WD's warranty service is now terrible with their "customer support='Victim' policy (it's in India and nobody out of several people I attempted talking to seems to understand English. It took me an hour just to get them to understand the serial # of the dead 500. They were more interested in selling me a new drive at an extremely high retail pice and the warrany units now carry NO warranty. If they send you a dead one you're SOL.). It took me 3 days just to get a RMA # for dead new 500gb se16. They also charged my credit card even though I was supposed to have 30 days to return the dead drive after replacement. I got no satisfaction until I called their office in California and got an US tech support phone # and actual sercice. They also reversed the credit card charge in less than 30 minutes after calling. They make great HD's but Buyer Beware at this point in time. BTW this was the second dead new retail 500GB model 500WD500KSRTL I endud up with in less than 2 months. Also they have quit shipping new drives on warranty claims and are sending the "victims" nothing but refurbished units. In my opinion this really sucks ass...