Re: Hi is this critical??

[jbradford@dial.pipex.com]

> On Tue, Sep 17, 2002 at 12:17:53PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 12:09, Russell King wrote:
> > > Then you find out that its been used in the world cup.  You try to
> > > return it to the vendor, but the vendor says its your fault for
> > > dropping the drive.  You protest, but the vendor refuses to listen
> > > because they've got their technology that says so in their product.
> > 
> > Then you take them to the small claims court. Its their burden of proof.
> 
> Ok.  So the vendor gets out their technology that says "this drive
> has been exposed to excessive G force."  So they have proof that it
> has been dropped by someone.  However, the vendor can't prove that:
> 
> 1. the vendor didn't drop it
> 2. the parcel company didn't drop it
> 3. you didn't drop it
> 
> Conversely, you can't prove:
> 
> 1. that the vendor dropped it
> 2. the parcel company dropped it
> 3. you dropped it (not that you'd want to)
> 
> So its now their word against yours, and as you say, its up to the
> vendor to prove that _you_ caused the damage.  Fortunately, this
> technology doesn't do that, so honest users might be safe for the
> time being.

Am I missing something, though, or is it not the case that if it has been dropped by the parcel company or the vendor, errors are likely to show up pretty soon if they are going to show up at all.  You can't phone up 35 months in to a three year warranty, and expect them to believe, "Oh, the parcel company broke it, and it hasn't shown up because it damaged the last sector on the disk", (especially since most disks park the heads on the outside of the disk, so if that is the problem, you're going to notice it straight away).

I suppose that you could have a problem like a cracked spindle that didn't show up straight away, but realistically, if it's not your fault it got broken, then it's not likely to show up after a couple of years, is it?

John.