I’ve had my External for about 2 1/2 months now. It worked great for about 2 months never had any issues then all of a sudden it stopped working. It was unable to initalize and to be recognized by the computer. After reading just about every single post on the internet involving issues with this External. I tried every single troubleshooting step that I could try, trying to avoid calling Customer Support. After everything being unsuccessful I decided to call WD support. Let me first say with sacrasm that this was the best phone call I’ve ever had in my life. First they run you through the simple duh! steps of check this before we go on meaning (Check cables, move the usb cord to a different usb, and moving the power to a wall jack). I only use my External for TV shows and Movies and had a TB loaded on it when it decided to take a dump. Of course for my time I was hoping to get my shows back. After Customer Service could not fix anything they decided to send me another pair of cables saying that it is possible they were damaged in shipping. Ok lets try this out I waited 3 days tried the new cables and once again same thing. Smartware doesnt do anything for me, Trying to update Firmware fails everytime. After the cables failing and being dissappointed that this troubleshooting tactic didnt work. I decided to call WD phone support again. When I called the Customer Support Individual said that the website was down and that his database was also down so he could not help me right now and to call back 1200. I couldnt believe it. I’m in the USAF and whenever our databases go down were trained to keep doing our job maybe its a little far fetched for me to believe that Western Digital should have the same ability. Anyways I waited until 1200 called back and was once again run through the simple steps of trying another computer bla bla bla kind of steps. After talking with them about everything that I had read online asked why are they still selling the 3TB hardrive when it obviously has so many issues and should probably be recalled and repairs like the first X-box 360’s. Customer Support laughed saying that thier is nothing wrong with thier product… Interesting. I was told that I would have to send my Hard Drive in and if I wanted Data Recovery I need to pay one of the companies that WD have on thier website to get my stuff… Time Out! So let me get this right we buy your product for $250 that has a 2 year warranty yet you don’t cover data recovery??? How does that work exactly. Is it customers fault that your product failed? I will say that I appreciate the fact that Western Digital is willing to replace my Hardrive but at the same time I feel that shows that they realize that there is an issue with thier product. I believe myself and anyone thats having an issue within the 2 year warranty should be offered free Data Recovery.
Ok, no one offers data recovery. Not a single hard drive company includes data recovery on their warranty agreement. That’s something they state on the warranty but normally we don’t read those fine prints until is necessary.
Sounds like some kind of monopoly to me. I’m sure since were being sent to these companies that Western Digital gets another percentage from it.
You also just found out not to trust just one drive with important data no matter who makes it internal or external. Most of us also found that out the hard way a long time ago before external drives were common.
Joe
