Seagate can lick my ass after a steamy dump
 

I bought a Seagate Free Agent 500 gigabyte USB drive in April. It failed in June. Since I didn't purchase the "extended warranty" from Circuit City, I had to send it back to Seagate for replacement.

I sent the drive in on June 18th and received the replacement on July 18th (real nice service :rolleyes:). I've had the replacement drive about 14 weeks and now it's dead.

So I go to enter in the serial number for another replacement and saw a tag that says "Seagate repair". After repeatedly calling them today (their automated message said they were in a "staff meeting"), I found out that they only replace defective drives with refurbished drives. What the ****?

So, I send in a defective drive and they send back a repaired defective drive? What kind of horseshit is that? This may be a common practice among all drive makers but I've never experienced this before. Beware.

For the record, I've owned probably 12 hard drives in the past ten years and I've had only two failures: Both were Seagate. I normally stick with Western Dig or Maxtor.

So in conclusion, Seagate can lick my ass after a steamy dump. Oh, and I'll never buy Seagate again.

:grr:

My ex wife is a software engineer at seagate...no wonder if didn't work. I still take it up the tailpipe from her.

All my drive failures of late have been Western Digitals. Lost two 500's (both sides of a mirror) earlier this year. Thank goodness I had backups.

Acronis True Image, FTW.

Replacing defective equipment with refurbished units seems to be the rule rather than the exception in the computer industry, in my experience.

I had a monitor a few years ago that was DOA. I had to send it back to the manufacturer and got a refurb as a replacement. I was thrilled that I paid for a brand new monitor but got a used one instead. :shake:

Also, some manufacturers will shorten the warranty for the refurb unit, which is unethical IMO.

That's really weird. I've had nothing but success with Seagate drives. I've had two drives fail prematurely and both were Maxtor Drives.

I'm frankly surprised to hear this. All the Seagate drives I've used have been either IDE or SATA drives, and have been inside computers, not part of a external USB situation.

Guess all companies have good and bad days.

In my experience, all drive manufacturers fail just about equally. Personally, I've had better luck with Seagate than Maxtor. I thought that Maxtor was the worst...

Hewlett-Packard has the same policy. They replace defective laptops with repaired defective laptops. I got into it with them over that pretty extensively. They refused to do anything about it, and I refuse to ever give them another depreciating dollar again.

Replacing defective equipment with refurbished units seems to be the rule rather than the exception in the computer industry, in my experience.

I had a monitor a few years ago that was DOA. I had to send it back to the manufacturer and got a refurb as a replacement. I was thrilled that I paid for a brand new monitor but got a used one instead.

Also, some manufacturers will shorten the warranty for the refurb unit, which is unethical IMO.

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Pretty much what I was going to say...

x

Thanks for the input, guys.

I've always avoided extended warranties on "Pro-Sumer" type of equipment in the past but if I had purchased it for this drive, CC would have replaced it with a new drive.

I'm sending this drive back for replacement but more than likely, the replacement's going in a storage bin. I bought a 500 gig Rocstor Rocpro last night and I know for a fact that it's a professional drive for audio and video.

And thanks for the heads up on the laptop. I'll definitely buy the extended warranty if I purchase a sub-$800 laptop in the future.

Doesn't Seagate own Maxtor now?

Why would you pay 300 bucks for a warranty on an 800 dollar laptop when the rate of failure is 5% at most? It only entitles you to one replacement, and then you are SOL. So basically, you are paying 1100 for two computers, and there is a 95% certainty you will never use #2. Moreover, if you ever use #2, you can't use #1 anymore.

Just say no to extended warranties.

Warranties suck until you need them. I bought my plasma at best buy for $1500 about a 1 1/2 years ago. I had to have service done on it 3 times. Twice the remote sensor went out on it and then the voltage had to be adjusted to the plasma panel because it was getting blueish splotches when it got hot. Samsung sent out a repair guy for each repair.

About 2 months ago the blue splotches appeared again. Called Samsung and they told me I was SOL because I was out of the 1 year warranty. Luckily I spent the $150 bucks for the the best buy warranty. When their repair guy came to my house I told him his was the 4th repair. He didn't even touch the TV. He said with the best buy warranty, any more than 3 repairs and they just replace the TV. He gave me a code to give to the people at Best Buy. I went to best buy and walked out with a brand new TV.

I'm VERY glad I spent the money for a Warranty.

I have a WD drive that has served me well. In fact, I originally purchased a 4GB cigarette lighter-style drive, and when it failed, since they no longer make it, they sent me an 80GB drive! Very awesome customer service!