What to do about getting HDD replaced.

Basic question coming up... You see a relative has a 11.5 month old G52 (or is it G56), last week the hard drive croaked. They took it to a computer shop for a quick look and they confirmed the hard drives toast and will spin but nothing else. You can't get in to BIOS or anything else. Tried the HDD in an external enclosure to take data off it, will spin but can't be seen or accessed. Does not show up on Disk Management when I put it in the external USB on my laptop. Totally shot!

They have tons of photos and holiday videos they just put on their laptop and then the HDD died like usual! They didn't get chance to burn to DVD, which they always do.

So to call HP will they want the entire laptop complete with broken HDD inside to fix it or will they trust them and send a new HDD only to them? Because they want to send their broken HDD to a data recovery place and pay to have their photos and tons of other stuff they didn't back up yet taken from the broken drive....but at the same time they might have to send it all back to HP in the laptop before their 12 month warranty expires..and loose everything.

No one can bust open the HDD to get the data off first and then pop it back in, of course the seal would be broken, voiding warranty!

Does HP have sypathy and let you keep the old drive to get your data off it?...even if they can have it back for repair within warranty, and diagnose the HDD is busted, replace it and if requested will they send the broken drive back too, so my relative can recover the data through a company?

What do you do?

Thanks for any pointers.

 

You can try extending the warranty since you're inside one year, but is this all worth it - the hassle of calling HP, sending the laptop in and waiting 2+ weeks, all for a HDD that you can probably buy outright for $50?

 

HP has a few different ways of handling these type of warranty cases. If you family needs assistance with the options that are available to replace the HDD please email me at [email protected]. Please have them include there contact and product information. In the subject line please put Attn: Veronica Notebook Review.

"The views expressed in my contributions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views and strategy of HP"

 

cheapest method would be going on newegg get your self another hard drive.
bring back the data from the hard drive is very costly. most likely hp all they would do replace hard drive... u can do that your self.

 

Sorry I forgot about this.
HP just sent them a new HDD overnight, no questions asked. Its up and running now.
They still have the old HDD to do what they want, HP wants them to send it back, but if they hang on to it to retrieve data then HP will bill them $75 for the new drive if they never send it back.

 

Good to hear they shipped it overnight. They should have plenty of time to extract data and return the defective HDD without being charged. If they have any problems during this period please send me and email at [email protected].

"The views expressed in my contributions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views and strategy of HP"