Some systems have the option of an additional fee at the time of purchase that will cover one hard drive replacement where you keep the old one when you receive the new one. Otherwise, the drive makers require the discs to be returned when they supply Dell a replacement - so Dell requires the drive back.
Your other option is to purchase a drive yourself and keep the old one - it'll be far cheaper than paying what Dell will charge you if you don't return the defective drive.
If you're worried, send back the drive they shipped you and buy your own replacement at newegg.com. However, bear in mind that if that drive fails, you WILL have to return the defective one if you opt for a warranty replacement - it's standard practice by all drive makers.
I appreciate the perspective. As the world changes, it it the right thing to do? Not all people/ Dell users understand that data can be easily recovered by hackers. With current policies and practices, are we not seeding the fields for major identity theft? Should we not be making a BIG DEAL of the option. I truely do no remember any option for "one" disc replacement where I keep the drive ... and I consider myself relatively savy.
The option is more common on business purchases (Latitude/OptiPlex/Precision/PowerEdge) than on consumer purchases, presumably because consumers won't generally pay for the option. I don't think there's any way a drive manufacturer won't require payment or a returned drive - or the replacement policy would be abused. If you can still access your drive you can use something like Active Killdisk to wipe it out. If not, there are still ways to degauss (erase) hard drives - see if a local computer shop can do that for you.
The devices for doing so are fairly expensive - cetainly far more so than a replacement hard drive.
Between work and home (2 desktops, 3 laptops, 7 total hdds), I lose a drive roughly once every 5 years.
A few years ago I got a warranty replacement hard drive for my D4700. They replaced a 160GB with a 240GB model. I was pretty happy, until I started to think about the issues brought up above.
With the price of drives dropping--I picked up a WD Caviar Blue 640GB drive for $70 last week--I figured it was worth a little peace of mind not to return a drive that dies during the warranty period.
Ok all, this is a valid concern however, the data from any drive damaged or not is recoverable unless it's highly encrypted which is now possible with XP, Vista and most versions of Linux. If you want it safe nomatter what encrypt it or keep it off the hard disk. I bought a new D531 recently and the first thing in order was to clone the original disk onto a new unit from Seagate, treir warranty service originates in Texas and not a foriegn country so I feel safe in sending them a dud. Second, I don't keep what I can't afford to loose on the drive period. Finally, back it up, it's a minor proceedure to do and if it's that important then don't come crying to me that you forgot and lost your critical data.
US-based or not, ALL desktop and notebook drive makers are made (and in the case of refurbishing) sent to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, or China.
Nobody is crying over losing data. It's all backed up. The folks reading this forum are probably the smarter people, understanding the risk. However, this population may represent less than one percent of the system owners. And face it, more than 99.5% of users place personal information on their computer - credit card number, online banking w/ account numbers and passwords, social security numbers, tax returns, passwords to financial and other websites. Let's be honest.
Let's consider how many drives are returned - thousands, hundreds of thousands? Of those, how many drives contain Personal Identifing Information (PII)?
Should Dell, or any other manufacturer, be expected to be somewhat responsible for potentially contributing to spread of identity theft?
The answer in general is that drives returned are supposed to be destroyed by the manufacturer, but the ultimate responsibility rests with the owner of the drive - the data is not Dell's (or the manufacturer's) responsibility.
so.... am I reading this right? The average workers recycling hard drive components at the manufacturer's Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China or Taiwan factories are more tech savvy [implied] and can harvest whatever personal data and passwords you saved in plain and unencrypted form on your dead hard drive and therefore are a "MASSIVE" security and "Public" risk, but not if your drive stays in the US for recycling? How about if the drives go to Canada or Mexico, or Eastern Europe to factories in countries like Hungary or Poland, will that be acceptable in terms of *Public* risk for you? I'm not sure I like what you are intentionally or unintentionally implying here. (And in that case, should customers residing in those countries even trust their respective Dell offices because of these obviously rampant "IDENTITY THEFT and CREDIT FRAUD" in these countries that you are so concerned about?!)
