Seagate hard drive warranty

[Daniel Prince]

I recently purchased a Seagate oem 300 GB ide drive from an ebay
vendor. He claimed in his ad that the drive had a five year
warranty. When I checked the Seagate web site, it said that the
warranty on the drive ends on 10-MAR-2006 which is only one year and
a few days.

I contacted the seller and he said:

"Currently Seagate is reworking its warranty for the drives it
manufactures. The warranty is retroactive on all its internal
drives but all the drives I currently have do not reflect the new
change in warranty status. I can either ship another drive that
seagate will warranty regardless of what the web site says or I can
refund your money."

Is this true? Does the drive I bought (Model: ST3300831A S/N:
3NF05G94) have a five year warranty? Thank you in advance for all
replies.

 

[anon]

they have recently switched all drives to 5-yr. warranties. There's a press
release from sometime last year announcing the change. I'd skip the Seagate
web site and contact a person at Seagate to verify your drive is covered.

 

[J. Clarke]

they have recently switched all drives to 5-yr. warranties. There's a
press
release from sometime last year announcing the change. I'd skip the
Seagate web site and contact a person at Seagate to verify your drive is
covered.

Be careful with generalizations of that kind. Seagate gives a 5 year
warranty on retail boxed, "brown box", and tray-packed OEM drives sold
through the normal distribution channel (which is to say via major
wholesalers such as Tech Data and Ingram). Other large volume purchasers
who buy direct from Seagate will have specific warranty terms defined by
contract between Seagate and the purchaser, and those terms may include no
warranty, a shorter warranty, warranty only to the purchaser, or anything
else that the two decide is appropriate. If the particular drive was, say,
pulled out of a Dell, the warranty might be quite different from the
"normal" Seagate warranty.

As a general rule, if you're buying drives off of ebay and you're concerned
about warranty, plug the serial number into the manufacturer's database
_before_ you bid and if it comes up short, believe that over the seller.

 

[Dan Lanciani]

| I recently purchased a Seagate oem 300 GB ide drive from an ebay
| vendor. He claimed in his ad that the drive had a five year
| warranty. When I checked the Seagate web site, it said that the
| warranty on the drive ends on 10-MAR-2006 which is only one year and
| a few days.
|
| I contacted the seller and he said:
|
| "Currently Seagate is reworking its warranty for the drives it
| manufactures. The warranty is retroactive on all its internal
| drives but all the drives I currently have do not reflect the new
| change in warranty status. I can either ship another drive that
| seagate will warranty regardless of what the web site says or I can
| refund your money."
|
| Is this true? Does the drive I bought (Model: ST3300831A S/N:
| 3NF05G94) have a five year warranty? Thank you in advance for all
| replies.

I bought a new, shrinkwrapped Seagate retail drive kit at CompUSA. On
the outside of the shrinkwrap was a big sticker proudly proclaiming the
new 5 year warranty. The documentation in the package described only the
old one year warranty. I checked Seagate's web site and the warranty was
listed as expiring in less than one year. I called Seagate's customer
service and (with great difficulty due to the language barrier) had the
rep do the same lookup. After five or six tries of entering the wrong
serial and/or part numbers (and telling me that the drive had no warranty
at all because because it must have come from an OEM) she finally got it
right and confirmed the ~10 month warranty.

Over the course of several more calls to Seagate customer service and to
CompUSA I tried to find out what had happened to the 5 year warranty. Some
people claimed that it had never applied, some people claimed that it applied
from the date of manufacture (suggesting that the drive was 4+ years old)
and others said not to worry about it as long as I had proof of the warranty
(the big sticker?). I spent more time on this than I normally would because
the drive itself seemed to be flakey (recoverable read errors) and I wasn't
sure whether it was a compatibility issue or an actual drive failure. Between
the warranty issue and the reliability problem I decided to return the drive.
CompUSA did not charge a restocking fee.

