Bookie & the Toshiba external HD **SORTED**

[Bookworm]

Right, this is a 2 pronged thread, really.

 

Toshiba external hard drive, 320 GB, bought 13/04/06, expired 2 weeks ago. Not a sigh, not a whirring, not a clank, screech or crunch, just total silence. Light goes on, but noone's home.

 

I have done the usual, checked USB cables ( I got a nice light-up one from Poundland, really nifty to check if power is going through!) tried it on other computers, nothing.

 

The problem is that I had bought it to store my music, and whilst I still have all my CDs, it will be a mammoth task to restart cataloguing it all, and I vaguely remember people arguing on here about data retrieval, and how it doesn't need to cost a fortune, so I was wondering if any of you knowledgeable people could point me in the right direction before I go to PCW to argue SOGA with them? (as I am pretty sure they will... *sigh*)

 

So, part 1: techy help, please. I don't want to start my collection again from scratch!

[electron99]

Have you checked the power 'brick', that converts the mains voltage to 12volt DC.If you put a voltmeter on the plug that plugs into the external HDD, it should register around 12 volts.If not,then see if you can get a replacement.Maplin do a multi voltage/amp one which you can set to the same specifications as on your existing converter.Take your old one in to them and ask to match it up.The other possiblity is,if 12 volts is going into the external case, is could be a failure of the electronics inside the box.If you can open the casing, you will find a standard hard drive inside, which can be connected directly to your computer using an EIDE cable (or SATA) if it is a SATA drive.Just yell if you want help in doing this.

[MATTYFEZ]

you will find a standard hard drive inside, which can be connected directly to your computer using an EIDE cable (or SATA) if it is a SATA drive.Just yell if you want help in doing this.

 

That would be the first thing I would do after checking power lead/fuse etc, you need to verify if the fault is with the drive itself, or the electronics in the case.

 

once you have opened up the case, ( this may well void any warranty but i assume your music is more valuable than your hard drive ) post up the make and model number of the actual drive.

 

plug it into your computer, youll have to take the side pannel off and plug a spare 4 pin power cable into it, along with an IDE/sata cable for the data.

[olly18uk]

on what grounds are you going to go back and state SOGA??

[ukaviator]

Hi Olly18uk

 

Guarantees are extra to your legal rights. If you can show that the goods were not of satisfactory quality at the time of sale i.e. they were not as durable as it is reasonable to expect, then you may have a claim against the trader or finance company (if applicable) for compensation

 

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) says that goods should be as follows:

 

Of satisfactory quality. This means the goods must meet the standards that any reasonable person would expect, taking into account the description, the price and all other relevant information. In some circumstances, the retailer may be liable for any statement made by the manufacturer about the goods.

Satisfactory quality includes the appearance and finish of the goods, their safety and durability and whether they are free from defects (including minor faults)

 

Fit for the purpose that goods of this type are generally sold. They must also be fit for any specific or particular purpose made known to the seller at the time of the agreement.

 

As described - goods should correspond with any description applied to them.

 

Hope this has answered your question.

 

Uk

[Bookworm]

Thanks, Uk. Dat's da bunny. ;-)

 

Specifically in my case, I will argue that a £120 HD which fails within 14 months of its purchase is not fit for its purpose (archiving storage) nor of satisfactory quality (price/quality rapport) and quite obviously not durable enough.

[fred_2009]

isnt the 6 year rule a UPTO 6 years.

 

who told you that external harddrives were designed to last more then 12 months.

 

price is irrelevent. stating that a £120 HD should last blah blah is irrelevent. its external.. you know meaning it gets moved. hard drives have disks and moving parts. that are not designed to move. external hard-drives are notorious for faults.

 

bet you any money you never had it plugged into a surge protector. ever thought you could have blown it up?

 

nex point. you bought a nifty lightup USB cable from poundland. ever thought it the £1 cable and not the £120 HD causing the issue?

 

if it is not recognised by the PC at all then the USB function may be dead. to retrieve your data will involve breaking the seal. which then invalidates manufacturers warrenties and any means of u proving it was faulty from purchase. thus voiding your SOGA rights too.

 

unless you just want to class hard drive as a loss. rip open the HD caddy and plumb it into a new caddy.

 

just wondering SOGA is about your right to repair or replace a product so that it meets manufactures approved standards and so on. but what if manufacturer only intended it to last 12 months.

 

anyone know of a website that have legally approved timescales of product lifespans?

[fred_2009]

watch out for american style retail legal teams.

 

 

in the UK there was a case where someone took a retailer to court to do with a faulty hard drive. again it was past the 12 months and the consumer was asking for court fee's, hard drive cost £150 and £300 for lost data.

 

the £300 data costs were ignored obviously.

 

retailers response was they will exchange the hard drive. but because it was not proved a fault from production they will charge the consumer their standard rate of their rental fee for a harddrive. as the consumer had enjoyed over 12 months of data storage.

