Western Digital No Longer Honoring Warranties on OEM or Bare Drives.

[taz420nj]

Yes, to the end user. Go back and re-read the information that has been posted in the thread.

No, NOT to the end user. I've been buying WD drives for 20+ years (been buying them for resale/business over the past 5 years as I now own a computer repair business), and they have NEVER warrantied or offered RMA to the end user on any drives other than those which come in retail boxes. "Bare drive" and OEM are the same thing. They are meant to be sold to system builders, and the system builder is expected to provide warranty service. The retailer/OEM has their own channel for returning defective drives within the stated warranty period.

It's no different than OEM versions of Windows - Microsoft will not, under ANY circumstances, provide support for OEM versions of Windows, because part of the OEM partner agreement that the OEM/System Builder signs is that THEY provide a tech support channel.

The reason it is more prominent now is that you can pick up bare/OEM drives just about anywhere, including major retailers (such as Newegg, TigerDirect, and brick-and-mortars like MicroCenter), whereas you used to only find them at computer shows (once the hidden treasure of the computer building world, now largely extinct). It doesn't change the fact that the retailer who sold you the drive is expected to honor the warranty. I had to laugh at the guy who claims to be suing WD. It's a waste of money because he is going to lose. If a warranty has been advertised, it is the sole responsibility of the retailer, NOT WD.

 

[R-T-B]

There is terminology difference between a "bare drive" (which may/may not also be retail) and a "OEM drive"

Unfortunately, the lines here seem to be blurring.

 

[taz420nj]

There is terminology difference between a "bare drive" (which may/may not also be retail) and a "OEM drive"

Unfortunately, the lines here seem to be blurring.

No there isn't, and there has never been. They mean the same thing: A cheaper drive with no retail packaging, no software or accessories, designed to be installed in a preconfigured system with no end-user warranty from the manufacturer. Like I said, I've dealt with WD for over 20 years, and their policy has always been crystal clear - it it doesn't come in a full retail box, it doesn't have a warranty from them.

The only thing that's blurry is some people's understanding of how warranties work.

 

[Jetster]

No there isn't, and there has never been. They mean the same thing: A cheaper drive with no retail packaging, no software or accessories, designed to be installed in a preconfigured system with no end-user warranty from the manufacturer. Like I said, I've dealt with WD for over 20 years, and their policy has always been crystal clear - it it doesn't come in a full retail box, it doesn't have a warranty from them.

The only thing that's blurry is some people's understanding of how warranties work.

Bare drives are OEM drives that are sold per a retailer by themselves in an anti static bag. The warranty is covered by the manufacture of the drive. An OEM drive comes installed with a PC and the warranty is covered by the manufacture of the PC not the Drives manufacture. SO There IS a difference. If its build by a small custom PC builder it may be covered by both.

See when a Manufascture like Dell buys bulk drives they are not added to any warranty program. So will not come up on the warranty lists with the manufacture if you try to RMA the drive. However most companies will warranty them anyway

 

[R-T-B]

No there isn't, and there has never been. They mean the same thing: A cheaper drive with no retail packaging, no software or accessories, designed to be installed in a preconfigured system with no end-user warranty from the manufacturer. Like I said, I've dealt with WD for over 20 years, and their policy has always been crystal clear - it it doesn't come in a full retail box, it doesn't have a warranty from them.

The only thing that's blurry is some people's understanding of how warranties work.

You are clearly wrong as evidenced by other manufacturers policies. I regulary buy both bare and OEM Hitachi Ultrastars and on the OEM ones there is no warranty except from my distributor. The packaging looks identical except for a "OEM" stamp on the drive. HGST honors the warranties on their bare Ultrastars, and always has. You are basically just proving WD is the exception to the rule if that's their policy to lump the two together.

 

[taz420nj]

The packaging looks identical except for a "OEM" stamp on the drive.

That's pretty funny, since every single one of these are OEM. They came out of (mostly Dell and HP) laptops. Not a single one mentions "OEM" anywhere on it.

Same with these. All were in OEM systems.

 

[R-T-B]

The OEM stamp may be applied by the distributor to indicate their warranty practice, unsure. I'm certainly not trying to be deceitful.

And I have a feeling a lot of those above may be bare drives rather than explicit OEMs, as you include other manufacturers. Did you buy them off newegg? Or a respectable distributor? Besides the confusion over WD, most normal distributors do not sell actual OEM drives.

EDIT: Yep, the Seagates are at least end user (Seagates term for retail) bare drives, as shown here:

Check your own serial numbers man.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Oh wow, I need to learn to read. Those were pulled from working systems? No one else worked on them? Wow. This just muddies things up more tbh. It means we can't rely on serial checks.