However, you have made a valid point - what happens to your personal data when you return a dead hard drive and should you be concerned about data security. Personally I don't think there is a problem. Hard drive failures these days are not uncommon, considering how many drives are being sold through retailers and OEMs, and I doubt these workers are idle enough to sieve through every drive looking for personal data before they dismantle the parts and platters for recycling - the whole process is probably automated anyway.... and why the worry - are you saving account numbers and passwords in text documents? Many financial/banking online access these days are using at least 128bit encryption anyway (IE7/8 support 256bit) - I would be more concerned if my bank wasn't doing anything to protect its customers.
As was posted up the chain here, the drives that are returned here are checked for failure information if posible and then destroyed. There typically is no economical fix possible on the returned units.
They arent destroyed in the classic sense as theres a lot of recycleable aluminum in hard drives.
Its greener to melt down and re-use aluminum than to throw it into the landfill.
It takes a great deal of electricity to create aluminum from raw materials so not only are you saving space in the land fill, you are also conserving energy.
A typical desktop hard drive chassis contains over one pound of recyclable aluminum.
Not quite, refurbished means it was a pull from a good unit or scheduled for a unit and not used or it had a minor defect and was recoverable. Note the warranties on these are a year or less. Almost all the other are history except for the failure mode data.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
May 29th, 2009 16:00
Some systems have the option of an additional fee at the time of purchase that will cover one hard drive replacement where you keep the old one when you receive the new one. Otherwise, the drive makers require the discs to be returned when they supply Dell a replacement - so Dell requires the drive back.
Your other option is to purchase a drive yourself and keep the old one - it'll be far cheaper than paying what Dell will charge you if you don't return the defective drive.
If you're worried, send back the drive they shipped you and buy your own replacement at newegg.com. However, bear in mind that if that drive fails, you WILL have to return the defective one if you opt for a warranty replacement - it's standard practice by all drive makers.
Mike Sullivan
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
May 29th, 2009 17:00
I appreciate the perspective. As the world changes, it it the right thing to do? Not all people/ Dell users understand that data can be easily recovered by hackers. With current policies and practices, are we not seeding the fields for major identity theft? Should we not be making a BIG DEAL of the option. I truely do no remember any option for "one" disc replacement where I keep the drive ... and I consider myself relatively savy.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
May 29th, 2009 17:00
The option is more common on business purchases (Latitude/OptiPlex/Precision/PowerEdge) than on consumer purchases, presumably because consumers won't generally pay for the option. I don't think there's any way a drive manufacturer won't require payment or a returned drive - or the replacement policy would be abused. If you can still access your drive you can use something like Active Killdisk to wipe it out. If not, there are still ways to degauss (erase) hard drives - see if a local computer shop can do that for you.
The devices for doing so are fairly expensive - cetainly far more so than a replacement hard drive.
mpo
2 Intern
•
399 Posts
0
May 29th, 2009 18:00
Between work and home (2 desktops, 3 laptops, 7 total hdds), I lose a drive roughly once every 5 years.
A few years ago I got a warranty replacement hard drive for my D4700. They replaced a 160GB with a 240GB model. I was pretty happy, until I started to think about the issues brought up above.
With the price of drives dropping--I picked up a WD Caviar Blue 640GB drive for $70 last week--I figured it was worth a little peace of mind not to return a drive that dies during the warranty period.
LOVINPARKVILLE
49 Posts
0
May 29th, 2009 20:00
Ok all, this is a valid concern however, the data from any drive damaged or not is recoverable unless it's highly encrypted which is now possible with XP, Vista and most versions of Linux. If you want it safe nomatter what encrypt it or keep it off the hard disk. I bought a new D531 recently and the first thing in order was to clone the original disk onto a new unit from Seagate, treir warranty service originates in Texas and not a foriegn country so I feel safe in sending them a dud. Second, I don't keep what I can't afford to loose on the drive period. Finally, back it up, it's a minor proceedure to do and if it's that important then don't come crying to me that you forgot and lost your critical data.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
May 30th, 2009 04:00
US-based or not, ALL desktop and notebook drive makers are made (and in the case of refurbishing) sent to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, or China.
