Seagate's Warranty is a Scam!

You're an idiot. If you have to bring in your car for a warranty fix,
do you think the car dealer is going to replace the gas you used to
get there? You're lucky Seagate is good enough to happily give you a
replacement without any complications and hours of phone calls.
Nothing lasts forever and almost nothing I know has a 5 year warranty.
If you're smart enough to know how to use an external hdd to backup
your files, then you should be smart enough to know that you should
always make a backup of your backup.
I'll give you one thing though.......You're probably right that
Seagate should state on the packaging somewhere about data recovery
not being covered........That way stupid, ignorant people such as
yourself won't be wasting anyone's time with their senseless whining
and crying. You should call your mommy so she can give you a hug, and
tell you everything will be ok.

most linux distros can help you out with recovering ur lost data,
google bt4(backtrack4) and learn how to use it. should help a bit. if
bt4 is too hard for you to learn and use, any distro can do the basic
job, try the latest ubuntu. It will read what it can and if you have
another hdd u can simply start transfering everything over. this all
depends on how bad your hdd is messed up of course. ive used both of
these methods many a times myself.

Good Luck!

P.S. if none of this post makes sense, just take it to your local uber
nerd and they should be able to help you no prob and for under $100

I agree 100% becuase they should be able to get your data back as it's
their unreliable hdd that ;et you down liker me. I have had a crappy
Maxtor ide 80Gb hdd for 2yrs now. They tell me they can replace it
with come piece of junk someone else has sent back and they have
repaired it in my opinion just got it to work and p[robabaly break
again. Also it's a joke that they want me to pay the postage cost
which is like around $40 Aus for that price they kn ow that I my has
well not bother with the stupid fake warranty becuase thats nearly
just as much as what I paid for the hdd , I could just go and buy a
new one but why should I they are the ones who cover it in warranty
they should be oblidged to pay transport costs or arrange for me to
get a replacement from a computer store.I will never again buy a
Segate or Maxtor product.

It is unfortunate that your drive failed, However no industry in the
US that I am aware of covers any incidental damage such as loss of
data or any loss which occurs from the failure of their product, I am
a computer technician and had my billing computers hard drive crash
and fail last week (Also under Warranty), although I know better, I
had not backed it up since Feb Because I was too busy, so have to
make time to recreate all my Bills, Estimates, Etc. for the last 3
Months, luckily I have paper copies. Seagate makes the best drives in
the business in my opinion and I sell and install hundreds every year.
Does your drive read at all? When you say froze up it wont spin? if
it is indeed frozen you may be able to carefully take it apart and
replace the bearings, and then retrieve your data. This will void
your warranty for sure though. you may also be able to use a data
recovery program on it, if there is any functionality at all. Data
recovery is a very labor intensive process, where the drive is
disassembled in a clean room and the platters or discs are put into
another drive and the data is then transferred to a good drive. it
takes many hours. People Back Up Your Data!

(I've highlighted the relevant portion)

Seagate Technology Limited Consumer Warranty

The following “Limited Consumer Warranty Information” describes
Seagate’s standard limited warranty. For complete warranty
information, consumers should review the warranty materials included
with their product. Warranty coverage may differ depending on
jurisdiction.

What Do Our Warranties Usually Cover? Our limited warranties cover
defects in material or workmanship in new Seagate or Maxtor products.
Only consumers purchasing Seagate or Maxtor products from authorized
Seagate retailers or resellers may obtain coverage under our limited
warranties. Please see the limited consumer warranty that accompanied
your product for the specific warranty terms that apply to your
product.

How Long Does The Coverage Last? Our warranty periods are 1 year, 2
years, 3 years or 5 years from the documented date of purchase,
depending on the type of product and where it was purchased.

What Does Our Warranty Not Cover? Our warranties do not cover any
problem that is caused by (a) commercial use; accident; abuse;
neglect; shock; electrostatic discharge; heat or humidity beyond
product specifications; improper installation; operation; maintenance
or modification; or (b) any misuse contrary to the instructions in the
user manual; or (c) loss passwords; or (d) malfunctions caused by
other equipment. Our limited warranties are void if a product is
returned with removed, damaged or tampered labels or any alterations
(including removal of any component or external cover).

******************************************
Our warranties do not cover data loss – back up the contents of your
drive to a separate storage medium on a regular basis. Also,
consequential damages; incidental damages; and costs related to data
recovery, removal and installation are not recoverable under our
warranties.
******************************************

What Do You Have To Do? Seagate will not provide any warranty coverage
unless claims are made in compliance with all terms of the controlling
warranty statement included with your Seagate product and you follow
proper return procedure. To request warranty service, contact an
authorized Seagate service centre or refer to www.seagate.com for more
information regarding customer support within your jurisdiction. You
also may obtain information regarding the location of authorized
Seagate service centers and access the Seagate automated customer
service directory by calling +1-800-SEAGATE. Callers outside the US
can reach this service by dialing +1-405-324-4770. Refer to
www.seagate.com for more telephone numbers in your jurisdiction. Once
an authorized service center or Seagate determines that a repair or
replacement is required, you will be prompted for your name, address,
phone number, email and product serial number and then issued a Return
Order Number to use when returning product to Seagate. Product
returned to Seagate must be properly packaged in its original
packaging (or packaging providing the product with protection
equivalent to the original packaging) and sent, with the postage
charges prepaid via a shipping method that provides for tracking of
your package, to the address provided when you received your Return
Order Number. In addition to regular back-ups, if possible, data
should be backed up before sending a drive to Seagate for repair,
because product sent to Seagate or an authorized service provider will
not be returned. Additional information on backing-up the contents of
your drive can be found at www.seagate.com.

