Hard Drive RMAs - Page 24

cdtoaster · 8th May 2009, 3:26 PM

i have a question no whether or not to RMA...
i have a seagate 1.5TB hdd, its the second one i bought, from when it was new it made a clicking noise when the pc was turned on or off. i filled the drive up to less than 100gb free space and it starting making lots of clicking nosies when accessing some data. i went and bought another seagate 1.5TB drive to copy the data off, since it was 1.2tb of stuff it took a long time to copy. when i started copying after a while there was just a contant clicking and grinding noise but the hard drive was functioning fine aside from the noise. i couldnt copy it all in one day so i shut down and continued the next day, there was about 400gb left to copy and the whole time there was no noise..... do you think i can return the hard drive even if it is not constantly clicking? on another note, the replacement 1.5tb (i.e. my 3rd 1.5tb) drive i bought also makes the clicking noises when i turn the pc on and off -_-

mareke · 8th May 2009, 4:27 PM

I'd do a check of the drive using Seagate's utility. Check for bad sectors as well using Windows checkdisk. There’s also a utility called Spinrite ( http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm ) which checks hard drives that I’ve found useful. If the drive tested out okay maybe wait to see if it does it again and how often. You might try emailing Seagate about it for an explanation of why it clicks and grinds or you could just RMA it as it is because they will send you back another recertified drive regardless of whether yours is faulty. It’s hard to know what to do as the noises may be normal although I’ve never had them with any Seagate drive including a 1 TB drive. I’ve had many Seagate drives and not had it happen. I did once own some SCSI drives that made a grinding noise and I found it annoying and sold them because of it and they were brand new drives but my impression was it was normal for them to make the noise. In a Sata or IDE drive however lots of clicking and grinding noises I don't think are normal. Seagate have had problems with large drives which they tried to fix with a new firmware. Check if your drives might be affected by the problem and if there's a firmware update.

TLF · 5th June 2009, 1:56 AM

Does anyone know if Seagate are usually slow to mark the Received By Seagate status to yes? Sent a hard drive off to them Saturday and it still says Awaiting Your Return. Just not sure if they really haven't received it yet or just haven't updated the status.

Scratch2k · 5th June 2009, 9:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TLF

Does anyone know if Seagate are usually slow to mark the Received By Seagate status to yes? Sent a hard drive off to them Saturday and it still says Awaiting Your Return. Just not sure if they really haven't received it yet or just haven't updated the status.

My total turnaround on a returned drive was 7 days, so, no, they're pretty slick.

I sent my drive off on 29/5, they acknowledged receipt on 31/5 and the replacement was sent on 1/6 and arrived on 4/6.

Interestingly, I returned it to a Sydney address but the replacement was sent from Singapore, also interestingly, the declared value of a 1.5Tb drive was $36

I wouldn't panic for another week, but did you send it registered/insured?

Scratch2k · 5th June 2009, 9:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatBoyNotSoSlim

Edit: Had WD 500gb IDE start filling with bad sectors overnight (aka: uT started to error on me, so only detected overnight) so might have another drive to RMA... Don't think I've done a WD yet. Hopefully I can save the data.... its my pr0n drive

In my experience the process returning a WD drive was as painless and fast as Seagate.

And only 500Gb? Soft!

TLF · 5th June 2009, 2:01 PM

As soon as I speak the status changes to received

FatBoyNotSoSlim · 5th June 2009, 2:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scratch2k

In my experience the process returning a WD drive was as painless and fast as Seagate.

And only 500Gb? Soft!

I was stupid enough to let MSY RMA it for a good 4 weeks.... since I was too cheap to pay the ~$15 to send it to Singapore, but then I still went and stocked up on some 1tbs.... which reminds me, time for 3x more. Can never have enough porn

Kurosaki · 10th June 2009, 9:24 PM

I'm in the middle of trying to RMA my drive through Hitachi. Got a RMA number and everything however I notice on the site (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/packaging.htm) they seemed to haves quite tight requirement for the packaging that is to be sent. Is this normal practice? This is my first time RMA anything let alone a HDD.

Just wondering where in Perth can I get the stuff? I would have thought a anti-static bag + heap of bubble wrap and a good cardbox would have been fine.

I have heaps of normal anti static bags lying around from various gfx cards and so forth but not one with a re-usable seal. As for the hard form rubber... where do I get that, or am I doing it wrong?

PS.
Would the drive I get back contain data that was on the dead drive or will it be clean new drive?

Thanks.

Edit:
The drive was bought overseas so no one locally is willing to touch it.

Scratch2k · 11th June 2009, 9:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurosaki

I'm in the middle of trying to RMA my drive through Hitachi. Got a RMA number and everything however I notice on the site (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/packaging.htm) they seemed to haves quite tight requirement for the packaging that is to be sent. Is this normal practice? This is my first time RMA anything let alone a HDD.