Mike Sullivan
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
May 31st, 2009 13:00
You are very smart. I wish that I had been faster thinking.
Mike Sullivan
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
May 31st, 2009 14:00
Nobody is crying over losing data. It's all backed up. The folks reading this forum are probably the smarter people, understanding the risk. However, this population may represent less than one percent of the system owners. And face it, more than 99.5% of users place personal information on their computer - credit card number, online banking w/ account numbers and passwords, social security numbers, tax returns, passwords to financial and other websites. Let's be honest.
Let's consider how many drives are returned - thousands, hundreds of thousands? Of those, how many drives contain Personal Identifing Information (PII)?
Should Dell, or any other manufacturer, be expected to be somewhat responsible for potentially contributing to spread of identity theft?
Mike
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
May 31st, 2009 14:00
The answer in general is that drives returned are supposed to be destroyed by the manufacturer, but the ultimate responsibility rests with the owner of the drive - the data is not Dell's (or the manufacturer's) responsibility.
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
May 31st, 2009 15:00
A large magnet?
esquire
2 Intern
•
2.5K Posts
0
May 31st, 2009 19:00
so.... am I reading this right? The average workers recycling hard drive components at the manufacturer's Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China or Taiwan factories are more tech savvy [implied] and can harvest whatever personal data and passwords you saved in plain and unencrypted form on your dead hard drive and therefore are a "MASSIVE" security and "Public" risk, but not if your drive stays in the US for recycling? How about if the drives go to Canada or Mexico, or Eastern Europe to factories in countries like Hungary or Poland, will that be acceptable in terms of *Public* risk for you? I'm not sure I like what you are intentionally or unintentionally implying here. (And in that case, should customers residing in those countries even trust their respective Dell offices because of these obviously rampant "IDENTITY THEFT and CREDIT FRAUD" in these countries that you are so concerned about?!)
However, you have made a valid point - what happens to your personal data when you return a dead hard drive and should you be concerned about data security. Personally I don't think there is a problem. Hard drive failures these days are not uncommon, considering how many drives are being sold through retailers and OEMs, and I doubt these workers are idle enough to sieve through every drive looking for personal data before they dismantle the parts and platters for recycling - the whole process is probably automated anyway.... and why the worry - are you saving account numbers and passwords in text documents? Many financial/banking online access these days are using at least 128bit encryption anyway (IE7/8 support 256bit) - I would be more concerned if my bank wasn't doing anything to protect its customers.
LOVINPARKVILLE
49 Posts
0
June 1st, 2009 06:00
As was posted up the chain here, the drives that are returned here are checked for failure information if posible and then destroyed. There typically is no economical fix possible on the returned units.
speedstep
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
0
June 1st, 2009 07:00
You could degauss the drive.
They arent destroyed in the classic sense as theres a lot of recycleable aluminum in hard drives.
Its greener to melt down and re-use aluminum than to throw it into the landfill.
It takes a great deal of electricity to create aluminum from raw materials so not
only are you saving space in the land fill, you are also conserving energy.
A typical desktop hard drive chassis contains over one pound of recyclable aluminum.
http://www.dkrecycling.com/HARD_DRIVE_DESTRUCTION.html
http://www.uxcell.com/hand-held-crt-picture-tube-degaussing-coil-repair-screen-degausser-p-1454.html
http://www.datalinksales.com/degaussers/v85.htm
The_Penguin
31 Posts
0
June 4th, 2009 15:00
Last I heard, most drive manufacturers refurbish them. Many warranty replacements I have received are refurbished.
LOVINPARKVILLE
49 Posts
0
June 4th, 2009 16:00
Not quite, refurbished means it was a pull from a good unit or scheduled for a unit and not used or it had a minor defect and was recoverable. Note the warranties on these are a year or less. Almost all the other are history except for the failure mode data.