WD warranty support :-)

[cyclone3d]

I just received an advance replacement for a WD Blue 500GB 16MB cache drive that will no longer be detected. This drive that died was used and manufactured in 2007.

They sent it 2-day and also upgraded it to a WB Black 500GB 32MB cache drive - brand new, not refurbished.

So I am pretty impressed with WD support right now.

I personally haven't had a drive I bought die on me in over 5 years.. in fact, the last drive I bought that I can remember that died on me was a 1.2GB Samsung drive... but that was probably 10 years ago. I attribute it to keeping my drives cool.

 

[Kettchxxii]

Called in on May second and got a cross ship for a dead 640 black. Got my tracking the next day and for the last week it has been sitting on Billing information received. Least its 2 day air.... Was planning on using their box for the return, but it looks like I am going to have to send mine in first....

Update: Reading your post made me call. WD doesn't have any 640 blacks in stock so I will be getting an 'upgrade'. The other interesting fact is that the 30 day window to return doesn't start until I receive my drive, which is nice. CS was very helpful, +1 WD.

 

[Zepher]

Called in on May second and got a cross ship for a dead 640 black. Got my tracking the next day and for the last week it has been sitting on Billing information received. Least its 2 day air.... Was planning on using their box for the return, but it looks like I am going to have to send mine in first....

You can do advance RMA, they just put a hold for the cost of the drive they are sending you on a credit card. You can also purchase a UPS shipping label from them to send your old drive back, which is what I did.

I just replaced a 500GB WD 16MB cache IDE drive and got a brand new 500GB Blue IDE drive, but it only has the remainder of the original drives warranty, about 3 months left.

I printed my prepaid label and slapped it on the box the replacement came in and dropped it off at UPS.

 

[Kettchxxii]

It was an advanced RMA.

 

[cyclone3d]

You can do advance RMA, they just put a hold for the cost of the drive they are sending you on a credit card. You can also purchase a UPS shipping label from them to send your old drive back, which is what I did.

I just replaced a 500GB WD 16MB cache IDE drive and got a brand new 500GB Blue IDE drive, but it only has the remainder of the original drives warranty, about 3 months left.

I printed my prepaid label and slapped it on the box the replacement came in and dropped it off at UPS.

Yep, bought the discounted UPS label from them as well. Have it boxed up and ready to ship back in the box they sent the new drive in... main reason I did the advanced RMA was to make sure I had acceptable shipping materials.

 

[novadude]

Has anyone been able to get an advanced RMA through their website, or is that intentionally broken to make you call in? I tried tonight and the few other times I've tried the website has always gotten to the last step then tells me they don't have all of the required information and to call them. Then I get to speak to "Bob" or "Mike" from India to get the advanced rma.

 

[Rogue71]

Called in on May second and got a cross ship for a dead 640 black. Got my tracking the next day and for the last week it has been sitting on Billing information received. Least its 2 day air.... Was planning on using their box for the return, but it looks like I am going to have to send mine in first....

Update: Reading your post made me call. WD doesn't have any 640 blacks in stock so I will be getting an 'upgrade'. The other interesting fact is that the 30 day window to return doesn't start until I receive my drive, which is nice. CS was very helpful, +1 WD.

im curious as to what they will consider an upgrade. im guessing they will simply give you a bigger drive, but thats not necessarily going to be as fast.

 

[Zepher]

Has anyone been able to get an advanced RMA through their website, or is that intentionally broken to make you call in? I tried tonight and the few other times I've tried the website has always gotten to the last step then tells me they don't have all of the required information and to call them. Then I get to speak to "Bob" or "Mike" from India to get the advanced rma.

I did my Advance RMA from the website Saturday May 1st and got my replacement drive that Wednesday.

 

[pjkenned]

I did an Advance RMA of two WD Green 1.5TB drives a few months ago... took them two weeks to ship the drives :-/

 

[SOSTrooper]

I also did an Advance RMA for a 300GB VRaptor a couple months ago. It took the drive about 5 minutes to spin up so I had to send it in. WD's RMA center is actually 15 mins away from my house (they're located in Whittier, CA), still, sending the drive in and getting a replacement back still took 5 business days.