Just wondering where in Perth can I get the stuff? I would have thought a anti-static bag + heap of bubble wrap and a good cardbox would have been fine.

I have heaps of normal anti static bags lying around from various gfx cards and so forth but not one with a re-usable seal. As for the hard form rubber... where do I get that, or am I doing it wrong?

PS.
Would the drive I get back contain data that was on the dead drive or will it be clean new drive?

Thanks.

Edit:
The drive was bought overseas so no one locally is willing to touch it.

WD and Seagate have the same requirements, my last two returns (one to each) were in an anti-static bag with bubble wrap and there was no problem.

There was a generic note on the latest (seagate) box saying something along the lines of "keep this box and packaging for your next RMA", prophetic? I hope not.

Bottom line is, pack it as best you can, they're probably going to bin the drive on arrival anyway.

(not legal advice)

Tezcat · 14th June 2009, 8:57 PM

Does Hitachi or Samsung have a better RMA/warranty experience?

I'm about to get either a Hitachi or Samsung 1TB drive, both are the same price so would prefer the one with better support.

neon_87 · 14th June 2009, 9:10 PM

In my experience with RMA'ing to WD, it is in their hands for max 2 business days, then its back out on the road. Turn around time for one drive for me, was 2 weeks, and that was mostly all just transit time. I have no idea what takes MSY and those places so bloody long. I had to wait 6 weeks for a bloody motherboard once.... Pro tip - do it yourself!

FatBoyNotSoSlim · 15th June 2009, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tezcat

Does Hitachi or Samsung have a better RMA/warranty experience?

I'm about to get either a Hitachi or Samsung 1TB drive, both are the same price so would prefer the one with better support.

Used neither of these brands, always kept to Seagate and WD.... Actually I have a 400gb Samsung... I should see if it still works, been in an external case for a few years, havent touched it in ages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neon_87

In my experience with RMA'ing to WD, it is in their hands for max 2 business days, then its back out on the road. Turn around time for one drive for me, was 2 weeks, and that was mostly all just transit time. I have no idea what takes MSY and those places so bloody long. I had to wait 6 weeks for a bloody motherboard once.... Pro tip - do it yourself!

Stores have to pay the return postage costs themselves, so generally they will try and stock up on returns and send them back to the manufacturer in large numbers. IE, Seagate have large 12/20 whatever, boxes that they send out drives to stores in. Stores would generally wait for enough drives to return to for RMA when its economically feasible to, not timely thats for sure.

sleepr05 · 27th July 2009, 1:11 PM

Sorry to bring this thread out of the dead, however i purchased a WD external hdd from a retail outlet less then 14 days ago. Since then the hdd has died and i am unable to access it to regain my data (bit upset that i lost a 100 page work document).

Am i within my rights to return the product and ask for an exchange as its within the 14 day period? The salesperson told me to RMA it, however i don't think i should have to as its less then two weeks old!!

Any info (laws) or links to the ombudsman would be appreciated.

Regards,

achimw · 11th September 2009, 4:22 PM

I heard a lot of bad stories about SAMSUNG. I bought a couple because of their performance.
One of my WD packed it in a couple of month ago and I sent it to Singapore and was quite impressed,
that it only took 2 weeks.
I needed more storage so I bought a WD because of their good service.
Last week one of my SAMSUNG HDD packed it in so I called them on Monday.
They gave me a RMA and I sent it to them to Sydney on Monday afternoon.
To my suprise, the replacement was there today 4 days later.
Cut a long story short, if I would not heard all the rumors about Samsungs bad service,
I would have bought another Samsung.

achimw

zach · 11th September 2009, 5:16 PM

I had a samsung spinpoint f1 750gb 7200.11 with the click of death, 2 weeks turn around, shame umart gave me the variable speed I model back!

8th May 2009, 3:26 PM	#346
cdtoaster Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 2,430	i have a question no whether or not to RMA... i have a seagate 1.5TB hdd, its the second one i bought, from when it was new it made a clicking noise when the pc was turned on or off. i filled the drive up to less than 100gb free space and it starting making lots of clicking nosies when accessing some data. i went and bought another seagate 1.5TB drive to copy the data off, since it was 1.2tb of stuff it took a long time to copy. when i started copying after a while there was just a contant clicking and grinding noise but the hard drive was functioning fine aside from the noise. i couldnt copy it all in one day so i shut down and continued the next day, there was about 400gb left to copy and the whole time there was no noise..... do you think i can return the hard drive even if it is not constantly clicking? on another note, the replacement 1.5tb (i.e. my 3rd 1.5tb) drive i bought also makes the clicking noises when i turn the pc on and off -_- __________________ There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. - Henry Ford

