One of the hard drives in my system started throwing errors last week, so I needed to replace it ASAP. While I was at it, I figured I’d do a minor upgrade and add redundancy for all the file systems on the box.

I removed both of the old crappy hard drives from my system, only to replace them with two other crappy hard drives. That hadn’t been my intention–I’d actually gone out of my way to purchase new Seagate drives because they come with five year warranties. The site I purchased them from, ByteMarket.com, listed two refurbished 40GB drives for a good price, so I bought them.

Since I only needed 40GB drives, I was fine with getting refurbs–drives reworked by the factory but are essentially new. Most importantly, they’re covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. That’s not what I got. In fact, I didn’t really get anything I’d wanted in this deal: there was virtually nothing about this purchase that ByteMarket didn’t fuck up.

  • The drives I received were system pulls–drives pulled from old computers and resold. They both had Compaq stickers plastered on them and were covered in scratches and dents. One hadn’t even had the original mounting screws removed.
  • They were shipped in a box that was twice as big as it needed to be, giving them plenty of room to bash around into each other during the shipping process. They were, however, in bubble wrap.
  • I specified shipping to my work address (where my server lives), and they were sent to my apartment.
  • I paid for 2-4 day shipping, and it took more than a week for the drives to arrive.

Since I needed to replace the bad drive in my system without delay, I had no choice but to install the drives anyway. I’ve been testing them, and they’re both working fine–but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m pissed. I’m calling tomorrow to see what they’re willing to do for me, since both drives are in use and can’t be sent back. I’m hoping for a partial refund or new drives. If I don’t get some sort of compensation, I’m going to sic The Consumerist on them.