I had a Seagate External HD that failed within 70days

So my computer own HD is not working well - XP refuses to boot and issues warning that HD failure is imminent... but can still be boot using F1 - so I bought a Seagate external HD to back up my data from the internal HD. I bought it from Best Buy online when they had free shipping.

Anyway, it worked ok after I hooked it up. Afterward i went on 2x 15day trips with a 10day interval at home. Upon our return from Paris, I booted up the computer, the Seagate started to produce metalic "clinking" noise! Took me a while to find the noise source was from the external HD. I tried to pull files up from the E drive - it crashed my computer!

After lengthly phone call with Seagate tech support (in India of course), got a return authorization and instruction. But then I had to open the case to only ship the drive back. Guess what? The screws used are probably something only be used in China - it looked like TORX, but only had 5 dents, worse, the middle wasn't hollow, it had a pin-like thing in the middle, that prevented the using of any make-shift tool.

OK, I brought the thing to a local BBY store, hoping they have some kind of tool to open the case. Nope, they dont. The Geek guy claimed that the Seagate probably purposedly do that.

The returnn policy of BBY is 30days. My purchase well passed the deadline but because of this issue, the Customer Service decided to waive the requirement and issued me a credit. Good thing it was a web purchase, hence only credit, no exchange. I surely dont want another Seagate with this screwy screws and definitely dont want to try my luck again with this model.

Right now, my computer HD still gives me the warning. But I back up my data every week on CD - good enough for me for the time being.