Dell HD warranty. I’m changing my HD (but it is working).

For three days my HD was pretty bad.
I’ve decided to scan for errors using HD regenerator, and it worked.
Of 4118 bad sectors, all were regenerated, and it made Windows able to boot and work properly again.
Now, before fixing I had already called Dell support and they told me that they would replace my HD and keep my old one.
But now here comes the doubt:
– What if the new HD is refurbished, and it turns out to be worse than this one?
– They keep my data from the old HD, and that isn’t good as well.
ps: my HD started to fail three hours AFTER I dropped it from my lap. I was on the ground, and it “fell” from my lap. But really didn’t fell, but still made quite a sound.
And I also think that if the program was able to recover my HD, it probably wasn’t something bad (physically let’s say). I think the HD just disconfigured or something.
Thanks
Answer #1
if you are worried about your data, back up what you want and format the hard disc. 7-pass method apparently is the best bet to stop any chance at recovery.
if you will have both drives at the same time (ie the old drive wont get picked up until after the new one has arrived) then you can use software to “ghost” the entire disc and contents onto the new disc.
if the new hd is worse, you can just get another replacement and go through the same motions but it will most likely be working fine whether refurbished or not, dell would only be causing themself trouble in admin, shipping fees etc by sending a broken disc.
Answer #2
Yes above 1 month from the date of purchase all the hard disk are refurbished and you need to send them back when you receive the new one.
There are thousands of hard drive replaced and they dont and will not be checking hard drive to retrieve data as it is time consuming and doesnt make sense. So you dont have to worry that they will check your data.
If this hard drive is working well and you dont want to change it you can call Dell Technical support and inform them that you dont want to replace the hard drive and will stick with this one. If the part has been shipped then they may ask you to just return the new one which you will receive in the mail. Thats it and yeah relax.
Answer #3
Dell will stick in a new HDD, not a refurb.
You can backup your data to another hdd (eg. an external hdd) using Acronis True Image Home, and then just restore that image onto the new HDD.
I’ve had plenty of dealings with Dell, most of the time they don’t even send an engineer if you have on-site next business day warranty, they will just courier a new drive and you send the dud back with the courier (just get a receipt). If you only have basic warranty, they will just RMA it the same way, just slower.
You don’t need to do crazy stuff like 7 passes, or the Guttman method. Just use DBAN.
Answer #4
Thanks for the answers.
They told me the HDD will probably be refurbished over the phone (I called them again), only won’t if they don’t have one (and thus, sending a new one). I canceled the “trade”.
I did dozen of tests and all of them shows that my HD is 100% now.