[ltp] Re: X60s: Reinstalling on a 100 GB

[Atul Chitnis]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006, Anthony Moulen wrote:

> I have had harddrives and just about everything else you can have serviced,
> serviced on a thinkpad.  And they do not require the harddrive ever.  If you
> believe you have a failed harddrive, most of the time that is considered a
> user serviceable part and they ship you a new harddrive with a return
> package.  You provide them with a creditcard and if you don't return it, they
> bill you for the price of the drive.  Other user serviceable parts are the
> keyboard, the mini-pci device, memory and of course the optical drives.
> Batteries are also but they usually don't go in the fist year when the
> battery is covered.  I never ship my harddrive to IBM for service.

As I said - things differ in every country.

For example, here in India, I have only once had a service engineer come 
on site - to IBM, I have always been a one-off ccustomer. At all times, I 
have had to take the notebook to the Thinkpad Centre for servicing - in 
Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai. On-site is only for companies that buy tons 
of stuff from IBM/Lenovo.

The sole exception was at Mumbai, where a service engineer came on site. 
and (surprise!) it was because the company that I had joined happens to be 
a big name, that buys tons of equipment from IBM/Lenovo. :)

I too would never leave my hard disk with IBM during a service. Right now, 
my old T30 is in for service, but my hard disk is with me. In the past, I 
have done the thing that makes most sense - removed my personal data (i.e. 
forced backups). That's what /home partitions are for :)

There have been times when I needed my hard disk in the system to 
demonstrate a problem. Since I was personally present (and have never left 
my notebook with IBM), this was not much of an issue.

And I beg to differ about the user servicable parts. As far as IBM India 
is concerned, there are no user servicable parts in their machines. This 
includes the keyboard. If we ever open the machine on our own, the 
warranty is deemed as kablooey. This has been re-affirmed by IBM service 
engineers many times over. And they won't "ship you a part" either - yo 
have to haul the notebook in for servicing or part replacement.

Again, as I said - things differ in every country.

Having said all that - I buy Thinkpads (600, 770, T23, T30 and now X60s) 
not only because they rock as Linux notebooks, but also because of the 
excellent service I have received in the past from IBM. If I can make it a 
little easier for them to check things out as I stand there breathing down 
their necks, then I consider it worth it. :)

Atul

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Atul Chitnis     | mail@atulchitnis.net
Bangalore, India | http://atulchitnis.net
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