How to RMA hard drive?

[John Prophet]

I have a Maxtor40G drive and it is bad...dying anyway, will say "cannot read from c:" and also loses itself from bios etc.

Anyway, it shows up on maxtors serial# search as being warrantied till sometime in 2004.

So has anyone done these type of rmas before?? is it a pain? The drive came in a system bought locally.

Obviously I have to send the drive in...do they need other proofs of purchase etc?? or just the drive? Do they test it to make sure etc?

Thanks, JP

[thronka]

Go to the support section and call the 1-800 number. Then give them the serial number and tell them you wish to get a new drive. The advanced method is faster.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

John, I called them, the guy took all the info(They only want Serial #, no other info is needed), CC info (for advanced RMA) and had the drive out in 1 day,got it within 3 days of the call, Returned the old drive after I got the new drive (you have to have a CC for that tho).

Maxtor was an excellent company to deal with, no "Please hold" either, just straight through.

[John Prophet]

They send new one or refurb??

[S.D.Willie]

im most of my experiences with WD drives you'll get a refurbed one which sucks. if you want a new one they ask you to upgrade/pay for it which bites. i only say that cuz ive had a few refurbed ones die on me. dont know about maxtor though.

SD

[dragonb]

also got a refurb from WD a few weeks ago..obviously didn't put it into an important machine....
dragonb

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

It looked new, But didn't say on it wether it was refurb, But I think it's OEM new (It was also a 10.8 to replace an 8.4)

It was an OEM drive I sent in (purchased at a store tho, not in a computer)

WD sent a new from what I remember, it was a 7200 15Gig (model #WD-150ba does not exsist anywhere on the net) to replace a 15.3Gig 5400.

Also Refurb can be better in some cases (since it's thorougly checked out)

[John Prophet]

Well I dl'ed the diagnostic software from Maxtor and ran it, the drive checks out ok! lol. Which I think is bunk...I assume its just a dying, intermittent drive.

The dude brought the comp by saying it was looking for boot device...so I looked in his bios and the drive wasnt recognized...I just hit "auto" and it detected right away, so I told him maybe his kid played with it...so he takes it home and it died on him again..then later it gave him "cannot write to C: drive".

is there any way that the motherboard could be at fault? or is it just an intermittent fault?

What happens if you send them the drive and they check it and say its ok?? Do they then send it out as a refurb to the next guy who send sone in?? lol

The maxtor software has a thorough check and when tis finished it is "factory recertified" lol.

What do they do if they get a drive and it checks out ok at that moment anyway??

JP

[Tomteriffic]

John, could be an intermittent with the drive, a flaky cable or a dying CMOS battery. You'd be surprised how many hours I've spent chasing my tail while a computer went into a death spiral over a $3 part....

[griobhta]

At the risk of looking rather dim just want to ask a question how can you tell if you get a refurbished or oem drive back?

I rma'd an ibm drive and they are very perticular on how to do it with instructions on the site about packaging and all. If you go for an advanced rma i suppose this is not an issue as you can just use the packing that the new one came in.

g

edit oh and they wanted an error code from the app you could download from their site too