I've just seen my dear friend on Facebook saddened by a broken Seagate hard drive. The frustration is understandable, so here's my humble attempt to cheer him up a bit:
http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp
If for nothing, at least you would have a spare drive available for backup or whatever purpose suits. I've personally RMAed a couple Seagate hard drives in the past and it seems Seagate is pretty good at shipping the replacement.
Just a personal tip to share with all Dell desktop users. Almost all latest Dell Inspiron, Vostro (possibly other lines also) already come with SATA RAID configuration in the BIOS (not activated by default). For maximum data security, all it takes is 2 identical hard drives to form a RAID 1 array (e.g. 2 x 1TB). Yes, you may only get 1TB storage out of 2 x 1TB hard drive, but it's 1TB fully redundant data storage! So if 1 of the hard drives goes bad, your computer would still work with the remaining good one while you go back to manufacturer (e.g. Seagate) and get your replacement hard drive (Seagate provides 5-year warranty on most of their hard drives). Just some food for thought!!!
Cheers!!!