 

[taz420nj]

The OEM stamp may be applied by the distributor to indicate their warranty practice, unsure. I'm certainly not trying to be deceitful.

And I have a feeling a lot of those above may be bare drives rather than explicit OEMs, as you include other manufacturers. Did you buy them off newegg? Or a respectable distributor? Besides the confusion over WD, most normal distributors do not sell actual OEM drives.

EDIT: Yep, the Seagates are at least end user (Seagates term for retail) bare drives, as shown here:



Check your own serial numbers man.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Oh wow, I need to learn to read. Those were pulled from working systems? No one else worked on them? Wow. This just muddies things up more tbh. It means we can't rely on serial checks.

I didn't buy them from anywhere. I own a computer repair business and they are all failed out of customers' systems. The majority are out of HP and Dell laptops. That's about a month's worth right there.

 

[Ahhzz]

It was my understanding, and maybe our rep can jump in here, that when a company such as WD sold drives to a manufacturer, they sold them a "bank" of serial numbers, and these drives, no matter the quality (blue vs black etc), are covered by the OEM partner.

For example, the WD black that I just had replaced on a laptop yesterday is only covered by the 3 year Dell warranty, not the 5 that a WD Black normally warrants. You can purchase "bare" drives from resellers such as Newegg (like the WD Black 2TB I bought last week which came in an anti-stat bag, in a brown cardboard box), and those are covered by the manufacturer (WD in this case). I can verifiy this by the fact that with all this noise, I went to verify my warranty, and discovered that I was missing out on 3 months coverage, contacted WD and had them bump the warranty up by three months with my proof of purchase.

There is a difference, at least specifically for WD, in "OEM" and "Bare Drive". OEM are drives provided to manufacturing businesses, and are (usually in my experience) covered by the OEM provider (Dell, HP, etc). Bare drives can be purchased online from companies like Amazon and Newegg, and are covered by the full manufacturer's warranty (WD). Retail can be purchased online (Amazon) and in B&M stores (Best Buy, Office Staples Max), and are also covered by the full Manufacturer warranty.


The lesson to be learned, without all the epeen going on, is check your warranty upon purchase of a drive from any reseller. In a computer, expect the drive to only be covered by the PC warranty. If there's a discrepancy, contact the HD company, and request resolution.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I didn't buy them from anywhere. I own a computer repair business and they are all failed out of customers' systems. The majority are out of HP and Dell laptops. That's about a month's worth right there.

You have THAT many failing drives /Month ?!

 

[Aquinus]

You have THAT many failing drives /Month ?!

People aren't going to bring their computer to a repair shop unless there is something wrong with it. I think the chance of getting people coming in with dead drives would probably rather high compared to all other issues. It's #1 high failure prone component from my experience. I've lost more HDDs than any other piece of hardware, however it seems that DRAM is pretty high up there as well, be it in the form of DIMMs or VRAM.

 

[R-T-B]

I didn't buy them from anywhere. I own a computer repair business and they are all failed out of customers' systems. The majority are out of HP and Dell laptops. That's about a month's worth right there.

Then that does indeed seem to be odd that the serial number detection tools treat them like they would have honored the warranty... weird.

 

[jboydgolfer]

People aren't going to bring their computer to a repair shop unless there is something wrong with it.

Yeah...thanks for clearing that up..O_O

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah...thanks for clearing that up..O_O

I know. I thought people just brought them in to keep us employed... my world view has been shattered.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I know. I thought people just brought them in to keep us employed... my world view has been shattered.

Dont feel bad.

 

[Aquinus]

Yeah...thanks for clearing that up..O_O

I know. I thought people just brought them in to keep us employed... my world view has been shattered.

Well, you did say:

You have THAT many failing drives /Month ?!

I read that as not noticing that they weren't his drives.

No there isn't, and there has never been. They mean the same thing: A cheaper drive with no retail packaging, no software or accessories, designed to be installed in a preconfigured system with no end-user warranty from the manufacturer. Like I said, I've dealt with WD for over 20 years, and their policy has always been crystal clear - it it doesn't come in a full retail box, it doesn't have a warranty from them.

The only thing that's blurry is some people's understanding of how warranties work.

That's actually BS. I've bought all 4 WD 1TB from NewEgg as "bare drives." Two of them were DOA and they honored RMA on them. So no, box has nothing to do with it. If the drive was sold to a company that sells a computer with the drive inside of it, they don't honor warranty, you need to contact the vendor. That's really all I got out of this initial discussion.

