rossz's Journal: Hewlett-Packard Sucks

The hard drive in my wife's HP zt1130 notebook died last week. It took a few days of trying to get an answer from HP and Hitachi about a replacement. The drive is a Travelstar, originally made by IBM, but now that division is owned by Hitachi.

According to the Hitachi website, Travelstar series drives have a 3 year warranty. Except this is what Hitachi support had to say about it:

Our records indicate that your drive was not sold through authorized distribution channels and therefore does not carry a manufacturer's warranty.

HP doesn't buy authorized equipment? Very interesting.

And here's what HP had to say about it:

Since the Notebook is out of warranty, the service will be billed. Depending on the extent of damage the cost will range between $269 and $649 plus taxes.

Great. They only give a 1 year warranty on a device that should have a 3 year warranty. To make the buggering complete, they offer to repair a $100 drive for $269 or more. Here's my response back to them:

In other words, you do not honor manufacturer's warranties (which should be 3 years), plus you try to screw your customers by charging them $269 or more to replace a $100 (retail price) hard drive. How nice.
 
I have a better idea. Instead of me sending in this computer to be repaired at an excessive fee, I'll replace the drive myself, and never EVER buy another Hewlett Packard product again.
 
At one time HP was known for unsurpassed quality and service. Those days are long gone. Now you sell marginal equipement with useless warranties.
 
Say goodbye to a customer of over 20 years. I will never buy another HP product again.

Hewlett-Packard can kiss my ass. The local geek store has a 20gig Toshiba notebook drive for $109+tax. When I can afford it, I'll buy it. I know I can find it slightly cheaper online, but NCAL Computers has always given me great service and are quick to fix any problems. They have earned my business.

Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy the drive at the moment since I am still unemployed. Hell, I can't even get a shit non-computer job in retail. Since my wife and daughter are addicted to luxuries such as food and clothing, the drive will have to wait.

As a temporary measure, my wife is booting with a knoppix CD and using my LAKS watch to store her home directory. It took four years, but I finally got her to use Linux!