W700-2nd hdd upgrade

Has anyone (manually) changed the 2nd (onboard) hdd on their machine,
after buying it?

Lenovo doesn't offer the largest capacity 2.5'' hdd's as of yet on their website, therefore buyers must install them on their own.

The question is twofold:

A) It appears that if you do that, you lose warranty!
That is, once you "open" the machine-no more warranty.

B)How does one figure out which parts are static electricity-sensitive?
I mean that if you were to say, touch the motherboard; carrying static
electricity, you could actually "burn" something.
Does this type of operation warrant such precaution?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 

Replacing a HDD does not void warranties. HDDs are user replaceable parts, unless the act of replacing the HDD causes the damage, the warranty stays intact.

All parts are vulnerable to static electricity. Ground yourself before working with the internals of electronics.

 

You're probably very right; why take a chance?
Ground myself beforehand.


However, insofar as the warranty, I'll have to insist:

I've consulted 4 times over the phone with both sales reps and technicians from Lenovo.
They all agree on that once you open that HDD bay (the one that houses both the primary and secondary drive)-no more warranty.
This was a major problem for us; as again; they didn't offer the proper hdd
at the P.O.S.

 

If you go to the support and training website here, the hard drives are listed in the CRU(customer replaceable unit) section for the W700. I don't know why Lenovo told you otherwise. If you're paranoid, just hang onto the old drive and swap it back in before sending it off.

 

That is very, very interesting.

Perhaps suspiciously interesting enough for me to forward that information to an otherwise very helpful rep-that we've come to rely on at Lenovo.

And yes, I'm very, very paranoid with losing warranty on a $5,000 machine that's "business property".
The reason for that is because 3 months ago; we had a breakdown on 2 T-series machines that just "happened" to call it quits 2 weeks after their warranty expired. Once we were told how much it costs to buy the parts needed; I became paranoid; and will remain so from now on...

Thank you very much; at least now I have documentation to support my tampering-if I manage to screw up such a tedious task.
It's been very frustrating-no 2nd hdd..

I wonder if someone can tell if you've unscrewed the bottom; in the IBM days; I recall blue-rubber coated screws with wrench-fitting screwdriver heads being used-the kind that intimidates unauthorized users from tampering...Paranoia. Or maybe it wasn't the A20; it was something else.

 

I'll re-iterate what ZaZ said. Your warranty will remain intact. The Hard Drive, Memory and Keyboard are three of the most common parts that all have screws on the bottom that you can unscrew, replace and rescrew. Nobody can tell you messed with the screws, they don't care. I just had them send me a replacement keyboard that I swapped out myself, and my machine is still under warranty. I can't tell you how many times I've swapped hard drives on my laptops, it's an endless cycle between the several machines I have. Not only that, but it's customary to REMOVE your hard drive before sending in for warranty work. I never send the drive with the machine unless I'm having a problem with the drive itself (which I never have). The last thing you want to do is send your hard drive with your information on it to complete strangers. It's also customary for me to pull my battery, any upgraded ram, the battery, the CD-Rom, etc. Anything I can take off the machine I do before sending in. I don't want anything missing when it's returned.

I don't know why the Lenovo reps are telling you that, but I can assure you it's not the case. I understand you being paranoid, but I've had Thinkpads for over 10 years now and have never had a warranty issue due to anything related to an upgrade.

 

Thanks everyone.

I went ahead and replaced the drive, although, for the 5th time I was told that the warranty would be void.
Trial by fire; I just hope I won't have to send it in anytime soon.
By the way, I did find something on Lenovo's website that contradicts what they said over the phone.

As a last note; I myself have never had a single problem with (IBM) customer service; they even replaced an entire (burnt...) motherboard once-for free.