[geeks] HP announces EOL for AlphaServer systems

[Bryan Fullerton]

On 11/12/05, Nick B. <nick at pelagiris.org> wrote:
> It "was" WD.  On the other hand, I've rma'd quite a few drives with WD
> and they've always accepted "BIOS does not see the drive".  (there may be
> another maker who is less flexible, I just know that for at least a few
> months WD did "require" their diags).

At the beginning of October I RMA'ed a 6mo SATA drive with WD and they
were fine with "over 9400 SMART errors, including R/W" as my reason
for sending it back.

Unfortunately they 'upgraded' their RMA database just after receiving
my drive and lost all details about the transaction aside from my name
and the RMA number -- they insisted they had no way to confirm they'd
received it. Given the comments when I tried to escalate this over the
phone there were a lot of people inconvenienced by this database
'upgrade'. I eventually gave up trying to beat them into sending me a
drive, and finally got the replacement last week. I guess someone
found the box I'd sent in the mail room.

On the other hand at the same time I returned a 3yo IBM SCSI drive
(not seen by controller) to Hitachi GST and had a replacement drive in
my hands in 3 business days.

YMMV.

Bryan