OEM Hard Drive Warranties

[quincer]

I was always a little curious about warranties for oem drives. The ones we buy at computer shows or online and such. I know that Seagate and IBM do not take oem drives back for warranty repairs. I know Maxtor seems to be the only one to take their own drives oem or not. How do you get your drive fixed if it is indeed an oem (of course without you knowing).

Thanks
Sam

 

[ddeder]

I believe Western Digital warranties all of their drives Retail and OEM. Just need to enter serial number here to see if warranty is still in effect.

 

[jfunk]

I've never had a problem RMA any OEM drive as long as the manufactured date was within the 3 year warranty period.



j

 

[Kingofcomputer]

oem hd could mean real oem hd or bare drive.

real oem hd - such as the one for dell, gateway, etc such big brand name computer builder, may have the dell or gateway label on it instead of the original manufacturer's, original manufacturers don't warrant such hd.

bare drive - exactly same as the drive in retail version, just no box, no manual, no cable, etc, has the same warranty as retail version.

unless you're buying a dell brand hd, you don't need to worry anything. the dell brand hd could be a normal bare drive sometimes, you need to take the gamble of buying dell brand hd.

 

[bozo1]

Basically what computerking said.

Drives you buy from newegg, mwave, etc., are bare drives (regardless of how they describe them) and are warrantied like the retail packaged drives.
Drives that come in a Dell, Gateway, etc., are 'oem' drives. They are sold cheaply to the OEM under the agreement that the OEM has to take care of any warranty - basically Dell, Gateway, etc., just write off the ones that fail. In the long run, it is cheaper for them to do it that way.

 

[BadThad]

King and Bozo got it...nice!