Dead external Hard Drive after only 18 month

super_saint

Need some advise

Bought a Western Digital 1.5tg external hard drive from Amazon in May 2011. Drive has now died on me (losing all my data - only some was saved else where).

Amazon have refused to replace/refund as they state their warranties only last 12 months. I have emailed Western Digital for their response but am not holding out much hope!

What are my rights here ? I know HD's dont last forever BUT would expect it to last longer than just over 18 months

Thanks
Saint

InsideInsurance

Its over 6 months old and therefore it is up to you to prove to Amazon it is an inherent flaw and not miss use/ natural wear and tear and that the reasonable life is more than 18 months.

Generally go back and argue that under the Sales of Goods Act you can expect a reasonable life and you do not consider 18 months to be so. If they still say no its up to you to decide if it is worth commissioning and engineers report on it or just to cut your losses

shaun_from_Africa

Just about all WD drives come with a minimum of a 2 year warranty so they should hopefully provide you with a replacement.

Using the warranty procedure will mean that you shouldn't have to worry about having to go through Amazon for a remedy.

If you registered the drive when you purchased it, you should find the warranty details here:
https://westerndigital.secure.force.com/WarrantyCheck?lang=en

JohalaReewi

Even if you didn't register the drive when you bought it, use the WD warranty checker to see if it is still covered by WD. Some of their stuff is covered up to 5 years.

deanos

Amazon are based in Luxembourg so you should get a 2 year warranty on items bought there, not sure if that's true but read it a few times ...............

http://www.bitterwallet.com/amazon-know-your-rights/29102

jtk174

Having been in a similar situation myself, I think the only hope is as suggested and to try the WD website. Western Digital will deal with you directly and supply a replacement if it is under warranty.
You knowingly bought the item with a 12 month warranty and I believe you will have difficulty in getting anywhere with Amazon.

I used to deal with computer equipment a fair bit and remember a manufacturing problem a few years ago, that affected hard drives right across the board. From memory, it was a faulty chip on the drives main board at fault, manufactured by an electronics company and supplied to different drive manufacturers.
At the time the manufacturers reduced their warranty period to a year. After the news broke of so many failures and probably a change in manufacturing, the warranty period went back up!

BTW electronic components can fail any time and are very often subject to extreme user conditions ( heat, cold, impact etc ) so its a lesson learned, always have multiple backups ( 1 really isn't enough ).