Tom Gidden

UPDATE January 2007: I got the replacement drive, and it has been working fine for a few months now. Hitachi's service was quick and painless, and while I'm still not 100% sure about the quality of Travelstar drives (since I've had them fail since the IBM days), I'm satisfied that the problem's fixed.

Unfortunately, while reassembling the iBook I managed to gouge a scratch in the LCD screen, courtesy of the sharp edges of the Airport antenna cable. Fortunately, my mother said she doesn't notice the scratch, and so was okay with swapping iBooks with me. As a result, the iBooks have been taken apart and put back together many times, and it's difficult and fiddly each time.

UPDATE 13/9/06: I finally got a good reply from Hitachi on this issue, and it looks like running the DFT tool isn't actually required to get an RMA. So, I'm going to open the iBook up and get the drive sent off in the next day or so. This is a major PITA, as I won't have my music/photos accessible for the time being. I'm still slightly honked off with the sloppy customer service. Anyway...

The Hitachi Travelstar 4K120 drive I fitted in my iBook earlier this year has started making horrible clunking sounds. The clunks seem to coincide with the drive seeking for data after a short idle time.

Anyway, since this is my main (and only) machine, I'm understandably a little worried, so I backed up the drive to my external Firewire drive, and sent off a note to Hitachi's warranty returns contact page.

The note explained the problem, and went on to explain that I have an Apple Macintosh laptop (iBook G4) which will not run the "Drive Fitness Test" tools required to diagnose the problem. It also explained that I don't have a PC at hand to test the drive; I don't have the required 2.5" IDE cable adaptor to plug it into such a PC if I did have one; and that the iBook takes a long time to take apart and put back together, which I don't really want to do if they're not going to authorise an RMA.

This morning I got a reply:

From:     HGST.NoReply%SUPPORT [AT] support [DOT] hgst [DOT] com
Subject:  Hitachi GST Support Request #XXX-XXX-XXX-X
Date:     11 September 2006 11:17:00 BDT
To:       tom [AT] gidden [DOT] net
Reply-To: support_uk [AT] hitachigst [DOT] com

Dear Mr Gidden,

Thank you for contacting our Hitachi Technical Support Center.

From the information we have regarding your problem we cannot make
a reliable diagnosis of your problem and how to resolve it.

In order to gain more information about your problem you need to run
a utility called Drive Fitness Test on the drive. This will establish
the cause of your problem.

Please download Drive Fitness Test from the following URL:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

If possible we would recommend backing up any important data at this
time before running the test.

Run the quick test first, and if you receive the result 0x00, then run
the advanced test.

If you receive result code 0x72, 0x73 or 0x75 please log on to
http://www.hitachigst.com/warranty in order to create an RMA Number
for your hard drive.

For any other result code please contact us again

Best regards
XXXXXX XXXXXXX
Hitachi Technical Support Center

From this, I can tell that they didn't actually read my original note.

From:    Tom Gidden
Subject: Re: Hitachi GST Support Request #XXX-XXX-XXX-X
Date:    11 September 2006 11:31:11 BDT
To:      support_uk [AT] hitachigst [DOT] com

Hi,

As I said in my original message, I can't run Drive Fitness Test
as the drive is installed in my Apple Macintosh laptop, and DFT is
only available for PCs.

I don't have the equipment necessary to connect the drive to a PC, as
it's a 2.5" drive.

Regards,

--
Tom Gidden

And the reply...

From:     HGST.NoReply%SUPPORT [AT] support [DOT] hgst [DOT] com
Subject:  Hitachi GST Support Request #XXX-XXX-XXX-X
Date:     11 September 2006 13:01:24 BDT
To:       tom [AT] gidden [DOT] net
Reply-To: support_uk [AT] hitachigst [DOT] com

Dear Mr Gidden,

Thank you for contacting our Hitachi Technical Support Center.

Simply connect to the internet and point your browser to
http://www.hitachigst.com/warranty/

After you have run DFT and checked the drive Click the link called
RMA Request Process. You can then work through the wizard on screen to
authorise your drive for warranty.

If when using this system you are unable to return your drive you will
be given a telephone number to call for further support and advice.

Once an RMA is created you can check the status of your request by using
the RMA status tool at this link

http://www.hitachigst.com/warranty/jsp/arma51.jsp

Best regards
XXXX X
Hitachi Technical Support Center

I can see that I'm not actually getting anywhere. Yet another case of sucky customer service where the customer isn't getting listened to. I also object to the fact that I need a PC to process a simple warranty claim. Macs are common enough nowadays that it's a bit unfair when drive manufacturers only have DOS-based x86 diagnostic tools.

At this point, the drive is starting to clunk a whole lot more, so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and take it apart anyway, and try to get it hooked up to my dad's PC somehow.

This is the second drive I've bought this year, and the second one that's started making clunking sounds, and neither of them have actually got moved about or anything.

Hitachi sucks.