Recently I had a Scorpio Black drive that I removed form a HP laptop due to the drive failing. The drive has the manufacturing date of 26 Feb 2011. The HP laptop is 14 months old. Obviously as far as HP is concerned the laptop is out of warranty. I was very surprised when I tried to get warranty service from WD, since a Scopio Black usually has a five year warranty, I was told that the drive was sold to a manufacturer and to deal with them for the warranty. I looked VERY hard and many times at the drive and I STILL cannot see the initials HP on the drive anywhere, all I see is WD. I think WD is slipping since they are trying to lay off their responsibility on HP when they KNOW what HP’s warranty period is. I have known for a few years that HP’s reliabilty has been bad, but I didn’t think WD drives were contributing to HP’s problems. I haven’t recommended to my customers to buy HP laptops for more than 3 years. It also appears that I will have to add WD drives to my list of companies who provide sub-standard service and are living, or trying to, on a reputation that no longer applies. It is so sad really, that a company like WD finds it can no longer provide warranty support for what I am sure is many hard drives installed by manufacturers.
Hi well it’s not just HP any prebuilt PC comes with a one year warranty for all parts. The firmware on that drive would be HP firmware not WD . I am sure you know when you bought your HP you knew it had a one year warranty if the video went on it now you would have to replace it yourself so why not the HD. Prebuilts are like that a desktop is the same one year warranty on every thing video card one year warranty if you bought just the video card some companys offer lifetime warranty.
The firmware is WD, not HP. Even if it was, my car has many parts, and some parts supplied by other manufacturers are covered not by the auto manufacturer but the one who made the part. I would guess that you are somehow connected to WD and used by them to deflect issues with their drives, which is a fairly routine practice in today’s world.
So, in your world I am just supposed to accept the fact that WD is producing and selling sub-standard parts?
If you replace the drive it will have a 5 year warranty. Theres not much more to say its the pc world and prebuilts have always been this way no matter what company made what part. Laptop drives take a beating did you by chance look at the smart data on the drive. Yes the other guys now have a one year warranty on all oem drives so you have a choice to make thats for sure.
This situation does not surprise me at all. You didn’t buy the drive, HP did. So Western Digital has no responsibility to you; their responsibility is to HP.
It’s not at all uncommon for company A to sell large numbers of parts to company B at a steep discount from the retail price, with the condition that company B will take all responsibility for product support. Come to think of it, when I buy a computer from, say, Dell with Windows preinstalled, Microsoft will not give me any technical support on the operating system; that’s Dell’s job. If, on the other hand, I buy a retail version of the same operating system and install it on the same machine, Microsoft will support me. The reason for the difference is that I will have paid a lot more for that software than Dell did, and they have to absorb the support costs. For that matter, if I want, I can buy a “system builder” version of that same operating system for less than half the price of the retail version, but then I’m completely on my own when it comes to support.
Here’s another example. Once upon a time I bought a shop manual for a car I owned at the time. The manual had a chapter describing the transmission. At the beginning of that chapter was a disclaimer saying something like this: “The transmission for this car is manufactured for us by Company X. However, part of our agreement with Company X is that our customers will not attempt to obtain parts or service directly from Company X. If you need any transmission parts, service, or information, you must come to us or to one of our dealers. Any attempts to contact Company X directly will be redirected to us.”
I don’t see anything wrong with such arrangements–they’re just part of doing business.
