Buying WD HardDisk - Advise needed.

[Scott274]

Yesterday I went to buy a 160 GB IDE Western Digital Harddisk (internal) in lamington road mumbai (Mccann Infosys). They didn't have any stock at that time so I will be buying on monday instead.

My query here is, don't WD internal harddisks come in any original company box cover (with internal packing etc). The shopkeeper showed me some of the stored harddisks and all of them were in some kind of plastic like covers (sealed probably but not sure). I had heard that internal harddisks are bit sensitive and can be damaged even by a fall from a short height. So I thought they would come in boxes but the shopkeeper told me only external harddisks come in box covers and internal don't. Now Mccann is one of the more famous shops in lamington road, so should I just believe him and go ahead with my buying plan.

And don't we get any guarantee/warranty card etc alongwith the purchased WD internal harddisk? The shopkeeper told me that the purchase bill and the model number is all that is needed while claiming the five year guarantee at any WD service center.

One last thing, do we usually get the 80 pin connector cable etc along with the harddisk or will I have to buy these things separately. Please advise what other things should I ask for/buy along with the harddisk.

 

[RMN]

The packaging is something i want to know abt too.
I got it in the Silver cover and the bill.

but check the prices of 250gb HDD i guess it costs pretty much the same as 160's.

 

[desiibond]

^^ yep. that's what I think he got. There is not carboard box for HDD (like the one's for CPU or writer). They come in anti-static plastic-like cover with a seal. All you need to worry about is whether the warranty is proper or not.

 

[ishanjain]

If you are considering WD because of its home to home replacement offer, then you should think again. I got some bitter experience with WD which i shared on some forums. I am copy pasting the post of mine, just read it.

I am creating this topic just to tell you about my horrible experience with western digital.plz consider this before buying anything from them.

First i telll you that i am having my own business of computers and i am telling you this after i have talked with many custoomers and vendors of wd.

2 months ago i bought one western digital 160 gb sata hd for myself.basically i liked the warranty service of this company as they say that they send their employee to our home to collect the hd in case any problem arise.i collected a lot of data from my freinds and almost filled it up.most of the data contained in it has no backup.but suddenly after 1 weeks, it crashed.i lost whole of my data.

then i contacted western digital for the warranty first by internet and then by calling them.they have got a very complicated procedure for the warranty as they have told us many things to do like properly packaging the hd.most of the things are still unclear to me.then i somehow managed to do all my job properly and then made them a call so that they can come to my home to collect the hd.they said that they will be at my home within 48 hrs.

today,over one month have passed and still nobody is here to collect my hd.they only used to call me for the confirmation of the hd pickup.i used to call them regularly and all they say is that they will send someone within 48 hrs.i was very much fed up of calling them again and again.so i decided to go and submit it myself at okhla.the place from where all computer dealings for delhi is done.i have got some known peaple there.thay told me that there are already about 200+ hd from wd bitting the dust for over 1 month.wd has got a very bad customer care service and even worst warranty service.i have no other option than to leave it there.

then i surveyed the market abt wd.all i found are peaple complaining abt bad service from wd.only the peaple whose hd's are working fine are not complaining abt it(as they are are unaware of this).





Although i see more number of people complaining about seagate, but i think thats because they sale more number of pieces. WD is good, but i think its door to door warranty service is a flat lie. Can you believe me, after all that happened, i didnt even tell them that i dont need their service anymore.... They just forgot me after 2-3 calls. I asked them to send someone even on their last call. I have to wait for 3 months to get my HDD replaced.
The last thing i couldnt resist telling you, as you might think i am an idiot, is that i am working out from the morning till now to figure out a new problem in my pc. Conclusion - That HDD from western Digital which i got in replacement is down again. Just finished backing up my data into seagate.