 

[Kettchxxii]

This is a confirmation that we have received your defective drive for RMA
#~~~~~~~~. The RMA is now closed. If you have any questions about your
RMA please reply to this email. If the information is correct, please do
not reply back to this email.

really? guess I should give them another call.

 

[Kettchxxii]

Yep. Think I just spoke to the out of state second shift department. They don't have any 640 blacks in stock so they canceled my request. After checking with his supervisor twice he was able to offer me a 640 green which he said was an upgrade, and was faster. I wasn't interested in that though, so he checked again. Returning he states that there is no comparable drive in stock and says that I should call back in two weeks to check availability.

Good times. Think I will attempt to reach the first shift crew tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do...

 

[Adidas4275]

Has anyone been able to get an advanced RMA through their website, or is that intentionally broken to make you call in? I tried tonight and the few other times I've tried the website has always gotten to the last step then tells me they don't have all of the required information and to call them. Then I get to speak to "Bob" or "Mike" from India to get the advanced rma.

i recently had the same issue...

i have had great service and 1 reason why i continue to buy from them for spinning disks...

then need better SSDs though, as all my PCs are changing to SSDs for OS drives.

 

[Dan_D]

Speaking of warranty support for Western Digital, I'll once again be using it as yet ANOTHER one of their damned Raptors went tits up on me tonight.

All but two of the 10 Western Digital drives I own have died in the last three or four years at least once and many of them two and three times.

 

[aweusx2]

Yep. Think I just spoke to the out of state second shift department. They don't have any 640 blacks in stock so they canceled my request. After checking with his supervisor twice he was able to offer me a 640 green which he said was an upgrade, and was faster. I wasn't interested in that though, so he checked again. Returning he states that there is no comparable drive in stock and says that I should call back in two weeks to check availability.

Good times. Think I will attempt to reach the first shift crew tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do...

hehe a 640gb green is a upgrade from a broken 640gb black but only because it works haha, i have a few wd black 640gb i need to rma guess ill wait, i never do advance rma tho seems like a waste just buy a new hd in mean time and save 20 bux

 

[Zepher]

hehe a 640gb green is a upgrade from a broken 640gb black but only because it works haha, i have a few wd black 640gb i need to rma guess ill wait, i never do advance rma tho seems like a waste just buy a new hd in mean time and save 20 bux

It doesn't cost $20 to do an advance RMA, just costs you $20 if you do an advance RMA and return your drive after 30 days.

 

[Cyberbeing]

All but two of the 10 Western Digital drives I own have died in the last three or four years at least once and many of them two and three times.

That sounds almost identical to my experience with Western Digital drives. Original drive dies after 2-4 years (two original Raptors, two Velociraptors, & four RE2). Replacement dies within a month. Replacement of the replacement dies within a month. Finally the replacement of the replacement of the replacement will usually be a working drive (you have a 50% chance of getting a new brand drive or an upgrade at the point). Knock on wood, my four WD Black drives have yet to cause me any issues.

The only positive is that WD has the most customer friendly and painless Advance RMA process I've ever had to deal with. Though I believe that a company with reliable drives, which you rarely have to RMA, has a slight edge over a company with above-average RMA policy.

 

[gman]

Yep kudos to WD. I had a warranty issue with a VRaptor and they fixed it without issue.

 

[Dan_D]

That sounds almost identical to my experience with Western Digital drives. Original drive dies after 2-4 years (two original Raptors, two Velociraptors, & four RE2). Replacement dies within a month. Replacement of the replacement dies within a month. Finally the replacement of the replacement of the replacement will usually be a working drive (you have a 50% chance of getting a new brand drive or an upgrade at the point). Knock on wood, my four WD Black drives have yet to cause me any issues.

The only positive is that WD has the most customer friendly and painless Advance RMA process I've ever had to deal with. Though I believe that a company with reliable drives, which you rarely have to RMA, has a slight edge over a company with above-average RMA policy.

I've got a 500GB SE16 drive that took a crap after a couple months of owning it, I have two 74GB Raptors that have each died twice. I've also got 4 150GB Raptors that have all been replaced at one time or another with two of them having been replaced two and three times respectively. Finally I have one 300GB Velociraptor that shit the bed on me after the first couple months of owning it. At this point I have an ever increasing pile of dead Western Digital drives. Despite the rave reviews of Caviar Black drives I can't see trusting Western Digital anymore or giving them anymore money in the near future. My hard drive needs will have to be taken care of by some other company. This is ridiculous. I simply can't depend on these drives in the slightest. They are all in different machines on UPSes with varying hardware configurations. Some in RAID, some not. There seems to be no rhym or reason for this, they just die at random and fairly frequently.

