Replacing HDD through official service and support of Western Digital in Russia
I think many in their practice faced with problematic HDD. Showered, burned, knocking, bad blocks, SMART alarm - and many, many other problems. Contacting the manufacturer is often meaningless, due to difficulties with shipping or unavailability of exchange / return in the CIS countries. Western Digital was the first to meet a Russian user by opening a service center in Moscow and an exchange program for Russia. The article contains a story about how it works and personal experience in contacting their service.
Hard drives are technically complex devices that are far from always amenable to knee-garage repair methods, with rare exceptions, such as the “fly SS” error on Seagate drives. Most HDD manufacturers do not have their service centers, sending consumers to stores (which may no longer exist at the time of the breakdown), or to large resellers, who in the vast majority of cases simply do not want to deal with individuals (and end users in general), their clientele - retail chains and large organizations. Over the ocean, the RMA program is in full operation - a guarantee and exchange / return of the drive by the manufacturer itself, but it’s extremely problematic for a resident of Russia to use this program - an expensive shipment abroad, a lot of hassle with proper packaging, a customs declaration and the complete lack of guarantee that and send a replacement, the Post of Russia will not play her football on the way. And not all HDD manufacturers are “pleased” with such packages from Russia. Seagate on its website openly stated that the RMA program is not available for Russia , instead they recommend contacting the seller, which, as you understand, is not always possible and effective.
On Habré, questions about RMA from different manufacturers periodically pop up, but success stories are extremely rare. Here's an example of how a comrade managed to exchange Seagate HDDs via mail and Kazakhstan, but this happened even before Seagate’s RMA policy was tightened. Now and there they are increasingly being sent to the seller.
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All the following is true only for discs included in official supplies for the CIS. If your disc is purchased in Europe or the States, they can either refuse to accept or go to a meeting, there is no clear algorithm for action, but I advise you to come to the SC personally and explain the situation.
WD offers the following warranty terms for its disks for Russia:
Green - two years from the date of issue or from the date of sale with a check
Blue - two years
Red - three years
Black - five years (!!!)
Immediately after the purchase, I recommend registering a disk to check the warranty period and simplify further actions in the event of an “hour”.
Registration is carried out on the WD support site , where you are required to register as a user and register your disks (several at once), all you need is a serial number for each disk.
Registration itself is not required to process an application, but it simplifies the process and gives a clear idea of ​​the number of your discs and their warranty)
In the same place, on portal of support WD, it is possible to check the status of a guarantee of not registered disk, and to issue RMA.
To issue an RMA (application for the exchange of a faulty device) you are required to fill in a simple form in which the faulty disk and the type of its defect are selected - and at the exit a page with an exchange / return certificate containing a bar code comes out.
WD Service Center in Russia is a separate LLC VDM-Service , created with the participation of WD itself, and specializes in supporting end users, both individuals and legal entities.
In addition to warranty replacement and repair, they also offer
data recovery services for a fee.
To get a new disk to replace a faulty one, you need to take a faulty disk with an RMA coupon issued on the website and bring it to a service center in Moscow (the easiest option), or send it by post to:
When sending by mail, you need to follow the packaging guidelines listed here.
The service center in Moscow is located far enough away from the metro; it’s about 20 minutes by bus from Petrovsko-Razumovskaya metro station, their address is:
During a personal visit to the service center, the disk is inspected, the serial number is checked against the database, the acceptance report is filled (two pieces, the receipt of the failed disk and a replacement) - and the most pleasant is the issue of a brand new disk from the warehouse, or more new, in the absence of the same in stock!
In my case, there was an application for replacing three different disks: a 500 GB Black laptop (WD5000BPKX) and a desktop 1 TB Green (WD10EARS) in an amount of two pieces. The first one was bought in a good store, with a check guarantee, but if I went to the store, I would have had three weeks of testing and examination without a disk. The second two without a pedigree, without a check, got a barter on the netting for PC repair services). The failure of the first - a sharp increase in Reallocated Sectors Count and the blockage of SMART, the failures of the second and third - with a different interval, pounded and hung up the computer at autodetect.
All three discs were replaced on the spot by brand new samples of the same series, in sealed packaging, without the “restored” or “repaired” marks, these are new discs. The replacement was issued without any waiting or testing, only checking the numbers and visual inspection for damage, the integrity of the sticker and the contact pads of the board.
Since then, I prefer WD products. A valid warranty and a working exchange service program is an important argument when choosing a drive.
These days there are not so many independent HDD manufacturers.
Seagate, WD, Toshiba.
Seagate ate Maxtor and Samsung, and support remained at the rudimentary level, which was mentioned briefly at the beginning of the article.
WD is involved in an alliance with Hitachi, and WDM-Service confirmed that they will start servicing Hitachi devices too soon.
Fujitsu has practically left the market; I haven’t seen their drives in new devices for a long time.
Accordingly, there remain “two whales”, an approach to one of which I described in this article.
PS
Post written solely on the basis of personal experience. The staff of WYD-Service showed goodwill and understanding of the problem, the disk was urgently needed, which is why it was not possible to wait for three weeks in the store.
From myself I will say that shops with rare exceptions are extremely reluctant to contact, as they themselves often cause HDD failures. Boxes with disks are dropped in stock, kicked during transportation, and this phenomenon occurs even at the level of large resellers, completely “worthless” disks are being pushed off at a discount on radio markets and small points where it is completely impossible to exchange something under warranty.
