Usually I would hope to get good customer service response from big name companies.  I remember having calling many manufacturing companies around USA and I get answer from them very fast.  Unfortunately, not this time.  Recently, I’ve bought a new Western Digital 160GB Passport External Drive from Sam’s Club as a gift for my brother’s college graduation.

The drive was working fine until he was back in Malaysia when the drive couldn’t be read from any computers or giving it a problem, sometimes crashing the OS or the USB port.  He told me the situation and I wrote to WD technical support.  This was my submission to their online support (1/10). 

Hi there,I have recently purchased a gift (WD Passport Pocket 160GB) and sent to a relatives in Asia. However, after he uploaded the files into the new HD, the next time he was trying to use it, the HD can’t be accesible from any computers (he tried 4 different computers). And everytime it was connected to a computer, the light on the HD blinked, and afterwards the computer crashed and sometimes made the USB port not working. Now he can’t access to his files inside the passport. Is this a defect with the unit?

Immediately after I submit the question, an email was sent to my hotmail letting me know that they received the comment:

Dear xxx,Thank you for contacting Western Digital. Our goal is to answer emails within one (1) business day. However sometimes due to heavy volume, it may take us up to three (3) business days to respond (Hours of Operation: M-F 8AM-5PM PST).

I didn’t receive any reply the next business day so I waited, and received a response here from them on Monday 1/14 late evening.

Dear Customer,We apologize for the delay in responding to you. Due to heavy volume, we are currently beyond our normal turnaround of 1 business day.

We realize that some of you may have already found the answers to your questions. In an effort to respond to your needs more efficiently, please do one of the following:

If you have already found the answers to your questions and DO NOT REQUIRE a response from us, please DO NOT REPLY to this email.

If you have not found the answer(s) to your question(s) and DO REQUIRE a response from us, please REPLY to this email. In your reply, you can just state that you still need an answer to your questions. If you do not respond to this email, we will assume that you do not require a response from us.

Thank you for your patience and understanding

Sincerely,
Western Digital Service and Support

So I replied to them the instance I received this email. Yet, till now I have not hear from them. And my brother’s HD is not working yet. Although I found several off WD website support threads regarding this HD but they don’t 100% match with my question. Hopefully, I will hear from them by end of this coming week. Or else I am just going to ask my brother to approach the WD in Malaysia for help.