Warranty expired on my hd... after 20 months?

[shabby]

I have a 500gig maxtor maxline pro 500 drive and it started clicking recently, copying files to and from it is incredibly slow so i figured i'd rma it.
I check my warranty on their website and it says it expired in apr 2008, yet the drive was manufactured in sep 2006... wtf? I thought these drives have a 5 year warranty, how could mine expire so quickly?

 

[tommo123]

OEM?

 

[shabby]

Yes its oem, i never buy retail drives.

 

[Keitero]

I'd say call them up and ask them what's the deal with the warranty. If the site says its 5 years, then tell them that. They might do a swap for you.

 

[Modelworks]

Might be an issue of bad timing. Sep 2006 is around the time when Maxtor was being acquired by Seagate and I think there was some issues regarding warranty transitions . I think I recall someone saying something about they bought a drive before the transition and it was 2 year, but after 5 year.
I would email or call seagate and ask what is going on.

 

[Denithor]

Before Maxtor was bought by Seagate they typically only offered a one year warranty on their drives, OEM or otherwise. The merger closed in May 2006 and I do not know when Seagate started updating the warranty period on Maxtor-produced drives. Your drive was produced by Maxtor only four months after the merger so you may just be unlucky and have a shorter warranty period than they instituted later.

BTW, have you guys noticed Seagate has started shortening their warranty period to three years on some drives?

 

[shabby]

It was a mix-up on their end due to the merger, it still has a 5yr warranty.

 

[Denithor]

Sweet.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Denithor
BTW, have you guys noticed Seagate has started shortening their warranty period to three years on some drives?

Yep, bare (e.g. bulk and OEM) desktop drives purchased after January 3rd, 2009. Retail and enterprise drives will remain 5-year. I guess its time for me to stop purchasing and recommending Seagate for bucking the industry trend to reduce warranty periods.

This is too funny:

Q. Isn?t this a step backward in terms of demonstrating your confidence in the quality of your products?

A. Absolutely not. Our product quality remains excellent, and, as the worldwide leader in drive storage, Seagate is committed to providing our customers with the most reliable storage solutions available anywhere.

When Seagate announced the move to 5-year warranty as standard, it was touted as demonstrating Seagate's confidence in the quality of their products.