[at612]

Exactly. I've had this happen with Dell. Twice, same computer. They ask for the defective drives back, which is fair. I informed them that as they contained company confidential information they would be put beyond use and they were fine with that--though I'm not 100% sure the phone drone understood the implications.

Cue a pneumatic drill and a circular saw. Modern drives are surprisingly hard to drill, btw, what with being so dense.

After the second replacement failed too after a couple of weeks, I just went and bought a disc from the local shop down the road. It's probably still going, twelve years latter. We never bought Dell again.