Seagate Hard Drive RMA
In the past, I’ve had the best luck with Seagate brand hard drives — avoiding Maxtor like the plague — but just recently I had a 320 GB Seagate SATA drive start failing on me. It started with what sounded like a few small read/write head hiccups, and turned into widespread sector failure, causing several diagnostic utilities to red flag the drive.
I bought the drive new NewEgg (where I get almost all my hardware), but they referred me to Seagate for support and returns. With no other alternatives available and a failing drive on my hands, I got in touch with Seagate and filled out their online return merchandise form. Just a few days after shipping off the dying drive, I received an email letting me know that a brand new drive was on its way to me. I’m happy to be kept in the loop while the return is in progress, and I’ll update this post when I get the new drive!
While I had to cover the nominal shipping costs myself, I feel compelled to note how easy and fast their service is. I’m attempting to make a habit of documenting good customer service as well as the bad. After having dealt with some online returns that are a real hassle, Seagate is a refreshing change from some of the other rather lame options out there.
8/15/07 Update
Received an entirely different “Certified Repaired” hard drive in a very well packed box! It works great and passes all my tests!
August 10th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I have always has really good luck with Seagate. On time, a friend’s of mine, who had a laptop purchased in Taiwan, had a complete Seagate hard drive failure. Even though, I thought I really did not have a change of getting a replacement drive in America, I would give Seagate a chance. There automated system recognized the serial# and issue a RMA#. This was back in 1998.
I have had siniler expirences with them sices. I am always impressed when a company really does care about coustomer expirence.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
i will back you on this. never had much trouble with their stuff, but when i did (ironically, 3 weeks out of warrantee) they let me slip in and promptly replaced the unit. quite refreshing! also, i would think, a testament to not outsourcing your CS.
August 11th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I too have purchased most of my hardware from NewEgg.com and I too had to replace a failed Seagate drive, although it was a Microdrive. I was told by the NewEgg rep that beyond the 30 warrantee, hard drive repair of replacement is done direct from Seagate. From the time I filled out the online form to the new drive being in my hand was only 4 days. No questions asked. They (Seagate) goes by serial number of the device to determine if it is covered. Their estimates are VERY liberal as well.