Thinkpads Forum

I bought a refurbished T61, real nice machine, last Halloween, Oct. 31, 2010. It was a Buy It Now on Ebay, from a computer leasing company who were selling at least 4 of them and other Thinkpads, IIRC. The machine itself came packaged as if it had been factory refurbished, with all the Lenovo documentation, very nicely packaged, clean as a whistle, looking virtually new. It was obviously at the very least little used. I paid $400.

It had a 100GB 7200RPM Seagate HD with the factory install of Vista Business. I used it a week or two, doing very little other than setting up internet access and pulled the HD replacing it with a 640GB Samsung 2.5" 7200RPM HD I had and installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

I right now need a 2.5" HD to replace the died Seagate 250GB HD in one of my T60's, so thought I could use the Seagate that came in the T61 (it had been sitting around since being removed from the T61). Someone suggested I download Seatools in order to see if I could determine the status of the "died" Seagate 250GB HD, and in so doing last week I tested the Seagate 100GB drive that came in the T61 and it failed the SMART test. People tell me I should not trust the drive at all, that it's in the process of failing. So, my question is, is it possible that I can get warranty relief for this failing 100GB HD or is that highly unlikely?

That depends - what sort of warrenty was offered with the system when you bought it (if it is 3 months, you are SOL, but that is fairly standard on refurbs). You can also try entering the serial number into the lenovo website and see if it is still covered (my T61 staill had a couple months lenovo warrenty). If you don't have any warrenty left on your system, replacement drives are relatively cheap, I would just cut my losses and let it go.

craigmontHunter wrote:That depends - what sort of warrenty was offered with the system when you bought it (if it is 3 months, you are SOL, but that is fairly standard on refurbs). You can also try entering the serial number into the lenovo website and see if it is still covered (my T61 staill had a couple months lenovo warrenty). If you don't have any warrenty left on your system, replacement drives are relatively cheap, I would just cut my losses and let it go.

I think that's what I'll have to do. I did check the Lenovo warranty, and it was expired by maybe 2-3 months when I bought the refurb. It's been over 6 months since I bought it and I suppose the warranty is expired. Too bad I didn't test the HD when I got the system because it was very probably failing then. I see 120GB WD HDs for $42, 320GB WD for $45 and 500GB WD for $55, all 5400RPM at Amazon. I'm debating between the 120 and 320, don't really need the extra HD space, I figure. Having been burned once, I figure to keep the data on an external 3.5". However, $3 to double the capacity is pretty trivial and someday I may have another use for the HD, so WTH.

A few minutes later I ordered a WD 320GB 5400 at Amazon, $45 shipped. Thanks for the help.

PS I haven't been able to find any info on the warranty for the T61, ebay won't show info on transactions older than 90 days and a search for the seller turns up nothing for some reason. Thus, I'm at a loss to determine what the warranty is/was. That was not smart. In the future I hope to make a point of determining warranties and documenting them just in case something happens.