Can a hard disk shrink? Or did ****USA steal my HD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter George L.
  • Start date Start date
Colin Watters said:
He said his 80G was an upgrade. Perhaps they assumed it was a "standard"
model and replaced it with what they thought that model had? ..or perhaps
they just had a 40G handy and didn't check?
Click to expand...

Why would they replace the hard drive at all? They say they ran a
diagnostic on it, but replaced the power supply instead, which the OP claims
solved the problem. I also see no economic incentive to swap the drives.
The only possible reason would be an idiot who thought there was some
incentive. I've seen people that stupid, but usually they are not working
in computer repair centers. On second thought.... :-)
 
Unless you can actually prove thatt he drive in question
was actually in the box when you took it into the store,
you'll be hard pressed to win any action. A receipt only
shows that you bought the drive, not that it was in the
box when you took it in.
Click to expand...

Dunno, he clearly aint got what is listed
on the original receipt anymore.
Why would they swap drives? There's no economic incentive to
do so; there's not enough involved to make it worth their while.
Click to expand...

Sure, but that doesnt mean some monkey didnt put the wrong
size drive in the box when replacing the original, by accident,
say when testing that possibility for the freezes when the
second power supply behaved the same way as the first.
 
A receipt only shows that you bought the drive, not that it was in the
box when you took it in.
Click to expand...

_________________________________________________________

A receipt by itself neither proves nor disproves anything. Its function
is to backup what the plaintiff testifies, and the testimony is what the
judge is going to give the most weight to - if it's believable.
 
Jeeters said:
I think he meant 'partitioned'.
Click to expand...
Nobody else said it, so I will- perhaps OPs original drive was disk-doubled
(compressed) or something? Back when they still let me touch hardware, and
I had to nuke a machine, first thing I did was put it all back to vanilla
specs. Now that big hard drives are dirt cheap, almost nobody compresses,
for good reason, but there are a lot of flaky 3rd party programs out there.
I'd definitely run Fdisk from a boot floppy, and see if there is
unpartitioned space out there.

But if OP is sure about what the tags say, I'd theorize the shop was out of
80s and/or the tech called up the build sheet from the website, and put back
'original equipment'. 9 out of ten customers would never have known the
difference.

No cost-effective way to get relief from the store, but this is a good
example of why it is best to do your own repairs and/or deal with a ma'n'pa
place where you can look the owner in the eye. And always ask for the oldd
parts back. If OP had the original 40 that got upgraded, he could stick it
back in as a D drive.

aem sends....
 
and then find a buyer and sell the other
hard drive
Click to expand...

shit I'd keep it which was my point. make money on it?

No, I'm saying what I said. i.e. it's not likely

you haven't done much business with CompUSA or many other Boiler room repair places..

..
So you shouldn't assume that it has, in fact, "taken
I made no assumption, I said that I would take the side of the poster asking pertinent questions(like the model) and trying to sort
out what exactly happened....if it were to ever be ascertained..

I didn't take his 'stealing' subject literally
 
I think you have a legal case (especially if the hd was included with
the system and you have the receipt for the system purchase) if the
store refuses to cooperate. Problem is (and I hate to say this and
let them get away with it), that the costs involved even tho not a
lot, probably isn't worth your time and money to go to small claims
court for a 80 gig hard drive nowadays.

You should see my face when I have to tell you "its not worth your
time and money" when you know that they are getting away with being
incompetent and doing the customer wrong.

Now if you just want to do it for the principle of the matter then go
get 'em. I hope you get more than just a 80 gig hard drive tho I'm
not sure about this.

Good Luck whatever you decide.
 
ameijers said:
But if OP is sure about what the tags say, I'd theorize the shop was out of
80s and/or the tech called up the build sheet from the website, and put back
'original equipment'. 9 out of ten customers would never have known the
difference.
Click to expand...

Everyone keeps missing the fact that they did not (were not supposed to)
change the hard drive for this work.
 
JAD said:
and then find a buyer and sell the other

shit I'd keep it which was my point. make money on it?
Click to expand...

You'd do that work, and risk going to jail, so you can swap your 40G hard
drive for someone else's 80G? Now that is truly stupid. Not to say I
haven't seen stupid people working in places like that, but usually not for
long.
No, I'm saying what I said. i.e. it's not likely

you haven't done much business with CompUSA or many other Boiler room
Click to expand...
repair places..

I have, which is why I would not advise arguing with them. It's like
wrestling with a pig.
So you shouldn't assume that it has, in fact, "taken

I made no assumption, I said that I would take the side of the poster
Click to expand...
asking pertinent questions(like the model) and trying to sort
out what exactly happened....if it were to ever be ascertained..
Click to expand...

