<p>Costco has to draw the line somewhere. They’ve chosen 90 days, which is extraordinarily generous.</p>
<p>Best Buy’s return policy for computers is only 14 days.</p>
<p>Bad luck that the drive failed at 100 days, but it could just as easily have failed at 1 year + 1 day, then it wouldn’t even be covered by a warranty.</p>
<p>Abasket, I understand your frustration, but really Costco’s return policies and added warranties are the best out there. Try to return any computer to apple or Sony or Dell after 2 weeks and see what happens. Even within 2 weeks you will be charged 10% restocking fee. Sony itself used to warrant their computers for 90 days only.</p>
<p>Ok,ok, I know I shouldn’t whine…it just feels tainted so early in the ownership!!!</p>
<p>I’ll try to be more “glass half-full” which is how I usually look at things… :)</p>
<p>YES to backups!!! either use an external HD, store documents in Google documents, or have a flash drive or an AUTOMATIC online backup (not less than monthly). When in a pinch email document to yourself so you can access from any computer.</p>
<p>I’m ANAL about this ever since working for a company that lost EVERTYTHING in a fire many years ago with NO BACKUP</p>
<p>It seems to me that Sony computers have gone from cutting edge of technology to pure crap (pardon my language) in a few short years under their new corporate leadership. We used to buy Sony computers all the time, but will not touch one with a 9-foot pole after a couple of recent bad experiences. I feel your pain…</p>
<p>Backups are ESSENTIAL. We have 2 backup HDDs per each computer, and we rotate them (always store one in a safe deposit box).</p>
<p>I’ve bought my computers from Dell. The advantage is they have 1 year at home support, so if the hard drive fails, they send somebody to your house to fix it. Nice.</p>
<p>I like Costco but don’t buy computers there. I’ve bought Dells and have had very good luck with them.</p>
<p>If you buy from directly from Dell, you are missing out on a Cosco/Amex 3-year warranty, because Costco sells Dell computers. The one year home support offered by Dell is NOT free.</p>
<p>I just checked and the in home service is part of the Basic 1 year warranty which is included at no extra charge on Dells.</p>
<p>I buy with a credit card which doubles the warranty (not the in home service part), so I get 1 year in home plus 1 year parts.</p>
<p>Well, here we are a week later - 2 days after Sony said we’d have the part…and no part. Another 1 1/2 hours on the phone today to find out that in some “system overhaul” Sony has lost all content regarding any parts ordered/sent out before October 1st. But no one was ever going to contact us? I AM SO FUMING!!! </p>
<p>Now after talking to three levels of Costco Concierge, I talked to someone who is going to Costo Corporate and will get back to me this Friday hopefully - will try to have the hard drive actually shipped ASAP. I asked him to read me the address they have for shipping - oops! he says they don’t even have an address! WHAT?! After the several people we talked to last week and gave the correct address to??! I requested that he do everything possible to have the part expedited to my S. </p>
<p>To date - the last 10 days - we have spent over 4 hours on the phone trying to resolve this and today are really not one stinkin step closer to knowing when it will get solved. :(</p>
<p>I asked the last manager to send me - email or otherwise - the complete narrative of our case that they have in their computer (so I have the exact same notes and to use in case I decide to go into Costco and truly complain) - no can do! They have no means by which to share the notes - cannot email, cannot print off, cannot copy and paste - nothing.</p>
<p>Did I say how utterly mad I am about this whole thing??? SONY has been TERRIBLE. Costco, they really just seem like the go-between person. :(</p>
<p>At this point it is probably simplest to just go to Best Buy or wherever and just buy a new drive, it would cost less than $50, instead of continuing to pound your head against the wall. You could have it by tomorrow. What is your time worth?</p>
<p>Another thing you could try is to pop the drive out and go to the manufacturer’s web site, and see what they think is the warranty. You might be able to send it directly to them and get a new one, rather than going through Sony.</p>