Prehistory
Hard drives are technically complex devices that are far from always amenable to knee-garage repair methods, with rare exceptions, such as the “fly SS” error on Seagate drives. Most HDD manufacturers do not have their service centers, sending consumers to stores (which may no longer exist at the time of the breakdown), or to large resellers, who in the vast majority of cases simply do not want to deal with individuals (and end users in general), their clientele - retail chains and large organizations. Over the ocean, the RMA program is in full operation - a guarantee and exchange / return of the drive by the manufacturer itself, but it’s extremely problematic for a resident of Russia to use this program - an expensive shipment abroad, a lot of hassle with proper packaging, a customs declaration and the complete lack of guarantee that and send a replacement, the Post of Russia will not play her football on the way. And not all HDD manufacturers are “pleased” with such packages from Russia. Seagate on its website openly stated that the RMA program is not available for Russia , instead they recommend contacting the seller, which, as you understand, is not always possible and effective.
On Habré, questions about RMA from different manufacturers periodically pop up, but success stories are extremely rare. Here's an example of how a comrade managed to exchange Seagate HDDs via mail and Kazakhstan, but this happened even before Seagate’s RMA policy was tightened. Now and there they are increasingly being sent to the seller.
')
WD support and warranty
All the following is true only for discs included in official supplies for the CIS. If your disc is purchased in Europe or the States, they can either refuse to accept or go to a meeting, there is no clear algorithm for action, but I advise you to come to the SC personally and explain the situation.
WD offers the following warranty terms for its disks for Russia:
Green - two years from the date of issue or from the date of sale with a check
Blue - two years
Red - three years
Black - five years (!!!)
Product Registration
Immediately after the purchase, I recommend registering a disk to check the warranty period and simplify further actions in the event of an “hour”.
Registration is carried out on the WD support site , where you are required to register as a user and register your disks (several at once), all you need is a serial number for each disk.
Registration itself is not required to process an application, but it simplifies the process and gives a clear idea of ​​the number of your discs and their warranty)
In the same place, on portal of support WD, it is possible to check the status of a guarantee of not registered disk, and to issue RMA.
To issue an RMA (application for the exchange of a faulty device) you are required to fill in a simple form in which the faulty disk and the type of its defect are selected - and at the exit a page with an exchange / return certificate containing a bar code comes out.
Service center, addresses and working hours
WD Service Center in Russia is a separate LLC VDM-Service , created with the participation of WD itself, and specializes in supporting end users, both individuals and legal entities.
In addition to warranty replacement and repair, they also offer
To get a new disk to replace a faulty one, you need to take a faulty disk with an RMA coupon issued on the website and bring it to a service center in Moscow (the easiest option), or send it by post to:
143200, , ., ., .93
«-»
When sending by mail, you need to follow the packaging guidelines listed here.
The service center in Moscow is located far enough away from the metro; it’s about 20 minutes by bus from Petrovsko-Razumovskaya metro station, their address is:
. , . .81, 25 11.
: +7(495)940-77-51
:
- : c 9:00 18:00 (.)
: c 9:00 17:00 (.)During a personal visit to the service center, the disk is inspected, the serial number is checked against the database, the acceptance report is filled (two pieces, the receipt of the failed disk and a replacement) - and the most pleasant is the issue of a brand new disk from the warehouse, or more new, in the absence of the same in stock!
In my case, there was an application for replacing three different disks: a 500 GB Black laptop (WD5000BPKX) and a desktop 1 TB Green (WD10EARS) in an amount of two pieces. The first one was bought in a good store, with a check guarantee, but if I went to the store, I would have had three weeks of testing and examination without a disk. The second two without a pedigree, without a check, got a barter on the netting for PC repair services). The failure of the first - a sharp increase in Reallocated Sectors Count and the blockage of SMART, the failures of the second and third - with a different interval, pounded and hung up the computer at autodetect.
All three discs were replaced on the spot by brand new samples of the same series, in sealed packaging, without the “restored” or “repaired” marks, these are new discs. The replacement was issued without any waiting or testing, only checking the numbers and visual inspection for damage, the integrity of the sticker and the contact pads of the board.
Since then, I prefer WD products. A valid warranty and a working exchange service program is an important argument when choosing a drive.
What about the others?
These days there are not so many independent HDD manufacturers.
Seagate, WD, Toshiba.
Seagate ate Maxtor and Samsung, and support remained at the rudimentary level, which was mentioned briefly at the beginning of the article.
WD is involved in an alliance with Hitachi, and WDM-Service confirmed that they will start servicing Hitachi devices too soon.
Fujitsu has practically left the market; I haven’t seen their drives in new devices for a long time.
Accordingly, there remain “two whales”, an approach to one of which I described in this article.
PS
Post written solely on the basis of personal experience. The staff of WYD-Service showed goodwill and understanding of the problem, the disk was urgently needed, which is why it was not possible to wait for three weeks in the store.
From myself I will say that shops with rare exceptions are extremely reluctant to contact, as they themselves often cause HDD failures. Boxes with disks are dropped in stock, kicked during transportation, and this phenomenon occurs even at the level of large resellers, completely “worthless” disks are being pushed off at a discount on radio markets and small points where it is completely impossible to exchange something under warranty.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/231309/
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