Can I sue DELL over hdd failure(4 times in a row!!)

hmmm.... My intentions of starting this thread was to get an opinion is it worth thinking of suing dell. Well I have decided its to much a hassle for me.
Thanks for all u guys.

I never new I would generate so much heat jus for calling myself a "techie"!

and 3rd my intentions where never to impress ye all with what I had done was really cool/technical/blah blah.

4th I am still not going to let it out untill next week. If the mods close this thread, I will restart it and post the answer.

till then CheerS!

 

Not sure if i'm letting the cat out of the bag on this one or not but Dell doesn't make the HD's they put in computers.

 

That cat was let out a few pages back already.

 

Magnets? low level formatting or someother such HD tool are the things that stick out to me.

 

Shotgun?
Push the hard drive off a cliff with a big stick?
Ask a friend to put it in the microwave for you?

Anyway, back on subject... Dell may not manufacture the hard drives, but they are selling them as part of a package(in this case, a completely built system) and are therefore under obligation to the customer. The customer didn't buy the drive from Western/Seagate/Fujitsu/etc, the customer has no dealings with them.

Customer has a problem, and takes it up with supplier.
Supplier then takes up problem with component manufacturer.

 

Metalheadkicks, I know that you have just said that you are not thinking about suing dell anymore for YOUR hard drive malfunctions. although the option is viable and as said you can sue anyone for anything, and you never know you may just win, the lady at mcdonalds that spilled coffee all over herself sued them and won because the coffee was hot! (i would have never imagined, hot coffee, what an ingenious idea!)

anyways when suing a company like dell you have to take several things into account, first the guy who said they will probably do a class action lawsuit is partially correct, if it is proven that this case isnt just focused towards you in particular but everyone could suffer from this then yes that would be the case, in any circumstance though unless dell where to send you one of the computer builders heads in a box along with your laptop, often times you will just recieve a settlement check from them, that could be a small amount or a very large amount depending on who you are, and how much you settle with them.

people are mad at you because, well first of all this is a technical forum and people here tend to help each other solve their computer problems, and they dont want to end up in the same sinking ship as you with their dell machines (no offense, but it doesnt exactly sound to me like youve got a very well built boat!) any ways the other reason why you are frustrating people with this is because of the curiosity factor, usually when something like this comes to unfold 9 times outa 10 the reason is dumber than what every one has made it out to be.

and as far as you being a techie, i agree with the guy that said you know only know enough to hurt your own machine.... all my computer guru friends have multiple hard drives in/ out of their machines, and multiple machines with some of the same info on it, hell im no techie just like new gadgets and what not, but i have all my research projects, presentations, and reports for college backed up on at least 2 flash drives and at least one of my computers, so come on man its hard to have sympathy for someone who is going through so many hard drives and in todays day and age it is relatively cheap to do (depending on how important these documents/files are too you!

Just something to think about before you go on.

oh yeah and before i got off subject so far, if you do have a valid complaint with dells performance, talk to some of the supervisors of the company and maybe even with some of the "big wigs" (doubt you will be able to contact these guys) but do what you can, i am sure if the complaint is valid they will do something for you.

by the way i dont care what you say there is no way to ruin a computer with out even touching, unless you have telekinesis! i know this because i have the wonderful ability to screw up a crow bar and i cannot even pull that one off!

 

Wow... I thought it was only us Americans that were lawsuit-happy!

Anyway, I'm no lawyer, and I certainly don't know the specifics of UK laws, but (hey, the American legal system is based on the British system...) I'd say that as long as they're willing to take back the machine and give you a refund (which it sounds like they were willing to do if I read some of your other posts correctly) and as long as you didn't lose data which ended up costing you real money (that you could show that it cost you in court), then you would really have no real case here.

Unless the whole deal ended up costing you real money, then if I were the judge or on the jury I'd just say you were a lawsuit troll. Then again, some of those people do seem to win sometimes....

 

Can I sue you if I lose my hard drive because of something you knew would result in a dead hard drive but didn't tell me?



Oh - and the screenshot shows Error 0146 not Error 0142

Can I assume as you are blaming Dell specifically rather than the component manufacturers and that you have Dells Diagnostics running that it's something to do with the diagnostic software? Or are you just using that to show the HD is fubarred?

Oh - and you are a tease

 

If you are doing some strange, secret experiment on your harddisk which physically damages it, then I think it is very clear that it's your own fault that the harddisk is broken. It sounds like you are doing something with the harddisk that it was not designed for. If that's the case, then it is certainly your own fault and not Dell's and you would lose very quickly in a lawsuit, and it would cost you a LOT of money. Harddisks and laptops are delicate devices with which you can't just do anything and expect them to not break.