 

[Jetster]

Well my though is why would you hold on to the drives if they needed replacing and no longer work?

 

[Aquinus]

Well my though is why would you hold on to the drives if they needed replacing and no longer work?

Maybe he just hasn't recycled them yet? I think there are probably better things for him to do than to make a trip to the transfer station every day instead of once a month or something like that.

 

[R-T-B]

Well my though is why would you hold on to the drives if they needed replacing and no longer work?

Good question, actually.

He may just be a slob like me... I have a few drives laying around too.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Well, you did say:
I read that as not noticing that they weren't his drives.

No, i was just basically surprised @ the amount of drives he/she pulled in a month..thats all.I see 30 drives, and there may be more...Business is good.

i live in Western Massachusetts, and We have 5 Colleges in a 30 mile radius NOT including community colleges..... Here students tend to just toss the Whole PC/Laptop, and We end up with piles of them instead. oranges and apples.

 

[taz420nj]

You have THAT many failing drives /Month ?!

In all honesty this was a heavy month all around.. I usually get about half to 3/4 of that - but it's overwhelmingly laptop drives, because laptops get knocked around and G-forces kill read heads. We've had really bad thunderstorms nearly every night and I've seen a ton of lightning/surge related damage. I've done about 15 insurance quotes in the past 3 weeks (by the way, I'm the only repair guy in town, LOL) for people whose power lines took direct strikes and killed everything in their houses. Wanna see my boxes of dead motherboards and power supplies?

Then that does indeed seem to be odd that the serial number detection tools treat them like they would have honored the warranty... weird.

They have changed the end-user tools since I last used them. For example any of the WD drives wouldn't say a warranty status, they used to tell you that it is an OEM product and to seek support from the system builder. Now the three I have just say "Out of warranty".

I know. I thought people just brought them in to keep us employed... my world view has been shattered.

Say it ain't so!

Well my though is why would you hold on to the drives if they needed replacing and no longer work?

Maybe he just hasn't recycled them yet? I think there are probably better things for him to do than to make a trip to the transfer station every day instead of once a month or something like that.

Good question, actually.

He may just be a slob like me... I have a few drives laying around too.

LOL the regular e-waste (motherboards, cards, power supplies) gets recycled. I have a guy that comes by twice a month and takes everything. Old hard drives pose a security problem, so I either take them out to the country to use as target practice, or else I have a friend with a 50 horsepower tree shredder.. Both ways are fun..

 

[jboydgolfer]

LOL the regular e-waste (motherboards, cards, power supplies) gets recycled. I have a guy that comes by twice a month and takes everything. Old hard drives pose a security problem, so I either take them out to the country to use as target practice, or else I have a friend with a 50 horsepower tree shredder.. Both ways are fun..

Yup...one of the best parts is REALLY breaking the Components......PULL!!!....

 

[R-T-B]

Yup...one of the best parts is REALLY breaking the Components......PULL!!!....

I kill my non-sensitive drives data with the following:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

Of course, your way is both more fun, and more secure.

 

[taz420nj]

Yup...one of the best parts is REALLY breaking the Components......PULL!!!....

Haha no, I did trap shooting with them once.. Then I had to go find the ones I missed. Then I had to go find them again.. It wasn't fun! They're better fodder for my Savage 110 Bolt Action .338

I kill my non-sensitive drives data with the following:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

Of course, your way is both more fun, and more secure.

Can't do that with failed drives..

 

[Tsunamijhoe]

To whom it may concern.

There has now been an udate regarding the OEM warranty

After a LOT of back and forth with WD,and lawsuit threats, they have suddenly agreed to accept the serials on the drives i bought,and thus honor the warranty that should have been there to begin with. They have not provided a full explanation as to how OEM drives ended up in the retail chain, but hinted at distributor problems. WD has said OEM drives should NOT be available for purchase at consumer level retailers.

This is the wording from the last e-mail i recieved from the WD representative:

I am glad to inform you that Western Digital head department had updated drives status and now those drives were added to your account and OEM mark was removed from those serial numbers.
Also we have received confirmation that those drives shouldn't be sold to a reseller in the first place. Unfortunately, it is not possible to follow their way into the shop.
For future references we strongly recommend to register the drives just after the purchase.
And if there will be any issues please contact us and we will be happy to assist you.

We will now go ahead and close your case. However, if you want us to reopen it or if you require further assistance, please reply.

>From my side, thank you for your time and all the best to you.

Thank you for using Western Digital products and services!