J
J.Clarke
Western Digital does not put "Dell" labels on drives they sell to Dell.
Nonetheless they do keep a record of which drives were sold under which
contract.
If it came in a Dell call Dell. If it didn't come in a Dell you're
screwed.
All drive manufacturers sell drives to computer manufacturers under
contracts that specify that the drive is warranteed to the computer
manufacturer and the computer manufacturer is responsible for providing
warranty support to their customer. The reason they do this is that by
not having to include the cost of end-user support in the price of the
drive they can sell the drives to the computer manufacturers at a
discount, which the computer manufacturers want.
If, however, you get one of those drives that was surplused or removed
for upgrade or got into the retail channel in some other way, the only
warranty you have is whatever was provided by the store you bought it
from.
Now, before some yahoo says "I got an OEM drive and it had a warranty",
the drive manufacturers also sell "brown box" OEM drives intended to be
sold by wholesalers to small volume manufacturers and consultants who
don't do enough volume to make negotiating a contract directly with the
manufacturer worthwhile. Officially those are warranteed to the
manufacturer, but if you buy one and install it you're effectively the
manufacturer so it's warranteed to you--in any case the manufacturers
don't have any way to track this after the drives go to the wholesalers
so they're functionally discounted retail drives without the pretty box
or whatever accessories are normally included.
It appears based on what you said that the drive you have is one that
was sold to Dell under the kind of contract that makes Dell responsibly
for providing support to the end user, so unless you can get support
from Dell you pretty much don't have a warranty.
Some state laws override such contracts, if you feel strongly about this
it might be worthwhile to look up the applicable statutes and see what
they say and if they seem to support the notion that you have a warranty
regardless of the contract you might talk to your state's department of
consumer affairs or whatever they call it where you live. But don't
expect anything to happen soon if you do that--it takes them time to
build a case and they won't generally act on a single complaint unless
the offense creates a danger to life or risk of major property damage or
is sufficiently egregious to draw media or political attention.