Lenovo has terrible customer support!!

Well, after only 5 months my Lenovo T520 hard drive has crashed! I bought it new in December. Bought the solid state drive since it "is much safer against crashing than a regular hard drive"--well, that is a lie.

So I called Lenovo. The error message is a known error message. . .I have a bad drive. They will send me a new hard drive, but I have to install it myself or pay to have someone do it for me. Lenovo will send a technician to install the drive, but he will take my old drive with him and not allow me to copy all of my files and programs off my hard drive.

If I install the new drive myself, I have 30 days to send them the old drive.

Lenovo SO knows what they are doing! They are making me pay the expense of installing the new drive myself and copying my files over. They do not support that with their warranty.

So be warned! I am very frustrated with Lenovo right now and will look elsewhere in the future.

 

read your warranty to check the data recovery is covered.

 

How are you copying your files over if the drive is crashed?

 

Good question. I am told there is a way.

 

Let us know how that works out for you.

Hope you have another copy of your data.

 

Please share any success stories with us...AFAIK, there's no data recovery when a SSD is involved.

Hard drives (as well as SSDs) are considered user-replaceable. Your best bet would be to recover data (if possible), replace the drive yourself (takes less than 10 minutes even if you've never done it before) and ship the defective one back to Lenovo.

Good luck.

 

It isn't 'a lie', you were just unlucky.

As for their service, hard drives are considered user replaceable by practically everyone. Apple is pretty much the only company that will service that for you on the basic warranty because their users tend to be morons.

As for data recovery, again almost everyone will charge you for that as it can be quite labor intensive if even possible.

If you expect better service than this, pay for onsite/specialty/upgraded warranty service. That goes for all the major PC manufacturers.

 

Hope everything will work out well for you in the end.

Hope you've kept backups of your documents that were on that failed SSD.

Please keep in mind that "ThinkPad" is just a fancy name: inside, all the components are no better (sometimes worse, like the screen) than those used in the other notebooks.

 

For those amongst us who have used ThinkPads for a long time, it's way more (or at least it used to be) than just a fancy name. The idea of ThinkPad incorporated many different aspects, where the machine itself was just one of them.

Excellent technical and customer support was also (and still is for the most part, at least in my experience) a very important part of the deal.

As for SSDs, they fail more often than most people perceive, and it's rather unfair to blame a notebook manufacturer - any notebook manufacturer - for a SSD that has died. It's their obligation to replace it under warranty terms, no more and no less.

Safekeeping and backing up one's data is their own responsibility...at least in my book.

Good luck.

 

Nostalgia. Used to be.

From someone who has owned and used ThinkPads for a long time, warts and all, but refuses to worship any name.

 

If you familiarize yourself with my posts on TPF and Lenovo's forum, you'll find out that I don't worship any names, let alone one associated with a piece of electronic equipment...

That being said, my experience with Lenovo's support - both depot and onsite - has been superior to any other that I've experienced in the given industry as a consumer, apart from possibly Apple's.

But all of this is way off-topic, and I apologize to OP for taking his/hers thread that route...

 

Replacing the hard drive is as easy as replacing batteries in a child's toy, and it is considered as a customer replaceable part by Lenovo. Therefore, of course they would charge you for having a technician do it because quite frankly, it is a waste of the technician's time.

If a SSD is dead, it is probably dead for good unless you have some good soldering skills, and even then you might not get any data off of it since a SSD internally is like a RAID0 array of flash memory.

 

I seriously doubt anyone is going to recover anything from the failed SSD. That's probably a good thing if someone expects you to hand it over for warranty replacement. The disposition of your personal data should not be taken lightly.

Regarding the ThinkPad name, this is debated frequently. I think most would say at this point the name and brand has been diluted.

As for service and support, you mostly hear horror stories in the forums. My experience has always been rather good. Maybe it's because I have a zero defects policy in the initial return period window, and spend quite a lot of time testing to make sure the model in hand is a keeper.

That still didn't stop a fatal error known as the Sudden Shutdown Syndrome (SSS) from rearing its ugly head well after the return period was gone. Lenovo still hasn't described the root cause and fix for SSS on the ThinkPad W520.

 

OK, so is everyone pretty sure that there is no possibility of data recovery on a SSD drive? I don't like the idea of sending in my old drive and having my data just out there floating around somewhere.

What would happen if I took a hammer and sent the drive back in 3-4 pieces? Yes, that is a serious question.

 

I believe that you'd get a bill in the mail for the replacement drive.

Long story short, I wouldn't do it.

Lenovo has zero interest in your data. The return of a dead SSD is for book-keeping purposes. I doubt that anyone will even check the drive. It will be inventoried as received, case closed.

 

So if it is a dead drive, and they have no interest in it, and all they want to do is inventory it, why would they care what shape it was in?

I think I know the answer. . .Lenovo will look for any opportunity to bill me for a new hard drive. . .warranty or not.

 

their warranty only covers standard use failures.

they need to see, and test the drive, to ensure that the failure wasnt caused by something such as a liquid spill or physical damage, which you would then be liable for.

they cant just take your word for it.

additionally, failed parts are often then sent to the parts manufacturer so they can diagnose the problem and hopefully find a solution to prevent the same errors in the next generation.

 

As would be the case with any other manufacturer...

They do not care about your data, or the SSD itself.

It's all a numbers game.

If you really think that it's worth for them to thoroughly check every hard drive/SSD that gets returned, just remember that their (actually Flextronics') technicians get paid by U.S. standards, and not the ones applicable in Far East...

 

honestly to me that seems very fair what they have done for you. Sending you a drive and then giving you 30 days to ship it back. They can't hold your hand the entire way. Imagine millions of people, they can't be responsible to for data on the drive. Any drive will and do fail so it's on you to make backups, or use one of the cloud backups for data

 

Defective drives are also sometimes returned to their manufacturer, who then either gives Lenovo a credit or a swap of the drive if it's still in warranty. At least that was my understanding at one point in time.

They also want to verify that it was a manufacturer fault instead of you pouring koolaid into the bottom of your laptop

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

 

Does Lenovo require you do that for other parts? I want to get a new, less worn keyboard in a few months - will I have to send the original back to them?

 

In my case I was never asked to return my keyboard. I once had a T400 that had come with the flex-prone swiss cheese keyboard. It was replaced by a solid backplate type after a call to Lenovo. Lenovo never asked for the return of the swiss cheese keyboard. The representatives I have spoke with from the Atlanta division were very understanding and processed my requests immediately. The keyboard arrived in 2-days which was nice as I was in a rural location. Over the years I also learned how to operate on my own ThinkPads so my requests are totally for CRU (customer replaceable units) if possible. YMMV in these situations but mine have been positive.

 

Same goes for me. Nevertheless, I really, really respect Mark Hopkins and all his contributions to the ThinkPad brand.

-Don

 

That makes two of us. Although I'm dead certain that the list of Mark's fans is much longer...

He's a great guy and a brave man who is valiantly holding the fort for Lenovo while dealing with many of the mishaps that happen on daily basis...whatever they're paying him is not enough...

 

Does Lenovo's U.S.A. support line take a day off for Memorial Day? My HDD is throwing SMART errors indicating "imminent failure" but is working pretty well otherwise.

 

I believe support 24/7/365.