 

totalling more then what the consumer's hard drive originally cost.

[Bookworm]

isnt the 6 year rule a UPTO 6 years.

Mainly, but not necessarily. There is stuff that would be expected to last more than that.

 

who told you that external harddrives were designed to last more then 12 months.

No-one, but the test of reasonableness would apply, which works like this: Ask several "man on the street" whether they think that an external HD should last more than 12 months. If the consensus is that yes, it should, there it is. Furthermore, if they were NOT expected to last than 12 months, the customer should be notified so that they can then make an informed choice.

 

price is irrelevent. stating that a £120 HD should last blah blah is irrelevent.

I beg to differ:

 

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) says that goods should be as follows:

• Of satisfactory quality. This means the goods must meet the standards that any reasonable person would expect, taking into account the description, the price and all other relevant information.

its external.. you know meaning it gets moved. hard drives have disks and moving parts. that are not designed to move. external hard-drives are notorious for faults.

So? How does that exonerate the retailer?

 

bet you any money you never had it plugged into a surge protector. ever thought you could have blown it up?

You'd be wrong. Nope, correction, you ARE wrong. I ONLY ever use surge protector sockets.

 

nex point. you bought a nifty lightup USB cable from poundland. ever thought it the £1 cable and not the £120 HD causing the issue?

Considering that the £1 cable was kept in its box until the HD drive died and that I only ever used the original cable before that, all things considered, I can safely say that no, the £1 cable was not to blame.

 

to retrieve your data will involve breaking the seal. which then invalidates manufacturers warrenties and any means of u proving it was faulty from purchase. thus voiding your SOGA rights too.

Hence why I haven't done it, despite the advice previously given.

 

just wondering SOGA is about your right to repair or replace a product so that it meets manufactures approved standards and so on. but what if manufacturer only intended it to last 12 months.

The manufacturer/retailer would have to state so somewhere to give the customer the right to make an informed choice.

anyone know of a website that have legally approved timescales of product lifespans?

There wouldn't be any, as products longevity will depend on location, circumstances, etc... some products will fail faster if they are in areas of high humidity, or higher altitude, as well as too many variables to quantify, so it would be unrealistic to expect that. Some products however will carry warnings not to use under certain conditions, and it could be argued that this would help alleviate the retailer's responsability, although only up to a certain point, tbh.

[Bookworm]

watch out for american style retail legal teams.

 

in the UK there was a case where someone took a retailer to court to do with a faulty hard drive. again it was past the 12 months and the consumer was asking for court fee's, hard drive cost £150 and £300 for lost data.

 

the £300 data costs were ignored obviously.

 

retailers response was they will exchange the hard drive. but because it was not proved a fault from production they will charge the consumer their standard rate of their rental fee for a harddrive. as the consumer had enjoyed over 12 months of data storage.

 

totalling more then what the consumer's hard drive originally cost.

 

Have you got the details of that case? I'd enjoy reading it. I'd especially enjoy reading the argument and conclusion from the judge.

[gyzmo]

If the fault is proven to be under SoGA the you should be able to claim for consequential losses (i.e, data recovery) or at least I would think so.

I am a bit confused about the case posted - what was the result of it? It looks like an out of court settlement was reached from what I can read. why were data costs ignored? I could understand it if it was proven not to be under SoGA, but it reads as though it was decided from the start that they would not be included.

[Bookworm]

Yes, Gyzmo, that made me twitch too. That's why I am so interested in it, also having noted that fred did not mention what the outcome was, only what the case was about.

[fred_2009]

 

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) says that goods should be as follows:

• Of satisfactory quality. This means the goods must meet the standards that any reasonable person would expect, taking into account the description, the price and all other relevant information.

So? How does that exonerate the retailer?

a hard drive is a harddrive ...

 

whether its £50 or £500 its made the same.

 

if i bought a car for £6000 and tomorrow bought same car with exact same retailer price but got a staff incentive of half price off of it. Are you saying i can base that the full price car should last longer then the half price car??

 

 

 

The manufacturer/retailer would have to state so somewhere to give the customer the right to make an informed choice.

 

so if the manufacturer states that a product will last 12 months but they cannot guarantee it beyond that point then thats ok because you are informed that its not designed to last a decade.

Isnt that called a warrenty? Some RAM and hard drive companies put 10 year warrenties on products, some car manufacturers have upto 5 years. but your hard drive and other smaller items only have 1 year. i wonder why??

 

isnt a warrenty a statement of lifespan. i mean if a company knows their workmanship is to a high enough standard to last wouldn't they guarantee it for that length.

 

even tarmac companies guarantee roads from cracking for 10 years, window/conservatories for upto 15 and even roof thatching companies have a minimum 10 year guarantee.

 

so who says what is suppose to last? average joe bloggs cant really be considered to know. is there anyone with factual proof of lifespan's

 

There wouldn't be any, as products longevity will depend on location, circumstances, etc... some products will fail faster if they are in areas of high humidity, or higher altitude, as well as too many variables to quantify, so it would be unrealistic to expect that.

