HDD warranty info? (1 Viewer)

[Vince Maskeeper]

I've always heard that HDD from major manufacturers are Warrantied for 5 years - and that if they fail you can get replacements direct from the company. As many times as I've heard this, I have never managed to find a way to return a drive directly to the manufacturer-- nor have I ever met anoyone who actually got a replacement drive.

I have a stack of Hard Drives I have replaced for people (they just bought new drives, I swapped, they asked me to dispose of the drives)- and wondered if I could send any back to get fresh ones.

-vince

 

[Kolya]

Vince,
In most cases, you can enter the drive serial number on the manufacturer's site, and it will tell you if the drive is still under warranty. If so, you can open a case, obtain a RMA#, send the drive back, and recieve another. I did this a couple times a month when I worked in a computer repair shop.
Here's WD's page

 

[Ken Chan]

SCSI ("enterprise") drives might still have long warranties, but it seems like new ATA ("consumer/end user") drives are getting one-year warranties nowadays. An obvious tradeoff for the low price.

//Ken

 

[Todd Hochard]

I recently sent in a WD hard drive for replacement. It was 2.5 years old, and there was a 3 year warranty on the unit. Apparently, all WD hard drives used to have a 3 year warranty, but recently they changed it. Now, only the Caviar series does.
I sent in a 45GB 5400rpm drive, and they sent me back a 60GB 7200RPM replacement. Not too shabby.
I handled warranty and RMA through the website, but I needed the fail codes from their diagnostic tools, to determine if replacement was necessary, first.

Todd

P.S. It was my first WD failure ever, since I started buying them in '94.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Most of these drives are Quantum (some are maxtor- but their site is easy to find). Any thoughts on where to look for RMAs on those?

-Vince

 

[Joel Mack]

According to the Quantum website:

Hard Drives Previously Sold by Quantum are Now Supported by Maxtor
Effective April 2, 2001, Quantum Corporation's hard disk drive division completed its merger with Maxtor Corporation. All Quantum hard disk drive product support and services have been transferred to Maxtor. For information, warranty, support, rebates, and other services regarding Quantum hard disk drives, please contact Maxtor's U.S.A. customer support at 1-800-262-9867 or refer to the Maxtor's Web site for additional contact and support information:
Visit http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/contact