Seagate Harddrive RMA

Aero

A hard drive of mine recently died, and its still under the Seagate warranty, so I plan on RMA'ing it.

Does anyone here have any experience doing this? I've checked on their site, and the hard drive still has plenty of warranty time left on it. Do they send me a box to ship this back to them? I don't have the packaging necessary to actually ship a hard drive to them, at least, without it getting broken irrelevant of initial condition. They have an option to ship a box and new hard drive to me ahead of me returning this broken one, for $20, but I don't want to spend that money, nor do I have a credit card to use anyway. If I have to supply my own packaging, where do I get the necessary stuff to properly send a hard drive?

Barrakketh

Aero wrote: »

A hard drive of mine recently died, and its still under the Seagate warranty, so I plan on RMA'ing it.

Does anyone here have any experience doing this? I've checked on their site, and the hard drive still has plenty of warranty time left on it. Do they send me a box to ship this back to them? I don't have the packaging necessary to actually ship a hard drive to them, at least, without it getting broken irrelevant of initial condition. They have an option to ship a box and new hard drive to me ahead of me returning this broken one, for $20, but I don't want to spend that money, nor do I have a credit card to use anyway. If I have to supply my own packaging, where do I get the necessary stuff to properly send a hard drive?

I've always kept the container or anti-static bag that my hard drives shipped in for when I have to RMA them, and companies usually do not provide packaging. That said, does the $20 service include a shipping label to return the broken hard drive? If so then that isn't that bad of a deal since you're missing the necessary packaging. You can order anti-static bags online, but I can't think of any brick-and-mortar stores that readily sell them.

Buttcleft

First thing is to always package an RMA like its a functional device being shipped to someone you love, because 10 out of 10 companies will return your RMA with bad packaging and blame the fault on the damage incurred in shipping.

I'd slide the HD into an anti-static bag, wrapped that up in a couple layers of bubble wrap, then put it in a Styrofoam peanut filled box with fragile written on the front, and ship it like that.

If you've ever bought a computer component, chances are the hardest thing you'll have to acquire would be the peanuts.

Aero

I wasn't the one who bought this hard drive, and we usually don't keep packaging, like packing peanuts and bubblewrap. I might have an anti-static bag somewhere in the house. If they'll blame the broken hard drive on poor shipping, then I guess the $20 fee sounds a lot more reasonable.

Thanks.

RocketScience

I just RMA'd a Seagate external laptop drive. I had to ship it to Sydney and received my replacement from Singapore, so the $20 option wasn't available to me. On their website they have a pdf file with the recommended shipping materials, which include a large box filled with egg crate foam.
I just sent it to them registered post in a padded envelope, which must have been acceptable because they sent me the replacement, in a large box with two big hunks of egg crate foam.

If the drive keeps failing as quickly as the first one did I should have enough foam soon to start my own recording studio.

Ruckus

You could also try checking in with a local computer store. When I was doing sales/repair work I always kept a bag full of spare static bags of various sizes around just for shipping stuff, and I wouldn't think twice about handing over a couple to anyone in need for free. Same with Harddrive packaging. Enterprise class harddrives from HP/IBM/DELL usually come in 6x8x10 boxes suspended in eggcrate foam, or plastic/cardboard brackets to suspend the drive in the middle of the box. I usually keep 2 or more of those around in case I need to RMA a drive.