What Will Seagate Do? If Seagate authorizes a product to be returned
to Seagate or an authorized service provider, Seagate will replace the
drive without charge with a functionally equivalent replacement
product. Seagate may replace your product with a product that was
previously used, repaired and tested to meet Seagate specifications.
Seagate will pay to ship the replacement drive to you. By sending
product for replacement, ownership of the original product will be
transferred to Seagate. Seagate will not return original drives to
consumers. Data recovery is not covered under this warranty and is not
part of the repair or exchange process. If you would like data
recovery performed on your drive, it is available from Seagate as a
separate service for an additional charge. Seagate warrants that
repaired or replaced products are covered for the greater of either
the remainder of the original product warranty or 90 days.

How Does State Law Apply? The laws of the State of California, USA,
govern our warranties. It gives you specific legal rights, and you
may also have other rights that vary from state to state. Our
warranties do not affect any additional rights consumers have under
laws in their jurisdictions governing the sale of consumer goods,
including, without limitation, national laws implementing EC Directive
44/99/EC. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of
incidental or consequential damages, so the limitations or exclusions
in our warranty statements may not apply.

Rev. 9/18/07

Copyright © 2008 Seagate Technology LLC.
All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Seagate, Seagate Technology and
the Wave logo are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC in
the United States and/or other countries. [Mark A], [Mark B] and [Mark
C] are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate
Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies in the United States
and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks
are the property of their respective owners. When referring to hard
drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one
terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes. Your computer’s operating
system may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower
capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for
formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available for
data storage. Quantitative usage examples for various applications are
for illustrative purposes. Actual quantities will vary based on
various factors, including file size, file format, features and
application software. Seagate reserves the right to change, without
notice, product offerings or specifications.

Go to seagates website...http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/
click on trouble shooting. You will need to know the model # of your
drive.

They may have some recovery tools available for low cost.

My back up drive just died, I had music on it that was not backed up.
I downloaded a trial version of recovery software. It will tell me if
the data is recoverable, if it is I think the cost is $129.

It's not worth it to me to pay that, I can just add the music from the
CDs again.

This might be an option for you.

No hardware company ever protects you against data loss. It just
isn't feasible. There are companies out there (Carbonite is one
example) that will back up your data every night over the Internet.
The cost is pretty low, and the value is obvious. The point is you
don't have to be a geek to have your data all protected.

"I put my life and soul into that hard drive. I have irreplacable
pictures on it."

If it was so important to you, your life and soul, you should have
backed it up. Irreplaceable anything, should be backed up.

I admit, I have stuff that I should get backed up. Albeit, nothing
that is my heart and soul, or irreplaceable. It's one of those when I
get around to it things.

If something fails and I lose that data, there will only be myself to
blame. Not the manufacturer.

Several people have suggested doing regular backups. That may include
doing an extra backup after you make significant changes. For
example, if you've just downloaded all your wedding photos to the HD,
that's a good time to take a backup. Even if you just did one
yesterday.

Secondly, on a regular basis, move your backups to a location other
than your home. If you house is robbed or burns down or gets flooded,
you'll not only lose your original, but the backups. If you have an
office that's secure, you might consider storing backups there. If
not, consider friends or relatives (not neighbors, though) or even a
safe deposit box. Keep in mind that CDs don't last forever, so don't
assume that the CD or DVD you created will still be readable a few
years later. And keep in mind that hard drives are subject to erasure
if stored near magnets.

As several have suggested, using a backup service is the easiest way
to solve the problem of offsite storage. Yes, you need to trust that
the company isn't going to do something nasty to your data, that they
aren't going to sell your data to crooks or spammers, that they aren't
going to go out of business, and that they have a way to do data
recovery when their drives fail or when they have a fire.

I'm sorry but your request to have free data recovery on a bad hard
drive is unreasonable. It is your responsibility to back up your data.
Data recovery from a bad drive ranges from extremely hard to
impossible. If hard drive manufacturer's had to absorb the cost of
data recovery on customers equipment the price of a typical drive
would go from $75 to $750.... nobody would buy them.

I don't think you understand just how difficult data recovery is.

HOWEVER, backing up data isn't as easy as it should be. It's getting
better but very few people know what to do or bother setting it up if
they do know.... until it's too late. Behind the scene RAID copies of
all drives should be a standard these days. It doubles the cost of
your storage but the average consumer is basically talking about $50
to prevent data loss or $750 in data recovery. Of course small
external storage would have to double in size as well.