Before 2007 when my "WD" problems started I think I lost a hard drive once or twice since getting into this hobby in 1995.

 

[cyclone3d]

I've got a 500GB SE16 drive that took a crap after a couple months of owning it, I have two 74GB Raptors that have each died twice. I've also got 4 150GB Raptors that have all been replaced at one time or another with two of them having been replaced two and three times respectively. Finally I have one 300GB Velociraptor that shit the bed on me after the first couple months of owning it. At this point I have an ever increasing pile of dead Western Digital drives. Despite the rave reviews of Caviar Black drives I can't see trusting Western Digital anymore or giving them anymore money in the near future. My hard drive needs will have to be taken care of by some other company. This is ridiculous. I simply can't depend on these drives in the slightest. They are all in different machines on UPSes with varying hardware configurations. Some in RAID, some not. There seems to be no rhym or reason for this, they just die at random and fairly frequently.

Before 2007 when my "WD" problems started I think I lost a hard drive once or twice since getting into this hobby in 1995.

That is very strange to say the least. I have had nothing but good experiences with WD drives... and generally other drives as well.. except for IBM Deathstars back in the day.

I found that if I kept the hard drives cool (case temps never go more than a couple decrees Celsius higher than ambient temps), they last a whole lot longer then if they just roast in their own heat.

I'd rather have a somewhat noiser system where the hardware lasts for what seems like forever, then have a super quiet system that kills hardware on a regular basis.

Oh.. and I've had the same computer case for somewhere in between 6 and 7 years now. Not quite the same case as when I bought it as I have done multiple mods to make the airflow through it a lot better and also have it flow like I want it to.

edit: Even back in the days of Super Socket 7 systems, I would mod cases to get more airflow through them. If the air coming out of the case was warm, it needed more airflow through it.

 

[Dan_D]

Yeah every time I mention how much Western Digital sucks everyone makes comments about keeping hard drives cool as if I didn't do that. Trust me every case these things are installed into has good air flow, good parts, excellent power supplies, USPes, good electrical in the house, good ambient temperatures, and lower humidity.

These drives are being used in damn near ideal conditions.

 

[Raxor]

Sent one of my 1.5TB greens off for RMA this week which died on me. Hopefully the process is as good as you guys have said.

 

[cyclone3d]

Yeah every time I mention how much Western Digital sucks everyone makes comments about keeping hard drives cool as if I didn't do that. Trust me every case these things are installed into has good air flow, good parts, excellent power supplies, USPes, good electrical in the house, good ambient temperatures, and lower humidity.

These drives are being used in damn near ideal conditions.

Are you sure you aren't one of those people who has the weird electro magnetic field thing going on?

Either that or you, by some bizarre coincidence, get the majority of faulty drives.. and if that is the case, I owe you some thanks as that means I don't have to deal with bad drives near as much.

 

[Dan_D]

Well I don't seem to kill any other type of electronics. Just hard drives. So I don't think I'm one of those types.

 

[Cyberbeing]

Like Dan, my failed drives were always kept in near ideal conditions as well. Cool, dry, dedicated power circuit, etc. I do have my computer powered on 12+ hours a day, but that by itself shouldn't be causing WD hard drives to drop like flies.

Western Digital drives must have poor reliability overall, or just lots of bad batches from poor manufacturing (which could explain why some people have mass failures and others have none). All I know is that Western Digital hard drives made up at least 95% of all HDD failures I've had in the past 5 years, which really stands out. I've had more failures from WD replacement drives, then I've had failures from every other HDD manufacturer combined. Extremely poor QC on their refurbs?

Other then Dan and I, I've talked to other people who've also had similar horrible experiences with WD reliability, so it may not be as isolated as you would think, but there is of course no way to prove that either way.

 

[Zepher]

Dan, do you power your machines down nightly or run them 24/7?

I run my machine 24/7 and usually have a drive fail every 2 years or so.

I did have a 1TB black die after 9 days, just got unlucky with that one but had Dell overnight me a new replacement.

