Seagate's HD RMA service?

[IAmATeaf]

Last drive I RMA'ed went to Coventry, the replacement which was dead arrived from somewhere like Holland but am not sure. Rang them up and explained that the replacement drive was DOA and they arranged for a courier to pick the drive up and I received a replacement drive a few days later.

[acrobat]

What drives did you get?

I have Seagate disks and they are noisy buggers Sounds like a metal biscuit tin full of screws and bolts being shaken by an 8 year old in a temper tantrum.

[IAmATeaf]

What drives did you get?

I have Seagate disks and they are noisy buggers Sounds like a metal biscuit tin full of screws and bolts being shaken by an 8 year old in a temper tantrum.

If you mean me then I got back the same type and size of drive, a 7200.7 SATA NCQ 160gb drive.

[Nookster]

Now I know that this isn't strictly speaking, the same thing, but you guys are doing well.

My Pocket USB Drive died after a few months and being used all of one times. Tried to get and RMA via the website - it kept changing the product code thinking it was an OEM internal drive which shared the same serial (!)

So I ring the farmed out call centre, get an RMA, send it off, and just today get a nice email telling me that my MAXTOR hard drive (complete with incorrect Product code) is out of warranty and would I like to pay to have it sent back before it gets shredded in 5 days!

Just spent half an hour typing out a rather long email explaining why their support infrastructure is knackered, and how a Seagate branded pocket external won in their own daily draw back in Autumn can't possibly be out of warranty.

Ah well, at least I take solace in the fact that I didn't pay hard earned for it.

[dodgybob]

Sorry to be a little off topic but I appear to have a dying seagate drive too. The seatools says it only has one bad cluster, I was wondering if this is enough to rma it with? Windows installs keep getting corrupted and a few hours of memtest cleared the ram of suspicion leaving the hard drive as the prime suspect.

The drive only has warranty until early february so I need to make a decision soon about it, it's a 200gb 7200.7 pata drive.

[Nitestorm]

and how a Seagate branded pocket external won in their own daily draw back in Autumn can't possibly be out of warranty.

I know someone had an issue with a refused warranty either with Maxtor or Seagate. They were told since it was a donated drive they had won at some event rather than a purchase, it didn't have a warranty.

[IAmATeaf]

Sorry to be a little off topic but I appear to have a dying seagate drive too. The seatools says it only has one bad cluster, I was wondering if this is enough to rma it with? Windows installs keep getting corrupted and a few hours of memtest cleared the ram of suspicion leaving the hard drive as the prime suspect.

The drive only has warranty until early february so I need to make a decision soon about it, it's a 200gb 7200.7 pata drive.

If that's the case then there are ways to kill a drive

[Nookster]

I got this in the mail last week;

Dear Sir or Madam,

I hereby confirm the receipt of your hard drive. The
warranty
of your Maxtor hard drive Model:9AF432-225 , S/N: 4ME0AC8V
has
expired. Unfortunately there is no replacement option for
hard
drives that are out of warranty at the moment.

Please refer to our internet page for the
warranty-end-dates of
all Maxtor hard drive models.

Seagate can offer you two options with regard to your
drive(s):

1) You can arrange for a carrier to collect the drive
from
our warehouse. If you wish to choose this option please
note
that you have to cover the shipping cost.

2) Seagate will scrap the drives at no additional cost
to
you.

Please inform us of your decision as soon as possible. If
we do
not receive a response within 5 working days we will scrap
the
drive at no additional cost to you.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Should you require any further assistance please do not
hesitate to contact us. In order to allow us to deal with
all
enquiries as efficiently and accurately as possible we
would
ask that you include any previous emails when replying to
us.

Best regards

KXXXX L.
Seagate Technical Support

I have a two minor issues with this:

1:IT'S A SEAGATE DRIVE, NOT A MAXTOR (the s/n is correct, the model number isn't!

2: It's not even a year old, I got it last Autumn.

Earth calling Seagate, your support infrastructure is officially FUBAR.

I wonder if I'll ever see it again. Can't say I'm toooooo impressed so far.

[notsobig]

I recieved my replacement drive today, I used bubblewrap for packing in the end but Seagate didn't complain. I returned 80G drive in and recieved 100G drive instead which was a nice surprise. It took sometime for the drive to be delivered though. Annoying thing is another Maxtor drive I have started making exactly the same noise again I have no energy left for another RMA so I think I will ditch this one. My advice, stay well away from cursed Maxtor drives or you will regret in the future. This is the third faulty drive out of 5 Maxtor drives I have in total, drive fail ratio is unbelievably high.

[this_is_gav]

My advice, stay well away from cursed Maxtor drives or you will regret in the future. This is the third faulty drive out of 5 Maxtor drives I have in total, drive fail ratio is unbelievably high.

The company who own Maxtor are worse for me - 100% failure rate so far for the 2 Seagates I've owned (neither of which is a year old). Having read the problems with the Seagate returns (needing to purchase or acquire the clam-shells) I just didn't bother, and use them both in my SATA IcyBox, where they work fine - one with a rather nice frequent clicking noise, and the other just whining a lot. Strange downturn for Seagate

Maxtor has had a reputation for years now. I bought 2 5,400rpm drives for storage a few years back, and they've been OK, but anything faster has now completely died (and we bought 20 machines at work with 20gb Maxtors....)

[Nitestorm]

Weird. So last month both Maxtor OEM drives were coming up as Exchangable by Seatgate and under warranty. Now the older SATA-150 one is classed as OEM so need to return to place of purchase, while the newer SATA-300 is still exchanagable.

So you think bubble wrap will be accepted? Tried the UK company that sells the proper packaging that Seagate ask for, but they never got back to me.

[this_is_gav]

So you think bubble wrap will be accepted? Tried the UK company that sells the proper packaging that Seagate ask for, but they never got back to me.

They took an absolute age to get back to me, but they did so eventually. They're clearly not for the consumer though - very much aimed at OEMs.

Just stick it in some bubble-wrap. I doubt they'll invalidate the warranty for using non-standard packaging, so long as it's well packed.

[Blitzen]

The company who own Maxtor are worse for me - 100% failure rate so far for the 2 Seagates I've owned (neither of which is a year old). Having read the problems with the Seagate returns (needing to purchase or acquire the clam-shells) I just didn't bother, and use them both in my SATA IcyBox, where they work fine - one with a rather nice frequent clicking noise, and the other just whining a lot. Strange downturn for Seagate

Maxtor has had a reputation for years now. I bought 2 5,400rpm drives for storage a few years back, and they've been OK, but anything faster has now completely died (and we bought 20 machines at work with 20gb Maxtors....)

I n 5-6 years i have never once had a problem with Maxtor drives.
The 2x250gb SATAs im running atm have been running for almost 18 months aswell.

WD = I had loads of problems with those.

[Nitestorm]

Well they should of recieved the SATA2 drive today. When you fill out the RMA, there is a drop-down list that defaults to the Netherlands, but you can select Coventry. Just put it back inside the anti-static bag, then wrapped with bubble wrap and some air bag packaging material to keep it from moving in the box.

Will have to wait and see if they exchange it and how long it takes.

[IAmATeaf]

Well I've just RMA'ed 2 Seagate SATA drives, 1 failed around Nov/Dec last year and 1 died on me just last week. Just rang them and they've submitted both drives under 1 RMA and I've been told to send both drives to Coventry. Think the replacement drives will be shipped from Amsterdam according to the nice lady in Ireland.

[Nitestorm]

Hope you have better luck than me. Recieved my replacement Seagate drive today, from Amsterdam. It's DOA!