Solved How to Check Genuine against Refurbished Seagate HDD

I don't know where to start. But here is the situation. Today I called 4-5 PC hardware store to compare the price of 1 TB Seagate Barracuda. 4 out of 5 offered me U$86. Only one of them have the cheapest price, which was U$75. So I just walked in and bought it. Later I was curious what makes this store has significantly lower price. I called a friend who works on other store (which also among 4 stores). She said it is impossible to price it at U$75. And suspecting that I was cheated with refurbished HDD..! Is that it?
After some googling It was explained that it is not refurbished as the label has rounded corner cut. Other said to run seatools, I haven't done it yet.

Does anyone know the simplest way to sort this out?

From past experience, Seagate and Western Digital sell their refurbished hard drives as "White Label" drives. They are called such because the label on the drive is solid white with plain black lettering and looks like a cheap, generic label. Also, when the Seagate drive is plugged in it won't show up as a Barracuda or Free Agent. It will show up as either S1000xxxx or SEA1000xxxx. The S or SEA stands for Seagate (obviously) and the 1000 would be 1000 Gigabytes (or 1 Terabyte.) The last few random numbers are an internal code for a specific production run. A Western Digital uses a similar coding: WD0500xxxx for a refurbished 500GB or WD1000xxxx for a 1TB

It's possible for a store to get a really good deal on merchandise that knocks a lot of money off the usual retail price. If a store buyer is knowledgeable and has good contacts with the supplier, the buyer can find out about production runs that are called "seconds". A cosmetic defect that has no affect on product reliability could knock the price down considerably. Example: a label inside a run of shirts is sewn on upside down. Thousands of shirts are affected. Rather than re-sew all those labels the manufacturer decides to sell those regularly priced $50 shirts (that only cost $10 to manufacture) for $20. Then the store buyer marks them up to $40. Everybody makes a profit and the customer gets a great deal. Same concept could apply to that hard drive for U$75.

If you run SeaTools, or plug it in to your computer, and it doesn't show up as a Barracuda it's probably refurbished.

EDIT: I noticed a slight error in my description of a Western Digital refurbished drive. Their designation is WL0500xxxx or WL1000xxxx. Not WD as i mistakenly wrote. The WL specifically stands for White Label. Sorry for any confusion.

Hi Lee. Thank you for the quick response.

I did every possible step that meet the logic. By its physical appearance, the label is made of fine-glossy sticker with very good print. When connected, there is no suspicious noise noted. I run the seatools, all extracted data match the label. What made me a bit happier was the Power-on hours says 2 (do not know if during refurbishing they were able to reset it to zero ) All physical data also match with Windows hardware information.
Run also some test. Here is the log

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Just from the sticker I'd say it's new, never been used (other than quality control testing), and it's not refurbished. The fact that it has a specific DOM (Date of Manufacture) rather than a DOM and DOR (Date of Repair / Date of Refurbish) is a very good sign. Seagate wouldn't ruin its reputation by trying to pass off a repaired or refurbished drive as new.

So congratulations on getting a great price!

Thank you Lee.

I was also able to confirm the warranty with Seagate Website. It was mentioned as in warranty, and the expiration date is Nov 14, 2014.

No more worries then.

Again. Thanks for the helps.

Your welcome, Kevin. Enjoy your new drive!

I'm not sure what made you so worried from the beginning. You went from $86 to $75. Your friend is dead wrong in saying that it would be impossible to sell the drive at that price, and your only mistake was believing that. What if the retailer you bought them from had a large stock and needed to get rid of them? What if they bought a higher volume and got a lower price? A difference of $11 isn't any where near enough to make a person worried or scared they were ripped off. Had you gone from $86 to say, $40....yeah, then be suspicious.

Even then, all you needed to do was run the warranty checker.

Thanks for the reply.

Well the word came from one who in her daily work dealing with those stuff really ruined my day. My argument was I think they got the stuff by paralleled import (no distributor). But the store really wanting to sell with incredible lower price tag. Recently been banned by Toshiba after beating all other stores by selling the laptop under retail price in pursue of selling bonus from Toshiba (1 laptop for selling out 10). Now no more Toshiba in that store

Back to Seagate. You're absolutely right if I over worried. But that what made me learn how to look deeper into newly bought HDD. I did run warranty checker and it's good, they even mention the nearest dealer for RMA request, if any. This far I put all the trust to the store, grab the stuff and use it. But luckily they are are good.

Thanks

I guess it's easier here in the U.S. to shop at a legitmate, trustworthy source. Anyhow, that warranty checker will always be your key, because it gives you the history of the drive, and confirms you have support/replacement behind you, in the event you have any issues.

Yes. I agree that you are luckier there. Consumers are having their right properly reserved. Not much stores want to mess up with buyers. Here, only for branded system is fully covered by warranty like Desktop, laptops, and some other devices. But for parts here buyers are mostly vulnerable.

After getting fond of Seatools I have checked many of my Seagate HDD. I found one of my 500GB that was purchased along with local desktop (I was not in the mood in building it myself) already out of warranty. I don't know whether they cheated me or just accidentally put an old HDD into the system the built for me.
Have to make good acquaintance with some local store in order to have all bought parts are the real stuffs.

But happy to find my last HDD wasn't refurbished.