Anyone Dealt with Western Digital RMA Support?

[vexious]

Hey well my Raptor just died and I'm kinda not sure what to do. I bought my computer from Alienware but my alienware warranty has since expired. However, i checked online and online my hard drives warranty is still active. Do i have a valid warranty with WD even though i bought the HD through an Alienware PC?

Also I noticed they don't offer repairs so does anyone know what they do with the Hard Drives that are defected epically if they have sensitive information on them?

 

[Brawly44]

Several months ago I purchased an 80GB WD Raptor that had originally been installed in a brand new Dell. The drive had never been used, and was considered brand new. However, the drive had been specifically made for Dell, so if the HDD ever fails I will have to ship it back to Dell for warranty service. You might check with Alienware to see if the drive is proprietary - if so, you will have to ship it to Alienware for RMA. If your HDD was manufactured as part of the normal retail lineup, Western Digital will handle the RMA directly. I would suggest contacting Alienware first to see what their policy is.

 

[eckre]

yeah WD is really good for RMA. Just request the RMA, they will send you another drive, and in that same box, you put your old drive, and they will pay for postage for return, you're done. It's really the best RMA process. I'm an Seagate man, but WD's RMA is top notch.

 

[ideal4u]

I have dealt with WD a couple of times on a failed Raptor or 2 as that is all that I would ever consider using.

I have always registered my drives on the website after I purchase them from newegg. If you didn't register your drives you may encounter a problem, but I will tell you this. The folks there will work with you if you talk to them in the right tone of voice and explain the trouble you are having. They have never even batted an eye on any of my returns, they were darn right accommodating, that is why I always come back for more. I bought 2 more last week, and need another 3 for my Raid 5, but I always wait to get the rebates. If you show them or can email them a copy of when your computer was built and configured with the Raptor HDD in them, I bet you money they will honor the warranty as it is warrantied for 5 long years. I would be very surprised if they didn't as they are great. You can even leave them a credit card on file, and they will ship out replacements and hold you card on file in case they don't receive your defective ones. I like the advance replacement plans, and they charge nothing for it. Good Luck and I hope I have helped you out some. Jeff Don't worry they are great people to work with, and they back what they sell, play dumb if you need to about failing to register, tell them you thought the manufacturer would have.

 

[GavinLeigh]

I wouldn't worry about your sensitive info... they probably move several thousand drives a day through their RMA centers. I doubt they'd want to search through your crapped out HDD looking for data or family pics.

In my experience I have been very happy with WD RMA's. If the unit shows warranty on the onsite warranty checker.... then you are good to go. If it says something about checking with your PC manufacturer... then there might be issues.

 

[croc]

Define 'sensitive'.

 

[vexious]

Work related, i'm scared they will simply fix the problem and give it out as a refurb... I guess i can ask them what they do with them on monday... Im not worried about WD messing with it, but whom the drives hands end up in.


Also i'm pretty sure the cause of failure was the power surge we had last night Hope they don't get my old one and say it was my fault~ (well i guess it was but w/e) lol

 

[croc]

I'd get a sledge hammer, pound the thing into a few million bits, and than buy a new drive... Beats the alternative, like getting posted on SANS.

I'd also make sure that if I was bringing sensitive work home, that the drive I used was encrypted. Well encrypted.

Just my 2p.

 

[vexious]

Well considering i ran it in a raid0 i think recovering data would be harder.

 

[croc]

Think what you want, I know what I know and already offered my 2p.

 

[vexious]

wonder if a magnet can wipe it


anyone know how easily raid0 data can be recovered?

 

[cathudog]

I just did it with a WD250YS and did a cross ship so they have to sent a new drive but in this case it was a RE but will have the same 5 year warranty as my drive that failed they will after they receive the failed drive adjust the warranty to the amount you had left when the drive failed in my case only a month old and the full five years minus 1 month and they were very prompt overnight air to my house. The only thing that was a little funny is the CSR told me I would be getting a new drive and i got a RE drive but i had forgot that the drive i got from Newegg was a RE 250YS with the full 5 years warranty check the replacement for bad sectors and it was good to go sent back the old one and have the remaining warranty.

 

[vinman]

yeah WD is really good for RMA. Just request the RMA, they will send you another drive, and in that same box, you put your old drive, and they will pay for postage for return, you're done. It's really the best RMA process. I'm an Seagate man, but WD's RMA is top notch.

WD RMA rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[infernoxca]

wonder if a magnet can wipe it


anyone know how easily raid0 data can be recovered?

very hard.... almost impossible to recover raid 0. say you have 64k strips, and your storing a 256kb picture, they be able to recover 50% of the picture at most, it would probably not be a nice half picture either.

edit: also you're file table would probably be half missing so it would be more or less random chunks of data and they probably couldn't tell if it was text, audio, video , pics or other files. which makes it even harder for them to do anything with the data. unless you have like, terrorist data and you're sending it to a military facility, i wouldn't worry about anyone recovering data. (also, when they refurbish hard drives, they get completly formated before they ship)

 

[ocfun]

I've dealt with WD before and they were great. This was a about 4 years back. I had no receipt or proof of purchase either. What they wanted was my drive serial number or some kind of number of which I don't fully remember. It had to be within 3 years old and it was. I had to run a drive test to prove it was really bad and gave them the results on the phone.

I basically just called and told them my drive was failing and they issued me an RMA or some kind of code. I sent it to them and they sent me a new drive in the mail with no hassles. BFG graphics cards are good this way too.

I'm not sure what it's like in 2008, but it went great for me.

 

[glytch5]

I am sorry this is an old thread, and I do not mean to hijack! Please excuse this question, but along with obtaining an RMA from WD for their HDDS... Do they ask for a sales receipt?
I do not have one... they did ask me for a date of purchase... I do not know! It was a gift a couple years back.

 

[USAFRet]

I am sorry this is an old thread, and I do not mean to hijack! Please excuse this question, but along with obtaining an RMA from WD for their HDDS... Do they ask for a sales receipt?
I do not have one... they did ask me for a date of purchase... I do not know! It was a gift a couple years back.

This thread is a decade old.
Unlikely any of the original participants are still here.

But for the WD RMA...I do not believe they ask for the original receipt.
I did one a couple of years ago.

But why don't you just ask WD what they require?