Thinkpads Forum

Hi, hope i can get some valuable advice on a warranty issue i have with lenovo.

Facts of case:
I purchased a t60 off a close friend just after it was repaired under warranty. One of the warranty repairs consisted of replacing the hard drive. As warranty service didn't have the required hard drive which the laptop came with, they upgraded it to a 250gig seagate 7200rpm sata hdd. Now, after about 6 months of use the hdd had issues and crashed a couple of times. First port of call to warranty service the representative sent me out a wd blue 160gig 5400rpm hdd, even tho he said i will get an exact same hdd replaced, ie 250gig. On a second call back, the representative after consulting with his senior, explained that they will not replace it with the same 250gig drive, as the laptop system only came with an 80gig hdd at time of purchase, and that the reason the 250gig was provided as a gesture of good will as they didn't have any other replacement hdd's at the time.

Issue/Question:
Does lenovo have any legal obligation to replace the hdd with a 250gig sata? or can they just just give me a hdd that is as close as possible to what the system was sold as? ie 80gig.

If they don't have a legal obligation to do so, are there any alternative strategies i can take so i can get a 250gig hdd that i currently have in my system which is faulty? ie speaking to a particular company department, a senior company representative, or making formal written complaint?...


ps I am not sure that i have posted this is the correct forum area - if not, please move.

Kindest regards to all, and thanks for any advice in advance.

Dunnit

Hi Dunnit,

Sorry to hear about your hard drive issues.

I also struggled with hard drive failures due to the rough service I expose my T60p to (I use it to datalog in a high performance street/drag strip car).

I finally ended up buying a SSD and my problems went away.

If you expose the notebook to any rough service you may want to consider buying a SSD. They improve performance and provide reliable service.

If you wish to persue a new larger hard drive from Lenovo it will be a matter of negotiation. I do not think they have any legal obligation to upgrade you if the stock HD is now available. The approach I have used in the past is to write a letter stating facts (keep emotion out of it). You can start out by providing history and thanking them for their superior service in the past by upgrading your hard drive size to provide quick repair. From the back ground information I would transition into how you used the additional space they provided with the upgraded hard drive and make a request that they re-consider your request for them to provide a larger replacement.

Good luck!

Dunnit wrote:Hi, hope i can get some valuable advice on a warranty issue i have with lenovo.

Facts of case:
I purchased a t60 off a close friend just after it was repaired under warranty. One of the warranty repairs consisted of replacing the hard drive. As warranty service didn't have the required hard drive which the laptop came with, they upgraded it to a 250gig seagate 7200rpm sata hdd. Now, after about 6 months of use the hdd had issues and crashed a couple of times. First port of call to warranty service the representative sent me out a wd blue 160gig 5400rpm hdd, even tho he said i will get an exact same hdd replaced, ie 250gig. On a second call back, the representative after consulting with his senior, explained that they will not replace it with the same 250gig drive, as the laptop system only came with an 80gig hdd at time of purchase, and that the reason the 250gig was provided as a gesture of good will as they didn't have any other replacement hdd's at the time.

Issue/Question:
Does lenovo have any legal obligation to replace the hdd with a 250gig sata? or can they just just give me a hdd that is as close as possible to what the system was sold as? ie 80gig.

If they don't have a legal obligation to do so, are there any alternative strategies i can take so i can get a 250gig hdd that i currently have in my system which is faulty? ie speaking to a particular company department, a senior company representative, or making formal written complaint?...


ps I am not sure that i have posted this is the correct forum area - if not, please move.

Kindest regards to all, and thanks for any advice in advance.

Dunnit

You got lucky... I only got 80GB, I had no idea they still made them that small in 2009 (manufactured in June)...

Thanks for the advice and sympathy Jeff In the end, i called lenovo directly and the call was transferred to a call center in asia, and since i have little patience and many issues with overseas non western call centers - i hanged up, just wasn't in the frame of mind at the time to deal with them. So i take your advice into action and send an email instead.

Since that call, i decided to give the faulty harddrive another shot, after a seagate harddrive tool transferred the bad clusters to another part of the hdd that wouldn't be accessed?? :S Now i have reinstalled everything back on the old hdd and ran ibm hdd tester program and everything came up good. So hopefully this problem has now disappeared. If not, i will consider purchasing a ssd - cost is just an issue for me and whether its just as appropriate purchasing a cheaper ssd that has a low quality controller on it or going all out and getting one with a high quality faster controller on it, especially when i read somewhere that the max transfer speed of 1.5m/bit can only be achieved on this model laptop.

Thanks once again for everyone's input in this matter.