If I were you I'd get a refund. My experience was months ago and Seagate
had supposedly changed their warranty a while before that. I don't think
they had any 300G drives out before the change. Regardless of whether
the confusion is Seagate's or your seller's at this point it sounds like
a bad deal...

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

 

[Daniel Prince]

they have recently switched all drives to 5-yr. warranties. There's a press
release from sometime last year announcing the change. I'd skip the Seagate
web site and contact a person at Seagate to verify your drive is covered.

I sent Seagate an email before I put my message in the newsgroups.
I just got a response. Here is the response:
_____________________________________________________________________
Thank you for contacting Seagate.

In regards to your request, below given is the detailed information
about the warranty provided on the drives.

We have received your note concerning the 5 years warranty Seagate
is currently promoting.

This is concerning all distribution drives sold on and after June
1st 2004.* All drives sold prior to this date will have the
original warranty as set on point of sale.

For more information, please visit our website:
http://www.seagate.com/support/service/warranty.html
or
http://www.seagate.com/support/service/index.html Look under the
section -
frequently asked questions to find all available
information.

* please note: All External Retail Drives come with a one year
warranty
period.
_______________________________________________________________

Since their response did not really answer my question, I am writing
to them again. If I do not get a satisfactory answer this time I
will get my money back and buy a drive made by someone else.

 

[Shawn Hearn]

Is this true? Does the drive I bought (Model: ST3300831A S/N:
3NF05G94) have a five year warranty? Thank you in advance for all
replies.

Just out of curiosity, what did Seagate say when you called them to ask
this question?

 

[Daniel Prince]

I called Seagate's customer
service and (with great difficulty due to the language barrier) had the
rep do the same lookup.

Do you know what the native language of the rep was or what country
she/he was in? Were all the reps you spoke to in the same country?

 

[Dan Lanciani]

| ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote:
|
| >I called Seagate's customer
| >service and (with great difficulty due to the language barrier) had the
| >rep do the same lookup.
|
| Do you know what the native language of the rep was or what country
| she/he was in?

Beats me, but this is the first time I've had a serious problem conveying
a serial number over the phone. The rep couldn't understand me and I
could barely understand her well enough to know she was (repeatedly) reading
back wrong numbers.

| Were all the reps you spoke to in the same country?

They all sounded similar.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

 

[Andy]

Serial Number
Model Number
Part Number
Warranty Status
(*see details below) Options
(*see details below)
3NF05G94 ST3300801CB-RK 9Y7685-500 In Warranty
Expiration 10-MAR-2006

Google ST3300801CB. Looks like it's an external drive, which would
have only a one year warranty.

 

[Daniel Prince]

Serial Number
Model Number
Part Number
Warranty Status
(*see details below) Options
(*see details below)
3NF05G94 ST3300801CB-RK 9Y7685-500 In Warranty
Expiration 10-MAR-2006

Google ST3300801CB. Looks like it's an external drive, which would
have only a one year warranty.

What I received was a bare drive. It did not have a clamshell or an
anti-static bag. The bare drive was inside a padded shipping
envelope which was inside a box with foam peanuts.

Do you think someone could have pulled the drive out of an external
drive mechanism made by Seagate? If so, why would someone do that?
I think that assembled external drives cost more than the bare drive
and the cost of the external case.

 

[Andy]

What I received was a bare drive. It did not have a clamshell or an
anti-static bag. The bare drive was inside a padded shipping
envelope which was inside a box with foam peanuts.

Do you think someone could have pulled the drive out of an external
drive mechanism made by Seagate? If so, why would someone do that?
I think that assembled external drives cost more than the bare drive
and the cost of the external case.

Is the ebay dealer you got the drive from reputable? Someone might
have swapped a true ST3300831A with the ST3300801CB in the enclosure
in order to have the five year warranty, and then try to foist the
ST3300801CB drive onto an unsuspecting soul. Any way you look at it
the serial number uniquely identifies the drive, and the one you have
is an external.