<p>Hard drives are that cheap??? ^^^^</p>
<p>Yup. Here’s a 320 Gb drive my local BestBuy has in stock for $50:</p>
<p>[Western</a> Digital - 320GB Internal Hard Drive for Laptops - WD3200BEVT](<a href=“http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+Digital+-+320GB+Internal+Hard+Drive+for+Laptops/8679762.p?id=1200702542584&skuId=8679762&st=laptop%20drive&cp=1&lp=5]Western”>http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+Digital+-+320GB+Internal+Hard+Drive+for+Laptops/8679762.p?id=1200702542584&skuId=8679762&st=laptop%20drive&cp=1&lp=5)</p>
<p>You can get them for as low as $40 on newegg.com, although the shipping will take a few days.</p>
<p>Wow, this is familiar. I saw on another post about abasket and her DS’s computer woes and clicked on this. </p>
<p>My S bought a Sony Vaio last year the weekend after Windows 7 came out. He spent a lot of his own money on this computer and was really happy with it. His old computer was the one he bought to go to college with and although it was pretty beat up, it still worked.</p>
<p>The first week of classes the hard drive on his Sony died. It wasn’t even a year old. But he’s an engineering major and pretty handy so instead of messing with Sony’s customer service he went out and bought a $50 hard drive and put it in himself. For $50 he figured why mess with exactly what abasket S has gone through.</p>
<p>My D’s computer died last winter during an east coast blizzard. </p>
<p>I am typing on a 10 year old desktop, why do these new laptops die and mine keeps going and going.</p>
<p>Today I had another call from Costco Concierge saying “hi! Sony still is having a system restore so we still don’t know anything. Have a wonderful day!” </p>
<p>I’m going into my Costco store tomorrow w/receipt, my case number and my own log of calls made and notes of the no progress. If they won’t replace the computer, I’m going to try and get them to reimburse us for the cost of a new hard drive and the installation of it - and some type of guarantee that the warranty will still be intact.</p>
<p>Sooo frustrating, abasket!</p>
<p>When my DD’s laptop’s hard disk crashed, we have to deal with gateway directly, office depot will have nothing to do with it after 2 weeks of purchase, unless of course you cough up additional “warrenty” money. To deal with the manufacturer is not easy, unless you are well versed in computers. You’d have to down load a program and run it on the bad computer before they will allow you to ship it back for repair and it took more than 2 weeks though mail(or fed ex), in addition, you have to pay the shipping cost. The repair shop is in TX.</p>
<p>Office Depot’s policy, Exchange only, no returns the second after you open the box seal. You are on your own after 2 weeks, no exchanges. But we pay $50 less for the same computer from Costco.</p>
<p>I am cautiously doing a happy dance!</p>
<p>When to our local Costco this morning and talked with the general manager. He shook his head (I had prepared a document that listed all our contact info along with my own dates log of each interaction, date, etc. of each phone call) and our results (or lack of!)</p>
<p>Our local store had 3 of the same model computers left in their store - one is reserved with our name on it - when S comes home for fall break Thursday night, we should be able to take in the bad computer and exchange it for a new one. Hallelujah. </p>
<p>The manager was very nice, very accomodating, not questioning beyond what he saw on the paper. I left with instructions in writing from him w/signature in case he is not there for our computer to be exchanged. He said that the Concierge service is pretty successful - working with the distributors - like Sony - not always so much. And sounds like in our situation, it leaves Costco with little they can do to resolve the situation.</p>
<p>I’ll truly start my happy dance when we walk out of the store, new computer in hand, and S starts it up and it works. :)</p>
<p>Thank goodness for a wonderful store manager!</p>
<p>I wonder who makes the hard drives that get put in the Sony…</p>
<p>After only 2 years, my e-machine went sour. We replaced the hard drive last week, but still couldn’t fix the problem. The original hard drive was Western Digital. They sure don’t build them like they use to.</p>