8th May 2009, 4:27 PM	#347
mareke Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Sydney, NSW Posts: 3,564	I'd do a check of the drive using Seagate's utility. Check for bad sectors as well using Windows checkdisk. There’s also a utility called Spinrite ( http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm ) which checks hard drives that I’ve found useful. If the drive tested out okay maybe wait to see if it does it again and how often. You might try emailing Seagate about it for an explanation of why it clicks and grinds or you could just RMA it as it is because they will send you back another recertified drive regardless of whether yours is faulty. It’s hard to know what to do as the noises may be normal although I’ve never had them with any Seagate drive including a 1 TB drive. I’ve had many Seagate drives and not had it happen. I did once own some SCSI drives that made a grinding noise and I found it annoying and sold them because of it and they were brand new drives but my impression was it was normal for them to make the noise. In a Sata or IDE drive however lots of clicking and grinding noises I don't think are normal. Seagate have had problems with large drives which they tried to fix with a new firmware. Check if your drives might be affected by the problem and if there's a firmware update. Last edited by mareke; 8th May 2009 at 5:58 PM.

14th June 2009, 9:10 PM	#356
neon_87 RIP Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Melbourne Posts: 2,782	In my experience with RMA'ing to WD, it is in their hands for max 2 business days, then its back out on the road. Turn around time for one drive for me, was 2 weeks, and that was mostly all just transit time. I have no idea what takes MSY and those places so bloody long. I had to wait 6 weeks for a bloody motherboard once.... Pro tip - do it yourself! __________________ SanLAN 2.0 - Frankston VIC LAN Party - 3rd October 2009 FS: Highpoint 2310 RAID5 Card OCAU Events Noticeboard MKIII

5th June 2009, 1:56 AM	#348
TLF Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Melbourne Posts: 59	Does anyone know if Seagate are usually slow to mark the Received By Seagate status to yes? Sent a hard drive off to them Saturday and it still says Awaiting Your Return. Just not sure if they really haven't received it yet or just haven't updated the status.

5th June 2009, 2:01 PM	#351
TLF Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Melbourne Posts: 59	As soon as I speak the status changes to received

10th June 2009, 9:24 PM	#353
Kurosaki Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: WA Posts: 3,824	I'm in the middle of trying to RMA my drive through Hitachi. Got a RMA number and everything however I notice on the site (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/packaging.htm) they seemed to haves quite tight requirement for the packaging that is to be sent. Is this normal practice? This is my first time RMA anything let alone a HDD. Just wondering where in Perth can I get the stuff? I would have thought a anti-static bag + heap of bubble wrap and a good cardbox would have been fine. I have heaps of normal anti static bags lying around from various gfx cards and so forth but not one with a re-usable seal. As for the hard form rubber... where do I get that, or am I doing it wrong? PS. Would the drive I get back contain data that was on the dead drive or will it be clean new drive? Thanks. Edit: The drive was bought overseas so no one locally is willing to touch it.

14th June 2009, 8:57 PM	#355
Tezcat Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Sydney Posts: 50	Does Hitachi or Samsung have a better RMA/warranty experience? I'm about to get either a Hitachi or Samsung 1TB drive, both are the same price so would prefer the one with better support.

27th July 2009, 1:11 PM	#358
sleepr05 Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Melbourne Vic Posts: 38	Sorry to bring this thread out of the dead, however i purchased a WD external hdd from a retail outlet less then 14 days ago. Since then the hdd has died and i am unable to access it to regain my data (bit upset that i lost a 100 page work document). Am i within my rights to return the product and ask for an exchange as its within the 14 day period? The salesperson told me to RMA it, however i don't think i should have to as its less then two weeks old!! Any info (laws) or links to the ombudsman would be appreciated. Regards,

11th September 2009, 4:22 PM	#359
achimw Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Canberra Posts: 19	I heard a lot of bad stories about SAMSUNG. I bought a couple because of their performance. One of my WD packed it in a couple of month ago and I sent it to Singapore and was quite impressed, that it only took 2 weeks. I needed more storage so I bought a WD because of their good service. Last week one of my SAMSUNG HDD packed it in so I called them on Monday. They gave me a RMA and I sent it to them to Sydney on Monday afternoon. To my suprise, the replacement was there today 4 days later. Cut a long story short, if I would not heard all the rumors about Samsungs bad service, I would have bought another Samsung. achimw

11th September 2009, 5:16 PM	#360
zach Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: chermside.bris.qld.au:80 Posts: 2,578	I had a samsung spinpoint f1 750gb 7200.11 with the click of death, 2 weeks turn around, shame umart gave me the variable speed I model back!