Tech Tip of the Day: Sharpies and Hard Drive Warranties Don't Mix

Submitted by Paul Lilly on Thu, 09/09/2010 - 16:41

In case you ever have the urge to write on your hard drive with a permanent marker, don't. According to Consumerist reader "Scott," he was essentially told to go pound sand when attempting to RMA a defective Seagate SATA drive that had been written on with marker (see here). Seagate was a bit more tactful than that, but Scott's still stuck with a drive that doesn't work and no way to get it replaced.

Sharpie

There aren't a whole lot of instances where you'd want to mark up a hard drive in the first place, but if you do need to label them for any reason (perhaps you run a repair shop and don't want to mix them up), a strip of Scotch tape provides a convenient, removable easel with which to work with.

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It's after hours, but their

Submitted by Wingnut on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 03:41.

It's after hours, but their feedback section online sucks.

I have two errors after selecting "Seagate" and you can not continue. That's because it's blank on one, thus you're blank on two. You always error out of any complaint online. You call, and you don't get a voice mail day or night.

Even if you don't have their drive and have shear curiosity of what a Dawg does: file a fake complaint online with a drive. Can you complete it? Next, can you call them...and get hold of a human?

Done it for years. I don't

Submitted by Wingnut on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 02:55.

Done it for years. I don't have a horde of drives to quantify that it's "OK", but I've written on all of mine that I've returned and never had a problem getting a return. To me, maybe it's them being worried about the parts we mark?

Seagate's returned the same drive and board according to my sharpie mark, just a new sticker that made it re-certified...thrice. The forth time I returned it, the mark on the hardware was gone (replaced); and it still clacks away awaiting to fail.

I'm going to mark every HDD I have for RMA, and if they refuse it because of that...I'll start a class action. It costs $75 to go to small claims and the same for another, larger, drive. However this isn't stated as something you shouldn't do. Defacing the product is never listed in any EULA on any level besides removing labels. My same drive has came back many times with another label on top of the old one. Now I can't even sell it on eBay as a new drive.

I bought it new. It failed. I got the same one back, re-certified a couple times. And now it says "NOT NEW" on it...and my old Sharpie marks still there. That's not a Warranty, that's a scam from the 250G-500G era.

Mark 'em up fellas! Seagate's sending you back the same defective drive...and we need to prove it. I'm tracking it; why aren't you? There's no defacing clause, keep it off anything questionable on the silicon board, and watch what you get back. Their offer is to replace with equal or better, not the same exact drive that's been re-certified. Why is my sharpie mark exactly where it is when I took a photo of it when I sent it in?

Let alone just marking drives with dates or such ON a drive this article talks about. I've had a huge ordeal with them admitting fault and just giving it back. I'm marking parts and am getting them back just as I sent them with new stickers. Sharpies are ruining their legal team. Good job Team Sharpie!