Warranty of shucked hard drives

I have registered my recently-purchased external hard drive with WD, and it tells me I have until December 2022 for warranty. Do I lose this warranty if I shuck the hard drive so I can put it in my desktop? And if it then fails, can I send it into WD for an RMA as a naked disk?

Yep.

100% Voided Warranty if you shuck it.

Most people try to be sneaky and put it back in the enclosure and hope that WD don’t notice it’s been tampered with, and shucked voiding the warrantry.

Sending them the bare naked disk … and they will send it straight back to you. Un-Repaired.

Why is that? It seems a bit stupid to deny warranty because you shucked your hard drive, especially when that wasn’t the cause of the failure.

Hey, i don’t work for WD or make the Warranty Policy.

Read the warranty limitations … and if you disagree, then take it up with WD’s Legal Department.

Your Use of the Product

WD will have no liability for any Product returned if WD determines that:

is attributable to misuse, improper installation, alteration (including removing or obliterating labels and opening or removing external covers (unless authorized to do so by Western Digital or an authorized Service Center)), accident or mishandling while in the possession of someone other than WD.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/Warranty_Policy

This kind of stuff annoys me. Essentially, they’re saying that you can only go to someone who is “authorised” to get repairs. What the hell does that even mean?

If you read that wording again

“is attributable to misuse, improper installation, alteration (including removing or obliterating labels and opening or removing external covers

I strongly suggest that is unenforcable… how does WD prove that it was the shucking that caused failure, but they know very few consumers would take them to court over a single HDD