 

so with so many variables how can it be put to a survey of average joe bloggs on the street to dictate lifespan of items?

 

cant the government make it easy. like enforce a lifespan statement on all products like a tin of beans has a use by date

 

Some products however will carry warnings not to use under certain conditions, and it could be argued that this would help alleviate the retailer's responsability, although only up to a certain point, tbh.

 

retailers are going down the pan. They cant afford knowledgable staff and enough of them to serve people. Online is beating the retailers many times over. But i like shopping so why cant the government help by making it easy to just go to zit face steve and say "hey this lifespan is 3 years.. its been 14 months, swap or repair.. ill be back later"

 

shelf stackers know nothing about retail law and when its the company and not them personally accountable, they dont want to know retail law for £5 an hour. So why cant there be a website that helps ease the stress of faults for both customer and workers

 

this website is more about copy and paste soga aand send the customer to the store.

 

no advice about alternatives. or atleast no ways to speed up the process to avoid needing a court case to get the attention of the top boss at HQ because zit face steve at till number 2 said no.

[fred_2009]

the shop agreed to pay the fee's for the court, out of good will but the shopper did not get a new hard drive or a repair.

 

so they both lost.

[Bookworm]

Training zit face steve in consumer's statutory rights (I really can not stress those two words enough) would actually be a pretty foolproof way of avoiding that.

DON'T try to fob off the customer, DON'T try to tell them that because it's over 1 year old, it is not their problem anymore, DON'T tell them that the 1 year warranty is the end all and be all of their recourse, DON'T lie to them and mislead them. DO teach them about SOGA, DO train them to work within its limits.

 

I am pretty certain that most of the complaints would NEVER end up in court or even as far as HQ.

 

Look at how YOU have responded to my thread: You have tried to say that I have no rights past the 1 year, and tried to feed me false information in the process, you have tried to say that I was probably responsible for the demise of my HD, depsite knowing NOTHING of the circumstances, and have basically displayed every bit of bad faith that zit face steve usually displays.

[Bookworm]

the shop agreed to pay the fee's for the court, out of good will but the shopper did not get a new hard drive or a repair.

 

so they both lost.

 

I meant give us a link to the case. Forgive me, but seeing the amount of misinformation you have so far provided, I will not believe that this was the case unless I can find more info. I did various searches yesterday and found nothing.

 

PS: I doubt very much the shop paid the fees "out of good will". In small claims, the defendants pay the claimant's fees if they lose.

[spikeachu]

At the end of the day, hard drives are a funny piece of kit. Some last years, some last hours. They require pinpoint precision on a surface microns thick and spin at speeds at over 100 revs per second.

 

I personally wouldn't trust them for archiving and it is highly recommended that backups are maintained in case of hard drive failure. It seems acknowledged that they are going to fail sooner rather than later. However, in people's pursuit of ever larger storage areas on the same size disk and ever increasing speeds, this isn't going to change any time soon.

 

While I personally think that if you get over four years use out of one you're doing very well, I'd also expect a minimum of two years to consider as acceptable.

 

With the rate at which people's use of data is increasing these days, a drive that is four years old is likely to be discarded as inadequate and replaced with something that will store many times more information. It's not that long ago that someone told me I would have difficulties in filling a 2GB drive, yet now I walk around with that much storage on a keyring and an ipod with more than that used just in audio.

 

But that's just my thoughts on the matter.

[gyzmo]

With reference to Freds post on price - price is only relevant in certain situations.

 

If there is a genuie sale, or "one off" pricing, then the price is not relevant. One would expect a £500 hard drive to fair better than one costing £50. In that case the price is relevant.

 

Read SoGA (and look at some case law).

[gyzmo]

And I'm suspecting we have found another identity for you know who......

[Bookworm]

The thought had crossed my mind.

 

(No sign of the infamous case, I notice.)

[ForestChav]

And I'm suspecting we have found another identity for you know who......

I noticed that the first time I read one of his posts.

 

Can't you lot just ban his IP?

[patdavies]

Toshiba quotes a 20,000 power on hour life or 5 years on their website for 320 Gbyte drives

[gyzmo]

That was a conversation killer! (Only jokin, Pat!).

Let us know how you get on Bookworm. I've tried in vain looking for this case - if it does exist it looks like it was county court and so not reported.

[fred_2009]

so if the hard drive failed after the 5th year..

 

no leg to stand on?

 

maybe bookworm should use that website as proof of lifespan as ammo to get pcworld to do something.

 

retailers use manufacturers guarantees as a guide of lifespan. this will show them it meant to last longer.

 

also you have to prove you not damage it so drywipe off any scratches etc which may lead to them thinking it been mis-handled for 14 months

 

whats the website to the page with the facts about the lifespan?

[patdavies]

 

whats the website to the page with the facts about the lifespan?

 

Try reading previous posts properly