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By ijoselito | February 1, 2008

Hi everyone!

 

I would like to share my experiences with WD with you all.

 

I bought 2 WD external drives last year, an 120GB passport and a Mybook Pro Edition 250GB. I was quite happy with the performance. 

 

To be fair, I am a Computer Games student (I would like to do software engineering after that) and I do a lot of stuff with my hardware, I really use it a lot. I do like good quality hardware (and software), that’s why I have 5 Macs, an Apple Cinema Display, and other pricey gadgets. 

 

The 120GB passport drive was a cheap external drive for my Macbook (only has 60GB). I used to travel with my 40GB pictures library and my 50GB music library plus some movies and the occasional project that I wanted to show off with. The original files were stored in my iMac 24″ 250GB hard drive (which I trust). 

 

As my iMac hard drive was getting full with my files I sought an external solution to free some space in the populated hard drive. Macs make extensive use of virtual memory so having free space in your hard drive can make a big difference in performance. I bought the MyBook Pro Edition 250GB from a local retailer. I wasn’t looking for the best deal, but for the best performance and reliability possible. I was advised to buy it because its triple interface would allow me to use it with my Mac’s firewire 800 connection, that means fast.

 

Here is where my mistake comes. I put all my valuable data and files into that drive. For me I wasn’t doing wrong because in fact I had another copy of most of the data, stored in the passport drive. Both of the drives were formatted to HFS journaled (the OS X file system) before I put all my data in them.

 

Performance like it wasn’t as good as having all the data stored in my iMac but it was good enough. One of the greatest things about Macs is that they are so easy to connect to each other. So I have a network at home and all my drives are accessible from every location. My PC friends (sorry I don’t want to create controversy!) seem amazed every time they come home, and they think that I am sort of a genius (far from reality, it really is easy). The drives just worked fine for a while.

 

Then last christmas arrived. My girlfriend took the Macbook to her holidays with the family. She went to Spain for a week, and she took the passport drive with her so she could show off her latest designs (she is a designer). Also she wanted to have the pictures, music, and movies. When she arrived to Spain and connected the passport drive to the computer it didn’t work. She called me and we tried some troubleshooting solutions over the phone but the drive was dead. Without any warning signs or anything like the drive was DEAD. 

 

When she came back, I had a look at the drive to confirm what she told me, DEAD. Luckily the drive was still in guarantee so I order a replacement (RMA) from WD through their website. I used the standard replacement option (BIG MISTAKE) and I send them the drive carefully shipped and packed. That was the 5th of January and the drive was 8 months old (bought it from Amazon).

 

Two days later my MyBook drive failed in exactly the same fashion. It just stopped working. No scratching noises or anything, just DEAD. This drive was only 6 months old. It was carefully placed in a shelf to avoid the computer head and other vibrations. I really looked after it. No scratches in the surface, no overheating, really really well looked after. This time I was furious. I didn’t have time to complete another copy of my data and suddenly I had lost everything. My university projects, my freelance projects, the music, the movies, 40GB of pictures, mostly of them irreplaceable. That was really an annoying thing to happen. 

 

So this time instead of an “Standard RMA” request I decided order an “Advanced RMA”, the difference is that they would charge me 300$ of my credit card and then they would send me a replacement drive. After receiving the replacement I was required to return the FAULTY drive to them (with all my data) in order to get my 300$ back. I honestly didn’t know what to do. If I’d gave them the drive I would lose my data, if I’d kept it would be 300$ poorer. 

 

I researched the Internet looking for information, this is when I found you guys, I really feel for you all. I browse the WDC website. I found information about “data recovery partners”, I contacted the centres close to my location (UK). The cheapest solution they could offered me was £300 (about 600$) because I was an student and the WD discount (10% total). So clearly not my solution, I mean I value my data but, was there a better solution than 600$? 

 

I contacted a local data recovery company formed by young Mac users, they offered me to have a look at it for £60 (roughly 120$) but by doing so I would void the WD guarantee, losing my right to have a non-faulty product. I couldn’t move in this direction. I emailed WD but no response back. Have anyone of you had any response from WD by email? 

 

I waited. The 15th of January I received an automated email from WD saying that they had received the passport drive (remember I sent it ten days before) and that the information could take up to five days to be updated in the website. Also I noted that they had shipped a replacement drive for the MyBook and it was on its way to me. Four days later I received the replacement drive. I had learn in their website that they sometimes used different drives to replace, I was expecting a new model with a bigger capacity (so naive) as compensation for the damages and inconveniences caused. In this case the drive was exactly the same model (250GB Pro Edition). 

 

At first I thought I did well by not sending them the FAULTY drive first, because at least I could use the same packaging they send me to return it. So this doesn’t seemed a bad idea after all. Then something unexpected happen. I test the new drive. I used all the interfaces, first USB, then FW400, and finally FW800. Well the results were terrible. USB and FW800 worked straight away, FW400 WOULD NOT WORK. 

 

At this point, if you are interested on a FW400 external drive for your Mac forget about WD, it just doesn’t work.   

 

I was interested in the FW800 though so I started using it by formatting the drive to the right file system (HFS+) for my requirements. This is a quite regular procedure that it’s documented in both WD and Apple support sites, I wasn’t doing any wrong. Within ten minutes of use the drive DIED. Not even copying anything, nothing, just DEAD. Like the other drives before the problem didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the drives but rather with the power supply or the components of the case, it just didn’t have electric power, it didn’t turn on the lights or make any noise, DEAD. 

 

I wasn’t up to wait for response to my emails from WD, so I researched and I found several UK Tech support phones (0800-960249 but you’ll need the Personal Service Number for your drive, and 00311204467651, I used the latest) in the old boxes and papers that I kept my girlfriend away from (she would dump them). I called the number an this is what happen:

 

- I contact a very kind person from their support team, who actually listened to me, and also provide with answers to my problems. His name was James Wareham.

 

- I told him everything about my problem, my data, my three faulty drives, my economic situation which prevented me from using a £300 worth recovery service, and about my knowledge and ability to recover the data myself.

 

- James agreed (in behalf of WD) to allow me to keep the original drive with no charges, so I could either recover the data by myself or by a local service provicer.

 

- James agreed to send me a NEW replacement (not a refurbished) drive. The one he sent me looked new, the previous one had the surface all scratched and was clearly not new. I received the drive within 5 days and at the moment is still running (there is nothing important in it, so pretty much a useless drive if it wasn’t because I am using it as scratch drive for photoshop cs3).

 

- James arranged a courier to pick up the faulty drive from my house. The service was paid by WD, the next day I had a courier from UPS (best couriers around) to collect the hard drive.

 

You’ll tell me of bad luck, I don’t believe in such a thing, what I do believe is that WD is letting down its customers by bad quality manufacturing and ever worse customer service, even if they managed to fix it at the very end.

 

After all this hassle I finally ended up my relationships with WD, boy I couldn’t be happier. Now I am thinking, which drives should I buy? I do need some extra storage so I am ready to try something else. I have purchased a couple of LaCie 500GB-USB2. They are really cheap, £120 for 1TB. I am going to give them a chance until I find a professional solution that fits my needs, and my budget!

 

I hope this helps someone, please feel free to leave your comments… 


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