WD's RMA is terrible! Any way to get them to send a new drive instead of a refurb?

[nobb]

Ive always been buying Western Digital drives new, and they've worked perfectly. However, my problem is that I had a WD5000BEVT drive fail (the first drive failure Ive had in my whole life) within a few months of getting it, so okay, I RMA it. WD sends back a refurb drive.

I wish they would send a new drive instead, but whatever. If the refurb drive works, then it's not too big of a deal to me. After less than a month, that drive starts getting bad sectors, read errors, and fails WD's diagnostics. So I RMA again. Next refurb drive that gets send back to me, same problem, it starts developing bad sectors within less than a month. RMA again, and guess what? Yup, it goes bad in less than a month. It's not just with the WD5000BEVT. I've RMA'ed other models of WD drives, and the refurbs ALWAYS go bad. I have pretty good luck with WD's drives if they are new, but Ive basically had a 100% failure rate with my RMA replacements. Seriously what the heck? Is WD having serious quality control issues with their refurb drives or something, because this is ridiculous. These refurb drives they send back are crap.

Calling or emailing support has been practically useless, and I really dont think WD cares. They are unwilling to send a new drive back, and even worse, they will not acknowledge the problem. Just have to follow RMA procedure and try again. Anyone else have similar problems with WD drives? Is Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, etc just as bad with their warranty?

[mingyang]

well from my experience they call RMA drives Re-Certified. pretty sure AKA refurbished, therefore it's likely not going to be as good as new ones. Imo, it comes down to luck sometimes during RMA. they may give you new one sometimes.

my another RMA experience with NCIX regarding a mouse that was totally refurbished when it got to me along with alot of scratch and came back with another open box doubled taped box though a better condition than older one.

Boo for RMA!

[dmdsoftware2]

Ive always been buying Western Digital drives new, and they've worked perfectly. However, my problem is that I had a WD5000BEVT drive fail (the first drive failure Ive had in my whole life) within a few months of getting it, so okay, I RMA it. WD sends back a refurb drive.

I wish they would send a new drive instead, but whatever. If the refurb drive works, then it's not too big of a deal to me. After less than a month, that drive starts getting bad sectors, read errors, and fails WD's diagnostics. So I RMA again. Next refurb drive that gets send back to me, same problem, it starts developing bad sectors within less than a month. RMA again, and guess what? Yup, it goes bad in less than a month. It's not just with the WD5000BEVT. I've RMA'ed other models of WD drives, and the refurbs ALWAYS go bad. I have pretty good luck with WD's drives if they are new, but Ive basically had a 100% failure rate with my RMA replacements. Seriously what the heck? Is WD having serious quality control issues with their refurb drives or something, because this is ridiculous. These refurb drives they send back are crap.

Calling or emailing support has been practically useless, and I really dont think WD cares. They are unwilling to send a new drive back, and even worse, they will not acknowledge the problem. Just have to follow RMA procedure and try again. Anyone else have similar problems with WD drives? Is Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, etc just as bad with their warranty?

I don't know any manufacturer that sends new drives. It is not in their vocab.

I have first hand experience with Seagate and Hitachi RMAs and both send refurbished and recertified drives.

[renhui]

I think it's a pretty common for harddrive manufacturers send back re-certified drives. I had a similiar experience last year. two Seagate drives went bad in a month!

I am sticking to the original drive in my thinkpad right now, if anything happens, just give Lenovo service a call and a new drive will be here in two days, plus I don't need to pay a cent for the return shipping!

[Hello-]

That's some crazy bad luck or maybe your drive controller is going bad?

I would assume WD tests the drive thoroughly before sending them out.

[Avatar]

Had two WD drives failed (not sure if the 2nd one was the RMAed or not). Changed to Maxtor. But I also found putting a fan in the case blowing into the drive bays does help getting rid of the heat from drives.

[nobb]

Well as much as I would prefer to get a new drive back, I dont mind a recertified/refurb if only it would work properly. I think Ive gone through about 6 RMAs with WD and 100% failure each time. It most likely isnt my computer because this is happening on 2 separate machines and my hard drive temperatures are normal.

Normally I wouldnt be so picky with other hardware, but I do put a high priority on my data storage devices.

[silentio]

Are either of your 2 computers behind a UPS? Power brownouts and spikes kill HDs

[nobb]

The refurb drives that I am having problems with are being used in laptops. I am not having any electrical problems in my house, all my other computers/electronics work just fine. I can almost guarantee that it's not my computer that is at fault here.

[Mars man]

I have had to RMA 2 drives from WD so far and as you indicated they are replaced with remanufactured drives. It has been my experience that the process and drives performed as I expected and cannot find fault with the entire porcess. I wish I could say the same about XFX (but that's a different thread). Sorry for your bad luck.

[Satyr]

500gb drives are fairly cheap now, so just to be safe and secure, buy a new drive and see if it fails. Use the re-certified drive as a data drive for now. If you're unsure about WD, buy another brand. If it also fails, then you know its your motherboard.

[Brewmeanie]

I never had problems with my wd drives so far, it's the maxtor that always gave me problems. I got 80gb WD for 8 years ago that's still running.

[hagbard]

My Hitachi hard drive is giving bad sectors. Anyone have experience RMAing a drive to Hitachi? Looks like they use UPS, any brokerage fees?

BTW, why do hd manufactures "refurbish" drives? Seems to me its a money losing proposition when dealing with a drive that costs less than $50cdn. My guess is, they don't do any physical repairs, they just mark off bad sectors and send them back out.

[Jon Lai]

I think it's a pretty common for harddrive manufacturers send back re-certified drives. I had a similiar experience last year. two Seagate drives went bad in a month!

I am sticking to the original drive in my thinkpad right now, if anything happens, just give Lenovo service a call and a new drive will be here in two days, plus I don't need to pay a cent for the return shipping!

I can assure you, Lenovo gives you recertified drives as well - I had to RMA the drive in my Thinkpad about 5 months in.

[krazo]

Has anyone been charged UPS brokerage and customs on their replacement drive?

I got my replacement but had to pay fees to get it. Currently talking with WDC as their policy states:

WDC pays any duties/taxes incurred at Customs for the replacement product.