In one of the posts you say you were experimenting with the performance settings of the harddisk in the BIOS. There are certain things you should not do, for example changing the harddisk from non-AHCI to AHCI-mode in the BIOS, because Windows Vista then can't boot normally (if you really want to change that setting you will have to re-install Windows after changing it).

Well, I'm very curious what your discovery is. I think the chance is big that you just did something stupid that normal users wouldn't normally do, and of which you knew beforehand that it would damage the drive, and your whole Big Discovery will fizzle out to being a stupid thing that you just shouldn't have done.

 

I have about 40-50 dead HDDs sitting around and about 20 active ones. There are certain brands to avoid but from your description if HDDs keep "dying" then it sounds like a bad controller.
They aren't really dead from the description. I have HDDs with bad logic boards (SMART failure, no data integrity) and others that are really dead (do nothing when put to a power source). Your drives sound like they are being corrupted by a bad controller and you may need a new motherboard. Only way to tell is to hook up the "dead" drives to a known working controller and run some diagnostics on it.
Implying the problem extends to everyone however is just plain wrong. Either you are a troll or a lawyer or both. Or just really pissed off about an unresolved problem affecting just you.
I can say I had a problem with a Dell 5000e that went through a hard drive a month until I put some thin foam strips on the next HDD. Vibrations from the laptop was wiping out drives and the foam protected the HDD from vibration. That HDD lasted until the computer became obsolete.

 

Guys I destroy computers with my mind and I'm going to sue dell and make millions this can't go wrong.

 

Just jesting about Linux. According to Dell the error code is a Hard Drive failed self test. Still hard to believe 4 drives in a row died.

 

I'd like to sue the OP for starting this thread.

I mean, come on, after going through THREE HDDs.....it STILL didn't occur to you to back-up you stuff?

There is NO WAY that you could be a REAL tech.

Also, I don't trust people that over-use the '!' mark.

 

The OP lives in a degausser - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degausser
I don't think it will be healthy in the long run...

 

They'll just laugh and tell you to wear a tinfoil hat and hang up.

 

This all seems strange to me having just come across this thread , the dude has destroyed 4 HDDs doing some test , which involves fiddling with the BIOS , (insane thing to do) . I have a seagate drive in mine at it has worked perfectly from day 1.
I even get confused if he has deliberatly run this test on all of them or just the last 2 ,
The dude is just confusing
I think its a pile of bull****

 

Guys jus for the record, I wasnt doing any test! the hdd was crashing on me without a clue to me. I was merrily using it to copy movies,download stuff, browse internet, like normal people do. Infact I have always treated it as my desktop(never moved it!) I dont have a fetish for foolin around with the computer I work with.

Well I jus mailed to the vice president/GM sales EMEA, his name is Mr. Aongus Hegarty. Lets see how it turns out.

Like I said before I will submit all information after I get a proper reply from them.

 

I still want to know how you just destroy the hard drive with out touching the computer.

the hard drive is shipped to you inside the computer, so you would have to take it out of the computer itself to destroy it using items like a stick, firearm, microwave etc.. as well as this involves touching the computer!!!!

 

Be patient......
Lets jus say u can ruin it if DELL delivered the laptop in the middle of desert to u and u got nothing but the DELL box. You can remove it ruin it way way before the 6 cell battery runs out. HAha!

 

I feel sorry for anyone with a pacemaker that crosses metalheadkicks' path.

 

What did you do? Put it in the oven?

 

well if dell delivered nothing but the dell box then it would absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to ruin the laptop because there would be one to ruin, regardless of your location!

 

I'm definitely calling shenanigans on all of this.

Sounds like the greatest load of rubbish I have ever heard.

Whatever so-called 'tests' that this guy was doing.....WHY would you keep doing the same thing more than ONCE....never mind FOUR times...

Can we just close this thread??

 

I say leave it running. I'm curious to find out just what the heck this guy did to take out 4 HDDs. Curiosity kills? Meh.

 

Sounds like you're just an angry American.

 

Come on guys... Don`t feed the trools...

 

He's got a sense of humor.

Not much else happening in this thread while we wait for the unveiling.

 

I'd be surprised if there were to be an unveiling.

This all just seems like a way to get a group of people together to try and sue Dell.

No, sorry. Not doing that line of conversation again.

 

Apparently not.

 

I happen to agree, iam just dying to know what he was doing, and not realizing that the operation was destroying 4 hard drives, while doing it.

 

I want to know what he was doing too.

 

He was testing out giant neodymium iron boron magnets on the casing of the laptop surrounding the hard drive bay.

 

I want to hear it from him. Wasn't he going to post a video or something?

 

Guys, this is why you don't respond to trolls.

 

I think it's pretty clear what happened. His HDD's all commited suicide, one by one, after having to save the crap he writes.

 

This thread has gone on a bit too long, there is no good coming out of it. Closed.