HP pavilion, bad sectors in hdd, HP refuse to replace

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gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#94292 7-Dec-2011 17:10

Got an HP pavilion, near new and hdd has a few bad sectors which have been remapped to reserved sectors, as a result a sector scan now passes. HP refuse to replace drive because their "diagnostic utilities" accessible from the F10 key on bios POST report no problems and thats because the sectors have been remapped. What to do? I know the hdd has problems else it wouldnt have remapped sectors. It will obviously start going down hill from here, more sectors will get remapped until theres no spare sectors left and win will start crashing again like it is now. Do I have to wait for this to happen before HP will replace the drive? What makes things worse is when trying to deal with the HP cust repts re warranties, they dont seem to know anything about remapped sectors or any other technical jargon I throw at them, unless what im saying they can recognize on the script in front of them.

zCelicaDude

171 posts

Master Geek

#555138 7-Dec-2011 17:20

In this case, the best thing to do is .. whitelie

Tell them the harddrive doesnt spin up when you turn on the PC, but you've put in a different hard drive which works fine

Then usually that will make them send a replacement + send a courier box to send your "faulty" one back

Scott

b0untypure1

1426 posts

Uber Geek

#555140 7-Dec-2011 17:23

thats just like asking the people at telecom what 'ping' is. None of them know, however they know how to reset a modem...who doesn't?

for the hdd: You could try the hard drive manufacturers utilities instead of the SMART in bios.

seagate has 'seatools' which is a more specific tool when looking for a hard drive problem. Note: works with all hard drives

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#555144 7-Dec-2011 17:30

b0untypure1: thats just like asking the people at telecom what 'ping' is. None of them know, however they know how to reset a modem...who doesn't?

Yes they're also a pain to deal with, they also dont know what packet loss is, but Vodafone seem to know what this is.

for the hdd: You could try the hard drive manufacturers utilities instead of the SMART in bios.

seagate has 'seatools' which is a more specific tool when looking for a hard drive problem. Note: works with all hard drives

Ive been using the disk util from an ubuntu live cd, however HP will only go on info from their own bios util, will ignore info all other sources, incl seagate seatools.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

Uber Geek

#555147 7-Dec-2011 17:42

So what type of hard drive is it? what brand? also was it new from HP? or second hand? inside warranty period?

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#555156 7-Dec-2011 18:14

Seagate 1TB, was a brand new machine from HP, less than about 3 months old, not bought second hand. Standard warranty 1 year.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

Uber Geek

#555225 7-Dec-2011 21:26

In my experience, I had a laptop hard drive die on me. NEC (brand of laptop) refused to take it back, whereas western digital just sent me a new one. (it was a WD drive). You could potentially try contact seagate, but in reality HP should take it back, AT LEAST assess it, find if the problem exists, then go from there (replace it).