Drive manufacturers often seem to have a bad memory when it comes to their warranty promises. That's what one reader discovered when Western Digital's website falsely labeled his drive as being out of warranty when it wasn't.

"We had a WD5000VS 500G drive fail this week," the reader recently wrote. "This is the second failure in our office with this drive model since we started using them about eighteen months ago. Two out of four drives have now failed. So after recovering the data, which was successful, we put the drive in an unused machine and ran the Western Digital disk diagnostics, which confirmed the drive had failed. So, since I was pretty sure those drives had a three-year warranty, I went to the WD site to request an RMA."

The reader went to the Western Digital support page and began the RMA process by doing a warranty check. "After keying in the serial number, it reported that the drive was out of warranty," the reader wrote. "I double-checked with their site and confirmed that they do have a three-year warranty on the Caviar line of drives, so I did not see how it could be out of warranty since we installed these drives in 2006."

Then the reader discovered some fine print that only popped up when he hovered his cursor over a small "note" link. It read:

"By default, the warranty date is calculated from the manufacture date. However, if you have proof of purchase, we can update the warranty to calculate it from the purchase date. If you feel that the warranty date needs to be updated from the purchase date, please follow the instructions below."

Having found that hidden disclaimer, the reader was able to proceed with the RMA process, but he was certainly left with some questions about Western Digital's warranty check system. "At first, I thought it was maybe reasonable enough, but then it occurred to me that to be three years old the drive would have been in warehouses and on store shelves for over 18 months when I purchased it. Since I bought it from a high-volume retailer, that seemed unlikely. I confirmed my theory by checking the date on the drive label - it was dated 21 June 2006 -- making the warranty good at least until June of this even their calculation. Western Digital knows damn well that this drive is under warranty and is doing their best to trick me into 'upgrading' my drive. I don't know if the other drive manufacturers are any better, but I'll certainly be looking to them next time."

Which vendor is driving you crazy? Tell us about it by posting your comments below or by writing me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.