Toshiba support around the world
21 October 2007About a month ago, the hard drive in my good old iBook died. I was quite sure the problem was with the hardrive. I went to the support service of Apple, and they wanted to charge me around 200€ for the HD and the service, so I end up with a 10€ “electronic screwdriver set”, a 75€ 120GB HD and a 50 pictures long iBook “service” manual.
Hopefully everything went without troubles (I left disconnected the touchpad, but I could fix it), so I get prepared to dig into the Toshiba Support pages. I have an USB box so it could be useful to have a spare HD (you’ll see later why).
The first time I ended up with the support pages for USA and Canada. The system recognized my HD Serial Number as still in warranty, so I was about to pack the HD when I realized that (of course) I wasn’t able to fill my address properly (in Finland). Those pages were for USA and Canada, nothing to do with me.
Next stop was the european support site. No fancy S/N checkers, just an email. They replied quite fast, but not with any help. The only warranty that my HD has in Europe is the Apple’s warranty, and (as expected) I couldn’t change his mind.
So, if you ask me for a brand that you shouldn’t buy if you are European, that is Toshiba. I’ve sent 2 times the same Hitachi HD OEM unit (it was inside a USB2.0 box), and got no trouble: I didn’t need to send any email: just enter my S/N and they give me a RMA number that I attached to the package. Now, that HD is working 24/7 and I’ve used before it for video editing (no wonder why it broke twice). But I know that I can have a replacement if I need it.
My beloved Toshiba HD. The plate is in the back. My fancy new blinds in the middle.
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2 Responses to “Toshiba support around the world”
October 24th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Common practice.
No hard drive manufacturer will replace a preinstalled OEM drive under warranty.
Karl
October 24th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Hitachi did it. To me. Twice.