No Data Recovery on Hard Drive Warranties!

I didn’t particularly expect my hard drive manufacturer to provide me data recovery services for free if their drive failed, but when a brand new drive fails on day two… I’m starting to wish they offered me some data recovery insurance!?

I just bought a Seagate Free Agent 500 GB external USB 2.0 drive, and on Day Two the hard drive started producing clicking sounds and stopped spinning up… essentially failing. Of course, on Day One I copied about 200 GBs of data to it, and deleted my other copy of a lot of it… not expecting the new drive to fail on Day Two!

Seagate chat support confirms the drive is dead, and all they can offer is a refund… OUCH!
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David TS179: Thank you for contacting Seagate Support. How may I help you?
Jason: Hi
Jason: I bought a Free Agent drive… plugged it in… and it worked..
Jason: for 1 day
Jason: unfortunately, i didn’t expect it to die after 1 day of use, and put a lot of critical data on it….
Jason: and i have no idea how to get it recognized by XP again
David TS179: Does the drive show up in the Device Manager?
Jason: Can you help me troubleshoot if it is the drivers, XP, the cable, or the drive that is failing?
Jason: I don’t believe so.
Jason: Well no, it is not.
Jason: Neither is the Mass Storage USB devide
Jason: device
Jason: anymore
David TS179: Does the light on the drive come on?
Jason: they did yesterday, not today
Jason: What I do have are 11 USB devices, which seems excessive… but that’s just something to note.
Jason: Yes, the light is on.
David TS179: Have you tried the drive on a different computer?
Jason: Yes, I tried it on another computer, which had USB 1.0 ports, and it didn’t seem to recognize it.
Jason: The laptop it did work on yesterday, has USB 2.0 ports…
Jason: but it doesn’t work on either now.
David TS179: Does the drive make any odd sounds?
Jason: Possibly… not sure what you would call an odd sound.
Jason: It’s mostly silent.
David TS179: Clicking grinding.
Jason: In fact, it is plugged into power and USB right now and is silent.
Jason: No clicking, griding.
Jason: grinding
Jason: ok
Jason: i hear sounds
Jason: there is sort of a buzzing sound, and a beep every once in a while.
Jason: (i unplugged the power and plugged it back in — and these sounds just started right now)
David TS179: Ok well it sounds like the drive has failed.
Jason: the buzzing is persistent
Jason: great
Jason: so i just lost all my data
Jason: That rocks!
Jason:
Jason: What now?!
Jason: Any inexpensive or warranty covered way to recover the data on a drive that fails on Day Two??
David TS179: Data recovery is not covered by the warranty.
Jason: Of course not.
Jason: Ok.
Jason: So.. are you offering any solutions here, or are we done then??
David TS179: You can start the warranty return process at this site, just login as a Guest User.>>
URL Received: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance/
Jason: I think I’ll take it back to the store I bought it from, as I’m sure they would provide me a faster refund.
David TS179: Yes they would.
Jason: I know it isn’t your fault, but I gotta say, it sucks Seagate lost all my data on Day two.
Jason: And isn’t providing any solution.
Jason: Doesn’t make one ever want to trust a Seagate product again… just my two cents on that.
Jason: Thanks for your assistance, however.
David TS179: No problem, Have a Nice Day.