I've been using multiple drive systems since around 94 starting with my Amiga 3000 Toaster system and Seagate SCSI Barracuda drives were the drives of choice. One of our machines had 21 9GB Seagates in the late 90's, so eventually I ended up with 21 dead Barracuda, but they did last past their warranty period which was 5 years.
The Amiga was retired and the drives that were still working were used in my PC, 3 or 4 at a time till they passed away and I eventually switched to IDE drives.

I've been using WD drives almost exclusively for the past 7 or 8 years, of the 13 drives on my machine now, only 2 are Seagates, the rest are WD.

 

[curlysir]

My experiences with WD rma process have been nothing but positive. I have used the advanced RMA process several times and normally have the replacement drive within a week. Drive failures have been rare but I did have problems with an older 74GB raptor that was working when I took it out of a systems and it set on a shelf for a couple of months and wouldn't work when I went to use it again. As luck would have it the replacement was bad and they got a replacement to me in just a couple of days. The rma process with other vendors have not been near as easy. A lot do not offer advanced replacement, which is the only way to go.

 

[Dan_D]

Dan, do you power your machines down nightly or run them 24/7?

I run my machine 24/7 and usually have a drive fail every 2 years or so.

I did have a 1TB black die after 9 days, just got unlucky with that one but had Dell overnight me a new replacement.

I've been using multiple drive systems since around 94 starting with my Amiga 3000 Toaster system and Seagate SCSI Barracuda drives were the drives of choice. One of our machines had 21 9GB Seagates in the late 90's, so eventually I ended up with 21 dead Barracuda, but they did last past their warranty period which was 5 years.
The Amiga was retired and the drives that were still working were used in my PC, 3 or 4 at a time till they passed away and I eventually switched to IDE drives.

I've been using WD drives almost exclusively for the past 7 or 8 years, of the 13 drives on my machine now, only 2 are Seagates, the rest are WD.

Most of my machines run 24/7. However the home theater PC doesn't and I've lost three Western Digital hard drives since I built it about two years ago. Since then I've upgraded PSUs, motherboards, RAM and a video cards. The machine has good airflow and isn't used heavily.

 

[aweusx2]

SO it doesnt cost 20 bux to advance rma? thats weird did they recently change this? i always saw the charge and decided on regular rma, i have alot of wd drives that need RMA but they dont just not work, they work but seem problematic, i used to HATE wd and would not get wd since all the drives i had die where WD, then the 640gb version came out and i saw how fast it was and saw the good reviews so i bite, i must own 20 of them and have 3 that need rma, And luckily they didnt stop working and still can copy data off.. So are your guys drives just DEAD wont work? or?

Also i turn my computers off all the time, i know its bad but i dont care they produce heat and cost electricity and if kids bang on them while they are on there is better chance a hard drive will die etc, i switched to SSD for main OS drives to avoid more failures but no idea if really will help or not.

 

[Zepher]

My 500GB spun up and seemed to work fine but would disconnect from the computer and the HD light on the case would stay on.
I put it into a USB case and it worked for 20-30 minutes and I was able to copy some stuff off of it and then it would get stuck, light on USB case would stay lit and the drive would disconnect.
turned it off and on about 3 times then got tired of trying to get the DATA off.
Next day I was able to copy all of the DATA off since it stayed working the entire 11 hours or so it took to copy the data, USB to USB is really slow.

I did my RMA 2 weeks ago, they put a hold on your credit card for the amount of the replacement drives cost, ship you the drive, then ship yours back. Total cost is the return shipping for you bad drive.
If you read my earlier posts you will see where that $20 charge for Advance RMA comes from.

 

[Cyberbeing]

I know for certain Advance RMA from WD was free every since 2007 (before that, I have no idea). Your only cost is shipping the drive(s) you RMA'ed back to WD within 30 days of receiving your replacement.

As for your other question, you should have no problem getting WD to issue you an RMA on a hard drive in a fail or pre-fail condition. 'Problematic' is a bit of a gray area, so hopefully the 'problematic' behavior is measurable and/or repeatable in some way. If in doubt, you could always email or call WD support and ask. More often then not, they would probably tell you to go ahead and RMA the drive, but having a support rep tell you to RMA the drive(s) should protect you from any potential issues if they arise.