Last night while surfing the Net my computer’s hard drive started making this very loud humming sound, along with a loud clicking sound, and then my computer turned off by itself. When I turn on the computer I get the following error message…
ERROR
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0
I purchased this laptop from Circuit City last June, so it should still be under warranty, right? What does everyone here think I should do? Take it back to Circuit City, buy a new hard drive for this, or what? I’m writing this post from my wife’s laptop, and I desperately need to get my TR3A laptop up-and-running as fast as possible, because I do a lot of forum administration and web designing for my Star Wars collecting site, Sandtroopers.com .
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
[quote author=“dustrho”]Last night while surfing the Net my computer’s hard drive started making this very loud humming sound, along with a loud clicking sound, and then my computer turned off by itself. When I turn on the computer I get the following error message…
ERROR
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0
I purchased this laptop from Circuit City last June, so it should still be under warranty, right? What does everyone here think I should do? Take it back to Circuit City, buy a new hard drive for this, or what? I’m writing this post from my wife’s laptop, and I desperately need to get my TR3A laptop up-and-running as fast as possible, because I do a lot of forum administration and web designing for my Star Wars collecting site, Sandtroopers.com .
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Just take it back to circuit city, your laptop is still under warranty for sure.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. I do appreciate it.
Well, I went to Circuit City to see if they could fix it, and let me tell you I walked away from there pretty pissed off. First of all, I did purchase their extended service plan, but I learned that it doesn’t start working until the end of the manufacturer’s warranty. That means, I can’t have Circuit City touch my laptop until June 30th. Total BS! So, I spent almost $400 on their extended service plan, but they can’t do squat with my laptop. They told me that I need to call Sony’s support number of 800-222-SONY.
Well, I’m back home now (obviously), and I’ve been only for over 20 minutes and haven’t spoken to a live person yet. I’m not a happy camper to say the least. This just shows me how poor Sony’s support truly is.
Couldn’t I just buy a new hard drive and install it myself? How hard would that be to do on these laptops? I’ve installed laptop hard drives before, but I have no idea how you would go about doing it on this particular laptop. I would definitely get a larger hard drive than the 40gb one that came with mine, but what is the maximum size hard drive that will work with this?
I’d like to try to get this resolved through the MFR’s warranty first, before trying to install a new hard drive, but I want to keep my options open here.
when i received my x505 (sony refurb w/ 90 day warranty) they told me that the cracked hinge and dead pixel was my fault and that they don’t cover accidental damage. sadly, i received it like this. i guess they accidently sent me a damaged machine, which is my fault somehow.
i waited 30 minutes to be told that… just keep waiting in line; you’ll get someone eventually.
While I’m hold I tried doing a system restore, and it told me it couldn’t find the hard drive. So, my hard drive is completely dead.
Then, after waiting for over 30 minutes a support person FINALLY answered the call. However, after speaking with her for only a minute the phone call was disconnected. Damn, am I pissed off right now! So far Sony is really putting a sour taste in my mouth.
Well, I went to Circuit City to see if they could fix it, and let me tell you I walked away from there pretty pissed off. First of all, I did purchase their extended service plan, but I learned that it doesn’t start working until the end of the manufacturer’s warranty. That means, I can’t have Circuit City touch my laptop until June 30th. Total BS! So, I spent almost $400 on their extended service plan, but they can’t do squat with my laptop. They told me that I need to call Sony’s support number of 800-222-SONY.
Frankly, I think that makes a lot of sense. It means you get an extra year of warranty effectively. Say if you bought the extended warranty from Circuit city for 1 year (and 1 yr costed 400 bucks or whatever) and if that started immediately, you would have got just 1 year warranty totally which is what everyone get by default and you would have spent an extra 400 bucks for it. The only advantage you would have over others would be that you could use Sony or Circuitcity for your warranty.
You should contact Sony, from what I’ve heard around here, their service is very nice…they send you an empty box by overnight service and then you send in your machine to them using overnight service (they send a prepaid label with the box obvio :p) and then they send back the machine to you.
