Replace HDD, only 3 months warranty ?

Hi...
I have an Acer Ferrari 3000Lmi
which I've used for probably 4 years.

It was working fine, and yesterday it was kinda slow, so I restart to notebook.
then I can't go to windows,
it says :
file missing/corrupted : (windows root) \systems32\hal.dll
then I went to BIOS, hdd is not detected.
and it kinda made a "tic tic tic" sound.
So the hdd is probably dead ?

Anway,
I called Acer Care about HDD replacement.
and they said the warranty is only 3 months.
(in Indonesia)
Is this true elsewhere ?

I was just looking for an external hdd, and some has warranty up to 5 years.
internal hdd usually have 1 year or more warranty, right ?
I don't know about this coz I've never replaced a hdd before.

Now I'm wondering whether I should replace it at Acer Care or at a regular computer shop that might offer a longer warranty ?

thanx

 

I find that self reliance is the only dependable solution when things break. I would just get a new drive, as well as an external for backups so this doesn't happen to you again.

 

Hi Carby,

Luckily I've just backed up the files 3 days before.
*phew*

Re-reading my post above,
probably I wasn't quite clear on the 3 months warranty thing.

What I meant was :
I called Acer Care to buy a new HDD & have the broken HDD replaced by Acer Care.
And I was told that the new HDD will only have 3 months warranty.

So that's why I'm asking

Is it true to buy new HDD & replace the old HDD at Acer care will only have a 3 month warranty?
If so, then I'm wondering if I should buy it somewhere else with a longer warranty ?

I suppose it depends on the quality of product, product care by user, etc etc.
My sis still has her notebook of 7 years and still in good condition, even the battery can still run for 1.5-2 hours.
But somehow if the new hdd has a longer warranty, it gives a better peace of mind

Thanx

 

Ya, I would go for somewhere that would give a longer warranty. Hard drives can be quite frustrating when they die (and they all die eventually) and you shouldn't have to fork out your own money. So to answer your question, I would say get a longer warranty, the longer the better

 

See how much they are at acer care, but i'm pretty certain you will be able to get one cheaper elsewhere. Don't let them fool you into thinking only the drives they sell you will work.

I guess the 3 month warranty will allow you to send it back to them within 3 months, but you will still have a manufacturers warranty, for instance, seagate offer between 3-5 years depending on the drive.

 

Yes, and seagate drives are well built as well. Good call bangert

 

thanx Carby and Bangert,

The new hdd they have at Acer cost around :
US$ 68 for 80GB
and US$120 for 120 GB
They said that they don't have any information on what brand of HDD they use to replace my old one. (or they refuse to tell customers what brand of hdd they use)
and the warranty is only 3 months, no manufacturer's warranty.

A friend explained to me that the 3 month warranty is "understandable"
since my notebook is an old model, so, after replacing the old hdd with the new one, and if something got broken that might also damage the new hdd, then they won't be held responsible after 3 months.

Anyway, I guess I'll send my notebook to Acer care to see if there are any other internal damages to my notebook.
And if it's only the hdd, I'll decide later on whether I want to replace it at Acer or somewhere else.

But it's common to replace broken hdd with a new one at a regular computer shop right ? I don't really have to go to Acer Care to do it right ?
Oh well, We'll see what happens.

Thanx guys

 

Hi sloane, yes it is common to replace a hard disk with non manufacturer one. I doubt have hard disk anyway, probably replace something like seagate, WD or something similar. By the way do you have any data backup yet?

 

$120 for a 120gb hdd is very steep. You can pick them up from places like newegg for around $50-$60 which come with a longer warranty.

You can get the new Seagate 500gb 7200rpm for $139.99.

You don't have to go to Acer, a normal computer should be able to do it. It should be pretty straight forward to replace it, just slide the old one out, and slide the new one in. Simple. Why not try it yourself.

 

Hi GetYourPC,
yup, luckily almost all data is backed up, except for some mp3.

bangert,
wow... dat's twice the price, & Acer care also charge an additional service charge of around 15$.
Do notebook service center always charge way more than the regular price ?

I'm kinda scared to replace the hdd myself, coz, well, I don't know how , and I'm not sure whether the problem only comes from the broken hdd or other stuff as well. But it seems like it, coz I can still go F2 and go to BIOS, where HDD is not detected.
tried to boot from CD, but can't.
Then I'm just lost.

 

My acer 5315-2713 warranty is only 1 year I found that hard to believe but, will be shipping it to Texas to get the LCD screen fixed.

 

So I replaced my hdd with a new one.
80gb , 5400 rpm, ide, hitachi travelstar 2.5"
most of the comp shop don't carry ide hdd anymore.
so mine's a refurbished hdd that i got from hitachi distributor for 52us$.
then another shop called me an hour later and told me he got 160gb for 72us$
anyway... i already bought the 80gb one, and I wasn't sure if my BIOS supports 160 gb.
I wasn't even sure if I could even replace the hdd myself, but as bangert said, it wasn't too hard to do. thanx for the suggestion bangert
Another problem though,
I didn't format the hdd first *didn't know how*, so didn't partition it first.
so I only have one C: drive now.

Does anyone know how to format a hdd ?
I use Acer Recovery CD to install Windows XP, so there was no option to format/partition the hdd there.
I don't know if I have DOS installed or not.
Help please ?
I'll also look around in the forum.

thx

 

oh, the hitachi travelstar 80gb ide, that i got from hitachi distributor has 1 year warranty, not from hitachi, but from the distributor.
(normally hitachi hdd has a 3 year warranty)
at least it's still better than 3 months warranty from Acer Care.
And it turns out the old hdd from my acer notebook, is also a Hitachi.
So Acer would probably replce the hdd with a hitachi as well, but I'm not sure because they refuse to tell me what brand of hdd they use.

 

Do you want to just create another partition? For this you can use a program like Drive Image (which I'm using as we speak) to modify the size of a partition on a disk, as well as format, and create new partitions.