What is wrong with my hard drives?

InfiniteNoise · 11 Dec 2013 at 08:05

I'm slightly confused, I had 2x 2TB Seagate hard drives (model = ST2000DL003, to be exact) and I sold them on eBay, they were working fine when I tested and sold them as working.

But when the buyers received their drive, they opened a case against me, they both were dead on arrival, not spinning up, not found in BIOS/OS, the buyers tried everything.

I thought "maybe they died on the way, despite packaging them carefully with bubble wraps + box" and got them to return the drive so I can refund them.

But what I don't understand, is how and why were the drive working fine when I got them back? They 'died' on arrival and now they're functioning fine as if nothing happened?

Were the buyers lying? Did the drive really not work and there's a compatibility issue with certain drives + boards that I don't know of?

As mentioned, the model is ST2000DL003.

tl;dr - sold a working drive, dead on arrival, got it back, still works.

quickshot89 · 11 Dec 2013 at 09:07

Did you check serial numbers?

InfiniteNoise · 11 Dec 2013 at 10:27

quickshot89 said:
Did you check serial numbers?

Yes, I've also marked them, they returned the same drive.

Surely I would be getting dead hard drives back if they were switching them out, but that's not the case here.

=XDC=FluphyBunny · 12 Dec 2013 at 09:18

Maybe, just maybe, the buyer is thick as pig ****.

That or they bought the wrong item and lied about them not working to get a refund.

Stelly · 12 Dec 2013 at 09:19

Maybe he needed them to transfer some data and then send them back. I hate ebay with a passion...

Stelly

InfiniteNoise · 12 Dec 2013 at 15:12

=XDC=FluphyBunny said:
Maybe, just maybe, the buyer is thick as pig ****.

That or they bought the wrong item and lied about them not working to get a refund.

Possible, but both buyers asked me for the firmware/exact product number before buying.

Stelly said:
Maybe he needed them to transfer some data and then send them back. I hate ebay with a passion...

Stelly

Wouldn't surprise me, it's eBay.

arfoll said:
i'd guess he's an idiot who doesn't know how to plug it in... :/

That was my first thought, but after asking both buyers to describe exactly what happened, they seem to know their stuff, so I'm not sure.

Meh, it's strange though, 2 drives, 2 buyers, both arrived dead, but arrived back to me working.

kefan77 · 12 Dec 2013 at 15:15

sold external drive
buyer messages me that it doesn't work
told him to go to Disk management, assign it a letter and format it
buyer happy

InfiniteNoise · 12 Dec 2013 at 16:31

kefan77 said:
sold external drive
buyer messages me that it doesn't work
told him to go to Disk management, assign it a letter and format it
buyer happy

In my case, the drives weren't detected in disk management or BIOS and they don't even spin up at all, which is why I find this strange.

Not much I can do about this, it's eBay and they side with buyers in 99.9% of the case.

If only I could access MM on here >:

Sasahara · 13 Dec 2013 at 23:12

Maybe the didn't realise they need electricity to run?