 

[The Sorcerer]

Silver cover= static bags= OEM drives
Retail=box+ some other packaging= retail packs
Both are legal to be sold as per manufacturer's policy and have standard 5 year warranty but OEM are cheaper by default. Other than that, I haven't seen much difference- even the model numbers are same. All shopkeepers are supposed to give you the bill for legal reasons. The warranty is usually is on the serial number and the status can be checked from WD's site. If they cant find the serial number, they ask for a copy of the bill. In this day of age anyone who is even atleast 10 standard pass from a decent background knows that you have to take a proper bill since you are paying for it- to the government as vat and other tax and to the company since the warranty is included in it and its for consumers to be on a safe side if some conflict happens. Both retail AND OEM get a copy of the bill- no but no if.
I never had an issue with WD so far and my 500GB seagate drives was replaced 8 times in a row. Its a no brainer to check which person uses what power supply. As I observed based on hard drives Sata drives are more sensitive to voltage ripple against IDE drives which has a great shell life.

 

[Scott274]

@ RMN: I think 160 GB IDE comes for about Rs.2100/- and 250 GB IDE comes in about Rs.2700/- which is quite a difference for me so I will have to go for the 160 GB one. Someone please confirm the price difference again.

@ desiibond: Thanks for replying mate

@ ishanjain: Sigh!! after asking around for a long time, I had finally decided upon on a WD hard disk but you post seems to have put doubts in my mind again. Back to square one, what to do now.. Seagate or Western Digital

@ Sorcerer: Thank for the info on OEM/Retail and billing. You said something about power supply, I have Intex 450W-230V SMPS. There are no SATA ports on my motherboard so will have to go for IDE hard disk. Had considered a SATA adapter PCI card but then thought it's would be better to just go for a simple IDE one since I am not planning on any major upgrades anytime soon and even my motherboard (or whole assembled PC to say) is 4 years old.

 

[desiibond]

If you want to have peace of mind, get Seagate 7200.12 series HDD's. 7200.11 have (had) firmware issues.

hehehe.

Huge numbers of seagate HDD's crashed recently (7200.11 series) due to a firmware bug. Then they released new firmware and asked everyone having certain batch of serial numbers to upgrade firmware. Then, every harddisk for which firmware upgrade was done has crashed. Anyways, they released stable firmware but by then hundreds or may be thousands lost their data.

So, which is better 100 HDD's waiting in line or hundred's of HDD's crashing??

 

[The Sorcerer]

I wouldnt keep much faith in those el cheapo power supplies. Not worth the risk. See if you can change but most probably your motherboard has a 20 pin connector rather than 24 pin connector which we get.

 

[saqib_khan]

Hey Scott274, y ot purchase Hitachi hard disk. Manyyy of my friends and myself r using Hitachi's hard disk. Mine was always a good experience with it. So I advise u to go for Hitachi.

And yes, u'll just get a transparent plastic cover with it. It is ok to go with it.

 

[desiibond]

^^ Hitachi doens't have proper support infrastructure for IT products!!!

ONly options here are Seagate and Western Digital.

 

[::cyborg::]

dont buy western digital hdd they arer mad people they give hdd if gone corrupt after 30 days they keep on saying we hv to import it from singapore and that idiotic things our custom is blocked the ship is there on the harbour

shi**y things like that

i felt i was never gonna get my drive back but when i got after 30 days i straight went to vendor and replaced with a samsung one first i not even formated or used it



LOOK WHAT I WROTE TO WESTERN DIGITAL :d

Customer (Sandeep Singh) 09/28/2008 04:18 AM
Respected concernd person,

I have got fed up of waiting of mx hard drive it WAS told that the replaced hard drive will be given to ME in 3 working days but now its more than 25 days

I WANT TO DRAW UR ATTENTION THAT UR FU*KIN Customer care is useless they say that hard drive is out of stock so they are waiting for the shipment. i THING U PEOPLE DONT HV BALLS TO GIVE MY HDD BACK AND FACE ME !!!! MORONS

Western digital has got a FU*CKIN bad service and a *****Y useless customer support.

FU*K OFF U WESTERN DIGITAL

SANDEEP SINGH

 

[RMN]

hmm...so WD has poor Cust. Care and Seagate has buggy products.
We customers are really trapped huh!

btw ive been using a WD160gb and its so far been fine..

and are we supposed to get the cables along with the HD?

 

[desiibond]

^^no.

 

[ishanjain]

I told you people that WD's claim of having a perfect customer care service is an absolute lie. I havent even seen any of their "Warranty @ your home" posters for a long time now, gotta confirm this that they are still having this service or not.

