I've noticed a number of companies who claim that, even if they open the drive, they can somehow preserve the drive warranty. Does anyone know how they do that? Do you have to somehow make agreements with all major drive companies?

You can check on the manufacturers websites, as some of them preserve warranty if you the drive was opened by a data recovery company.

Not Seagate, so I've just been informed by a client.

Even if Seagate Recovery Services open it.

"Totally seperate company Sir"

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If Seagate Recovery Services "AKA Action Front" open a Seagate drive it is no problem. Problem arises when your anyone else who wants to do data recovery on a Seagate drive.

Seagate Recovery + Seagate Drive = Warranty Still Valid (If it had warranty in first place)
Any other data recovery company + Seagate Drive = NO WARRANTY from Seagate

it's a fix or cheat way to make you USE Seagate for data recovery...

I could be wrong... Sure I read it somewhere!

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Well, I'm just repeating what a client told me.

He asked if the drive could be passed to the ST warranty dept, after ST recovery had done their job. He was told "no".

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New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

AFAI Seagate recovery gives you a refurbished (Re-cert) disk for free anyway , no matter who made the disk in the 1st place

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A man is as old as he feels, and a woman as old as she looks

What about other companies? Maxtor? Oops, they're Seagate now. WD? Hitachi? Samsung? Somebody once told me that if there is ANY data recovery's sticker on the drive, the drive will still be in warranty. Then again, I heard someone else say that you somehow have to get an agreement with the manufacturer, and report the drive to them so they know you opened it. Is that really true? Does anyone here have an agreement with a manufacturer?

not any DR company and not with every manufacturer
but yes it's true, some companies have agreement with several manufacturers to keep warranty status unchangable after opening a drive
for Seagate drives this company is only Seagate Recovery Services

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Yeah, we got fax from Seagate last winter stating they no longer honour warranty on opened drives. Greedy morons

Starling
Nice one...

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My Forum

The only company I ever had a problem with over warranty on an opened drive is LaCie - although a quick kick to their shin sorted that arrogant lot out.

What I do is return the faulty drive directly to the manufacturer or representative on behalf of my client and I have no problems with Seagate, Maxtor, WD - no-one at all - honouring the warranty.

And what is your company name ?

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Did you have agreements in place? Or did you simply start sending them opened drives, and they still honor the warranty?

Hello,
In Sweden/Norway there is company called IBAS....after they have been inside the drive the warranty still is ok....as they got some certificte/deal with the Hdd companies...

Regards

Bosse

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se