Why I wouldn't buy a Seagate

[AtlantaBob]

A few months ago, I bought a Seagate hard drive from Newegg. Seemed to be a good price on the 300 GB model, and I heard that their warranty support was great.

Well, the price was good, but their support is horrible. After getting the drive diagnosed with a customer support technician, I tried to call to get an RMA number--the typical Indian call center--with the typical rep who couldn't understand a word I was saying. Asking about getting an advance shipment--so I would actually have something to ship the old hard drive back in--that was far too much for him.

Trying to call the corporate headquarters is no simple task either. After first denying that they had anyone who could answer customer service questions at that number, they put me on hold for 20 minutes... with bad porn music to boot. I called back a few more times, always getting the music, never getting a person. Finally, I asked to be put in touch with someone who would at least answer the phone. The guy who picked up tried, but couldn't seem to get in touch with anyone...

Now I've wasted far more time getting the return than I would have spent working to pay for the drive. Seagate may have decent disk drives, but their return service stinks.

(Yeah, I know it's sort of off topic, but, at least by posting it here, people can know that the company is horrible to deal with before they buy a drive.)

 

[iluvdeal]

I've never had a problem with their RMA process. However, I've always used the online method, never had to speak to a human via the phone. Until other makers start offering 5 years warranties, I'll continue to buy Seagates.

 

[corkyg]

Just for the record, what was the matter with the 300 GB drive?

 

[AtlantaBob]

iluvdeal-- indeed, as irked as I am at them at the moment, their good points should be pointed out too.

corkyg--it was actually a pretty strange problem--I was using the drive in an external enclosure, and hadn't used it after copying over some initial data for about three months--the partition was just gone. Fixdisk /mbr and all of the usual things didn't work to fix it. Ontrack data recovery tools could pull files off, but, as I didn't really need them, I just reformatted the disk. I ran the diagnostics on it a few times, and the disk always locked up at the 99% complete portion of the diagnostics. Exactly the same thing every time. SMART data said that the drive was good, but Seagate Tech Support said to just RMA it (they may not have wanted to spend the time on it, I'm not sure).

 

[Rubycon]

I have a 320GB 7200.10 that was revived with Sea tools. It was in the machine running on its side (I know my mistake) and the case fell over (rough sea hardware casualty number 2801) and the drive ripped the sata cable and connector right away from the motherboard! All the was left on the motherboard was the pins (or ribbon wires). The drive worked but was having a hard time initializing.

Ran Sea tools and it said RMA. I forced it to scan and it remapped bad clusters, etc. Never did RMA it and it's being used as a temp file disk so no loss if it dies. Been running like this since last May without a hiccup. :Q