The only time I heard they messed up was when they replaced groovy’s S series harddrive with one with lower rpm.
After a second attempt with Sony’s support, I finally got my issue resolved. Just like Rahul mentioned, they will be sending me an empty shipping box (either FedEx or UPS), and the turnaround time is 7-10 business days. I suppose that’s not too bad, but it took me over 1.5 hours of waiting to speak to a support person to get that setup.
Hopefully this will, in fact, fix my hard drive problem, and that I will be up-and-running soon.
That’s good news. Yes, it’s better to let them deal with it while it’s under warranty. There’s no point in you shelling out money for an item they should fix for free.
If that’s the case, then Circuit City’s warranty sucks. At other companies like Fry’s Electronics or Best Buy, the “special” warranty starts the day you buy it. It’s supposed to save you the trouble of dealing with the manufacturer. If they can’t fix it then they’re supposed to give you a new one of a comparable item. Also, at a place like Fry’s, you get a “temporary comparable product” to use while your item is being repaired. That’s pretty nice.
Sheesh…don’t get me started on Sony Service. What was once considered “very good” service in my mind has deteriorated into “unacceptable” service. I’ll start a new post for that one.
[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Also, at a place like Fry’s, you get a “temporary comparable product” to use while your item is being repaired. That’s pretty nice.
The manager at Circuit City did offer to swap my laptop with their original floor model (same model number), but of course that floor model was in terrible condition (scratches, tiny cracks, and was dirty). I said, “No way am I trading in my perfectly good laptop (minus the defective hard drive) for that piece of you-know-what. Then he offered me the exact same laptop to “borrow” (if I had CC take care of sending my laptop to Sony), and I could use that laptop temporarily until I received my laptop back from Sony. I said, “Don’t bother.”
I cannot believe that CC wouldn’t really take care of me, even when I spent the almost $400 for their extended warranty. Is there any way I could get that warranty refunded? I truly feel like they robbed me blind.
Nonetheless, I am still pissed beyond belief about my experience with CC. :x
I guess I don’t get it. CC was willing to send your laptop to Sony for you, and let you use their floor demo until your computer came back. What’s wrong with that? I woudn’t expect them to crack open a new computer to lend you. It sounds to me like they were offering everything reasonable.
From what I read, some of the connectors in our lappys are fragile. I would rather Sony fix it than CC.
[quote author=“deichenlaub”]I guess I don’t get it. CC was willing to send your laptop to Sony for you, and let you use their floor demo until your computer came back. What’s wrong with that? I woudn’t expect them to crack open a new computer to lend you. It sounds to me like they were offering everything reasonable.
The manager at CC said they would be happy to send in my laptop for me, but the turn-around time would be at a minimum of one month. I cannot wait one month for me to get my laptop back. That is not the answer I want to hear, especially since I paid $400 for the crappy extended service that DOESN’T WORK until after one year from the purchase date. Total B-S!
That loaner he offered was a piece of crap, and I didn’t want to have any responsibility for using that. I could see it now… upon returning they complain that it’s all scratched up because of something I had done to that laptop. No way.
They should have tried fixing it, instead of pushing me away to contact Sony directly. Like I said before, I feel like they robbed $400 from me.
After letting this go for a few days I started thinking… is it normal to ship an entire laptop to the manufacturer when all they need to do is install a hard drive? Just about anyone can install a laptop hard drive, so I’m curious is if I should be concerned about mailing my laptop to Sony just to have them install a new hard drive.
My biggest conern is that I’ll receive my laptop back in good working order, but something else is either broken or not as in good of condition as I had shipped it to them.
Yes, it’s normal especially since the TR wasn’t designed to have a user upgradeable hard disk.
Here’s my suggestion though if you do send your notebook in. Document everything. So, make photocopies of all the paperwork you’re sending in and take digital photos of the item(s) before you stick them in the box. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to stick Post-It notes or to use one of those label makers and stick them on your stuff. This will ensure that you have strong proof should anything go wrong.
