Planning to RMA Your Hard Drive? Make Sure Your Data is Safe

[Rob Williams]

When major floods struck Thailand last fall, hard drive manufacturers found themselves in a bad position. Certain parts became rare out of nowhere, and as a result, hard drive prices sky-rocketed. Post-flood, prices for a given model saw a hike of up to 3x, so it's of little surprise that some have looked at alternative solutions to picking up a drive, such as going with a refurbished model. But what happens when you get a little more than you expected? Such as data already on the drive?

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[marfig]

Hmm... seems like Newegg is the one at fault here. I'm pretty sure manufacturers don't refurbish hard drives. But I'm confident Newegg refurbishes them from computer parts. The user does mention the HDD had a complet Dell OS install.

This is what Newegg says about refurbished products:

“Refurbished” products have been tested to ensure compliance with original manufacturer specifications, and MAY include a limited manufacturer warranty – see the item's product page for details.

Seems entirely a Newegg operation. And it's their test team and QA team that are at fault.

 

[Rob Williams]

Seems entirely a Newegg operation. And it's their test team and QA team that are at fault.

No pun, but I don't think Newegg has the capacity to refurb hard drives. That requires things like a clean room and high-end equipment to literally rebuild a hard drive.

 

[RainMotorsports]

No pun, but I don't think Newegg has the capacity to refurb hard drives. That requires things like a clean room and high-end equipment to literally rebuild a hard drive.

Neither does anyone providing refurbished hard drives. HDD Manufacturers are not going to spend the money to physically rebuild a hard drive either. Its cheaper to scrap it last I checked.

Outside of board swaps hard drives are probably not refurbished. Hard drives get sent back all the time. They cant sell these as new they sell them as refurbished. A drive might have a Dell OS install on it not because they sold the Dell but because the person who put it into a Dell realized it wasn't the problem and sent it back.

If your sending a working drive back, your an idiot for not making any attempting to erase it.

Sending a non working drive in for replacement is a problem because there is nothing you can do. But i seriously doubt these were drives a year into their warranty period send back to a manufacturer. Likely working or apparently working drives returned to resellers in the 30 day periods etc.

 

[marfig]

Indeed. The issue is with the term "refurbished". It does not mean to Newegg to fix an hard drive.