDDs it is writer MaxLine II, whereas the company calls the drives as MaXLine II.

The original Maxtor MaXLine II hard disk drives with 250GB and 300GB capacities have model numbers 5A250J0 and 5A300J0 respectively. There are 320GB hard disk drives in the Maxtor MaxLine II lineup with model number 5A320J0 designed primarily for OEMs and available across the world, according to Google’s search results. The products are listed at Maxtor’s web-site, but their specs could not be obtained at press time due to problems with the company’s web page.

The HDDs that were, according to the company, either mislabeled or made from unqualified components, or components that did not pass quality assurance procedures, are intended for systems with Parallel ATA-133 interconnection. The hard drives are equipped with 5400rpm motors and 2MB cache.

It is unclear whether the issue is widespread. Maxtor’s representatives did not immediately return email seeking for comment.