Which reminds me - unfortunately, the OP has not participated since the
first post. Apparently we care about this issue more than he does. EOT for
me.....
 
Everyone keeps missing the fact that they did not (were not supposed to)
change the hard drive for this work.
Click to expand...

It is a reasonable thing to try if the second
power supply behaved the same as the first.
 
Generally you're wrong
Nope.

but technically you can be right
Click to expand...

Corse he's right.
(these links explain in better detail) ....
Click to expand...

Not necessary. What matters is that W2K will use a
FAT32 partition bigger than 32GB, it just wont create
one. In other words you have to create it outside W2K.
 
Rod Speed said:
It is a reasonable thing to try if the second
power supply behaved the same as the first.
Click to expand...

But they would have told them they did it. It couldn't be an "honest
mistake" if they told him they only ran diagnostics on the drive.
 
I would say your F**KED,
What ever happen to your 80GB may never be solved.
Some tech may have wanted your 80GB, so he replaced it with his 40GB.
Maybe some tech wanted to make a copy of your HD, to get all your video/MP3
files
but then got the drives mixed up.
Store management will always side with their employees (repair tech).
I would say to write to everyone you can at ****USA, then get on with your
life.
What model was the 80GB ?
What model 40GB is in there now ?
 
But they would have told them they did it.
Click to expand...

You dont know that the monkey he has communicated
with is the same monkey that did that swap when testing
or that the monkey that did the swap documented that etc.
It couldn't be an "honest mistake" if they told
him they only ran diagnostics on the drive.
Click to expand...

Corse it could be just lousy communication/
honest mistake about what was actually done.
 
George L. said:
I took my Compaq equipped with 80 gig HD to ****USA but got
back a 40 gig. My data wasn't lost, but the drive is
definitely smaller, according to the BIOS and the label on the HD.
Click to expand...
The repair center denies that they replaced the drive and said
that they only ran a diagnostic on it. I have the receipt for
the original HD (was an upgrade) and registered its serial
no., but the repair center says that it's not enough proof.
Click to expand...

Repair shops sometime substitute parts for testing and then forget to
put back the originals. But fraud does happen, and I've had 2
experiences with hard drive downgrades like that, both where the shop
"forgot" to restore all the partitions. It seems that high-priced
video cards are the most likely targets for this now because other
components are so cheap.

Protect yourself by copying down the model and serial numbers of every
drive, video card, and memory module, and write them on the original
work order, along with "return old parts to customer."
 
Repair shops sometime substitute parts for testing and then forget to
put back the originals.
Click to expand...

_________________________________________________________

Not likely they would *mount* a HD just to test it, is it? Just unplug
the cables from the old and let the new one hang for a few minutes. I
was a TV repairman for years. That's how repair guys think.
 
W7TI said:
(e-mail address removed) (do_not_spam_me) wrote
Click to expand...
_________________________________________________________

Not likely they would *mount* a HD just to test it, is it? Just unplug
the cables from the old and let the new one hang for a few minutes.
Click to expand...

With the system freezing at random times, you'd likely have to
run the alternative for more than a few minutes to see if its the
drive thats causing the freezes and some drives get stinking
hot used like that, because they rely on conduction to the
metal drive bay stack to get rid of most of the heat.
I was a TV repairman for years. That's how repair guys think.
Click to expand...

Yes, but things can be different with PC hard drives and its
generally easy enough to screw the drive into the bay stack.
 
He said his 80G was an upgrade. Perhaps they assumed it was a "standard"
model and replaced it with what they thought that model had? ..or perhaps
they just had a 40G handy and didn't check?
Click to expand...
While possible, IMO it's highly improbable.
These places like to make money. If they need to change a drive to
check what will work, they usually charge for it.
On top of that, there's no reason to do a copy from one drive to
another to check the drive; just install the new drive, and see what
happens. Doing a copy takes time that's not needed if you're not
charging to change the drive.
If they were assuming the original was a "standard" drive, why did
they replace it without charging for the replacement? Even if it was a
warranty replacement, they would charge for the copying.
 
Dunno, he clearly aint got what is listed
on the original receipt anymore.
Click to expand...

What original receipt?
The OP says he has a receipt forthe drive; he didn't say the receipt
was for the system.
Sure, but that doesnt mean some monkey didnt put the wrong
size drive in the box when replacing the original, by accident,
say when testing that possibility for the freezes when the
second power supply behaved the same way as the first.
Click to expand...
But that doesn't explain the copy. Copying takes time, and these
places make their money charging for such work.
I have a hard time believing the tech would replace the drive, do an
image/copy, and not document it.
 
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