I recently purchased three new hard drives—one blue and two black. However, I noticed that their labels appear unusually white, and the QR codes are missing. The labels do include serial numbers. I’m concerned that these drives might be refurbished or white-label products. What are some reliable methods to verify their authenticity and determine if they are indeed new or refurbs/recertified drives?
Where did you buy them?
A good test (not absolute) is to check their serial numbers on the WD warranty site.
If the serial numbers do appear and show the warranty status, you’re probably good.
If not, they could still be new drives but were made to be OEM included drives in a PC or other device made by another manufacturer.
Or they could be refurbs or even knock offs.
You can also contact WD Support and ask them.
If you want genuine parts, you need to buy from an authorized dealer or some other trusted source.
Show us photos of the labels, PCB and any stickers on the body of the HDD, including the edges.
White label drives may have been shucked from external enclosures.
To check if your hard drives are new or refurbished, start by entering the serial numbers on the manufacturer’s website to check the warranty status—refurbished drives often show shorter warranties or are labeled as “recertified.”
Use a tool like CrystalDiskInfo to check the drive’s power-on hours; new drives should have close to zero.
Inspect the labels—missing QR codes or plain white designs can indicate OEM or refurbished units.
Also, consider where you bought the drives, as some third-party sellers may list used or recertified drives as new. Finally, run a full scan with tools like HD Tune or Victoria to check for any bad sectors or signs of wear.
Seatools can wipe a disk with zero to allow sector spare allocation for disks that need some recovery, usually sector sparing is transparent but zero wipe is more deterministic