Unfortunately people buy cheap and there is little motivation for
manufacturers to release a more expensive but safer solution that
nobody will buy.

Just a thought, take the hard drive to best buy, it doesn't cost
nearly as much for a data back up there. then send it to seagate for a
new one!! Word of advice don't buy from fry's. If you had purchased
the hard drive at best buy they would exchange it in store same day
under manufacture warranty for you.

My boyfriend drives me up the wall with buying movies and music on
Itunes. Yes it's slightly cheaper than buying the actual
hold-it-in-your-hands version, but in the end it's being stored onto
technology that will be obsolete in five years. Print me out a good
ole fashion picture that I can throw into a shoebox with every
intention of one day putting into a photo album. No seriously, I will
get to it. Eventually.

What good is the warranty if it doesn't cover data retrieval? If the
hard drive fails, isn't it just ASSUMED that you'd need data recovery?

Its not a scam, they will happily replace the hard drive. If the
warranty does not specify data recovery, then it is not their problem
to deal with.

I have never heard of a company that makes or resells a hard drive
that includes data recovery in the warranty. Hard drives are known to
fail either very early in their lives, or late. For long term
archival you should have two backup copies/drives - pretty much a good
idea regardless of the media choice.

Did you assume the warranty would cover data recovery, or did it state
that? You claim there was false advertising; if that is the case I
would expect there to be a statement in the warranty saying data
recovery is covered.

Data recovery is a case by case task; I have done it with floppy disks
and there were several flavors of failure and data corruption. That
is why you got such a wide range of prices.

If you expect to have this covered by a warranty, be prepared to pay
twice as much for the disk drive. Think about it - the drive cost
$120. There is simply no way a company could sell the hardware and
offer data retrieval at that price.

You made a mistake in assuming data retrieval would be covered. I
don't see why the packaging needs to be changed.

that a device intended to PROTECT your data can wind up being the
culprit in you LOSING the data!

I have a 40GB Seagate and a 320GB Maxtor and I HATE the Maxtor! It is
my second - the first choked much like your Seagate did and I had to
try and re-gather all the data (photos, music, movies) I had on it.
This one frequently freezes up, requiring a reboot and I pray to God
it never completely crashes or I would be up the creek! I have
learned to keep much of the most critical data on smaller pen drives
that don't rely on a moving internal drives or burned to DVD Roms as
well. It's overkill, but it's better than going through this.

I really feel bad that you got burned, I've been there too! But
that's apparently the downside to being high tech.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is never covered. Sony is not
responsible if you lose you pictures due to a defect in their digital
camera. In fact, in the old days of film cameras, a lab developing
your pictures would not be responsible for anything beyond the value
of the film and developing.

Companies don't put their complete warranties on the outside of a
package. Perhaps they should. But, until they do, it's important to
read the warranty when you open the package... if you care about stuff
like this. By law, if you do not agree with the warranty, you can
return the otherwise unused product for a full refund. (A retailed is
not required to accept the return, but the manufacturer will). DO NOT
USE THE PRODUCT UNTIL YOU READ THE WARRANTY.

This is hotly debated topic in the software industry, where many
warranties (and other terms and conditions) are not visible until you
install the product. However, once you install the product, you're
agreed to the warranty.

In the case of the hard drive, you should have been able to read the
full warranty without plugging in the hard drive.

I know... this puts an undue burden on the consumer. But, until the
law changes, you'll need to read the full warranty.

In this case, having worked with companies like this for a couple
decades, I can tell you that they will not pay to recover your data,
unless there is a good reason (e.g., the hard drive was built
intentionally to destroy people's data and they've been caught
red-handed).

If that happens, come back and let us know, since other owners of this
drive will need to know that the company intentionally built a drive
to destroy their data.

This is the exact reason why you should back up all data that you
don't want to lose. Either with another external drive or an online
service such as carbonite.com or mozy.com

I use carbonite.com, only about 60 bucks a year after taxes.

Its a little pricey, but if you want to be safe, and want your peace
of mind you pay it.

It was your responsibility to find out about data recovery prior to
purchase.


Good Day

No hard drive warranty covers data recovery. That price is not too
bad, I remember when it used to be thousands per gigabyte.

The reason data recovery is so expensive is (most of the time) it is
not just running a simple problem, it is getting in there and fixing
it by hand. Simple electrical problem on the drive? Not a problem
(usually). Data integrity issue? Get in there and fix each and every
sector on the hard drive.

I feel for you, I really do. It would kill me if I lost the pictures
and other things on my hard drive. And I agree that $750 to $3,500 is
outrageous.

If the hard drive is only $120, maybe you could just take the computer
to a local shop and have them transfer the data onto a new one. Our
computer shop did it for free when we needed a new hard drive. If you
didn't pay extra for the five year warranty, I would just forget about
it and try to cut your losses for the sake of retrieving your
pictures, etc.

The only other thing you can do is try to negotiate a lower price with
Seagate, but I think it will still probably be outrageous.