My hard disk has been faulty for a couple of months now and I've been delaying on what to do until recently it started to crash my OS after 10-15mins of use (worse when I try opening a movie or starting a game).
The faulty drive
So, what happened to my Seagate drive? First, it started to make some pretty weird screeching sounds when it's on high activity. Then it started to show signs of failure during boot up. My BIOS would pick up the S.M.A.R.T readings from the disk and reported that the hard disk had a BAD status. At first I ignored it but apparently I had to hit the F1 button to proceed with boot up each time and it was annoyingly happening more and more frequently. Especially when your PC makes a smart move of updating your OS and rebooting and then you wake up in the morning to see it stuck at that BIOS. Practically a whole night of torrent-ing wasted.
Windows has also frequently popping up warnings of a faulty disk and recommends me an option to back it up and get a replacement as soon as possible but I simply chose to ignore it at first. I mean, after all I'm still able to boot to my Windows and do what I wanna do just as usual, caveat the few annoying stuff above. But recently, just as I stated at the beginning, it has taking it's vengence to a whole new level; crashing my OS to make sure I can't ignore this issue any longer as it is impeding my normal usage. :(
So, during lunch time, went over to Queens Bay Mall top floor and got me self a new 640GB Western Digital Caviar Green. The shop there was known for high prices and they did sell me the hard disk for RM219 which is about RM5 higher that PC Depot's price (PC Depot used to have very bad service and high prices but seems to have improved alot recently). Ironically, when I was building my PC, I was recommended by my friend to get a WD but I stuck with Seagate cos it was cheaper at that time. As you can see, I'm not gonna do the same mistake twice after what happened.
Anyways, my OS is now happily running on the new hard disk with no issues (let's hope it stays that way) but what I really want to share with you guys is how to check for your hard disk warranty and get a replacement drive for your faulty one. I do not know about Samsung and Hitachi but for Seagate and Western Digital, they allow you to check on the current warranty status of your drive at anytime through their website.
Western Digital: http://websupport.wdc.com/warranty/serialinput.asp
So I went over to the site and checked on my drive's warranty. Bought it in 2007 so let's see what Seagate says. Typed in my Serial Number and Model Number (click for larger image):
The Serial and Model numbers
And the warranty check results (click for larger image):
Apparently Seagate was kind enough to provide a 5 year warranty for their drives. The above shot shows my drive's warranty is valid till Aug 2012. This is different compare to Western Digital's 3 years . With Seagate's drives falling off so easily, it's good thing they are giving longer warranties to keep their customers satisfied otherwise sure kena complain teruk teruk :P
The next step would then be to RMA my drive to get a replacement. I'm going to try do it all online. I did not want to create an account with Seagate yet so I chose to return the product as a Guest. This is the link I went to: https://store.seagate.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SgCheckWarrantyView?langId=-1&krypto=lZV0ifY90uy6PUbeNYxmlJ/eOamQTU8vX/yVcskL7Ra8YMmV34QjfaXbpO6NlvwR%2BTEC3tVdnhJ0%0AtmaQWKyGUNscSUkjrgNNSrX6sZWZFxPTN7qiNOvGlw%3D%3D&ddkey=SgSSORedirect
You'll have to fill up the Serial and Model numbers again and then enter your shipping address.
After I have finished the entire process of filling up some simple forms, Seagate basically provided me the address I should ship my hard disk to and also my RMA number so I can track the progress of my replacement. Of course this means I will have to bear the cost of delivery myself though the return will be covered by Seagate. I wonder if there is anywhere in Penang where I can do a walk-in RMA to avoid this cost.
Return address sample label (if you're wondering about the grey lines, it's cos I greyed out my address :P)
Seagate also provided instructions and specifications for the packaging because if it does not aligned with Seagate's requirements, they will void the warranty and blame the defect on the possible en route shipping mishandling :S
If you want an idea of how its like: http://www.seagate.com/support/service/pdf/pack.pdf
So I hope this helps some of you and excuse me while I go hunt for ESD packets and empty boxes.
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