RMN, you are right, we customers are really trapped. These king of issues are increasing at an alarming rate. I am even thinking of leaving my hardware business because of increasing number of complaints.


@OP,
you have seen the conversations and there are both satisfied and angry customers for both the manufactures. My suggestion for you is to go for seagate. That firmware issue has just ruined its goodwill, else it is a good company. Problems do occur in both the HDD's but the thing you should consider is the warranty service from seagate. I am satidfied with seagate's service......

 

[ashu888ashu888]

and are we supposed to get the cables along with the HD?

Well, i didnt get one and i dnt think cables are provided either...

U can always buy them from a computer stationary shop.. for 20-30 bucks..

 

[Scott274]

Thanks for the advice friends

By the way does anybody know if there are any Seagate service centers in Mumbai (near Dadar). It's not like I have made up my mind, but since Seagate doesn't give any home service like WD, then incase of any problem taking the hard disk (or whole cabinet for those like me who don't know how to remove HDD) to their service center will be a problem if one is located far away. Probably will have to pay some technician 150-200 bucks to remove-reinstall HDD every time.

 

[ashu888ashu888]

Probably will have to pay some technician 150-200 bucks to remove-reinstall HDD every time.

Omg.. u pay this much everytime u wanna hv the HDD removed?? :O
I can do tat for u for jus 20 bucks.. lol..

But on a serious note, there are jus 2 cables u need to worry abt dude, one is the 4 wire power cord cable and another will be ur IDE cable (a grey colored 3 inch thick cable if the HDD is PATA) or a SATA (slim, red color cable) in case of a SATA HDD
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Cheers n e-peace....

 

[tkin]

Yesterday I went to buy a 160 GB IDE Western Digital Harddisk (internal) in lamington road mumbai (Mccann Infosys). They didn't have any stock at that time so I will be buying on monday instead.

My query here is, don't WD internal harddisks come in any original company box cover (with internal packing etc). The shopkeeper showed me some of the stored harddisks and all of them were in some kind of plastic like covers (sealed probably but not sure). I had heard that internal harddisks are bit sensitive and can be damaged even by a fall from a short height. So I thought they would come in boxes but the shopkeeper told me only external harddisks come in box covers and internal don't. Now Mccann is one of the more famous shops in lamington road, so should I just believe him and go ahead with my buying plan.

And don't we get any guarantee/warranty card etc alongwith the purchased WD internal harddisk? The shopkeeper told me that the purchase bill and the model number is all that is needed while claiming the five year guarantee at any WD service center.

One last thing, do we usually get the 80 pin connector cable etc along with the harddisk or will I have to buy these things separately. Please advise what other things should I ask for/buy along with the harddisk.

Its O.K, the package shown to you is called OEM, it does not come in any box of any sort, but the bulk of HDDs is delivered in a large secured box, so no chance of damage, also HDDs can withstand large shocks(300Gs) in non operating mode.

The boxed package is called retail version, costs more and contains SATA cables, screws and other stuffs, these are not available in INDIA, so OEM is the way to go.

Retail Drive- *www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136351

OEM Drive- *www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136131

You need to buy SATA data cable and molex to sata power adapter if your PSU lacks SATA power connectors.
SATA data cables cost about 40/- and SATA power cables should cost the same.

Warranty is determined by the serial no, you don't need anything, just put the HDD serial no HERE, and you will know the warranty status of the HDD.
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Posted again:
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I told you people that WD's claim of having a perfect customer care service is an absolute lie. I havent even seen any of their "Warranty @ your home" posters for a long time now, gotta confirm this that they are still having this service or not.

RMN, you are right, we customers are really trapped. These king of issues are increasing at an alarming rate. I am even thinking of leaving my hardware business because of increasing number of complaints.


@OP,
you have seen the conversations and there are both satisfied and angry customers for both the manufactures. My suggestion for you is to go for seagate. That firmware issue has just ruined its goodwill, else it is a good company. Problems do occur in both the HDD's but the thing you should consider is the warranty service from seagate. I am satidfied with seagate's service......

Seagate's cust care is the best, replaced my HDD in 3 days, now that they have the firmware issue resolved they should be back on track, their 7200.12 HDDs are already making news, they are quite good, just waiting to see if any FW issue crops up.