Hello

Sorry to hear you have all these problems. Unfortunately I cannot help you much but if you have some hardware problem and warranty is still valid don’t clarify this with store but with nearest Toshiba service provider directly.

When you bring your notebook there, they will check if the warranty data at first. If the warranty is valid every defective hardware component will be exchanged for free.
Maybe it sounds stupid not but I believe people who work in this store have utilized your situation to make more money and sell you new HDD for $150.

From this moment they are responsible for this part and if something goes wrong they should help you with this. every new piece of hardware has warranty so when they sell HDD this HDD must also have warranty time so Toshiba has nothing to do with this.

The same is with cars. Car’s manufacturer always say that every service should be done by authorized partners but if you make service by some independent car workshop and they make something wrong, car manufacturer cannot recognize this as valid “warranty issue”.

You know what I mean?

"When you bring your notebook there, they will check if the warranty data at first. If the warranty is valid every defective hardware component will be exchanged for free.
Maybe it sounds stupid not but I believe people who work in this store have utilized your situation to make more money and sell you new HDD for $150."

I think you misunderstood. The first time it was a sound card failure and the computer was less than 2 weeks old. It was TOSHIBA that told me to return it to the store (they gave me a specific number to give to the store when returning it) and exchange it for a new computer!!!! The store did not have the exact model to exchange it with. So I had two choices. Pay the $150 or take it home, spend a day dropping it off to Toshiba and then wait 21 days for them to repair a brand new computer that I had not even been able to use, or pay the additional $150 for a different model. Funnily as a consumer I dont expect to pay large amounts of money for something that has to be repaired before it can be used.

This second problem has now occurred, 9 months later, which is the hard drive failure.

I do realise that this is a user to user forum, but I am hoping to warn people that Toshiba is no longer a reliable brand. The Toshiba technician told me that the very first thing he expects to fail is the hard drive and I am simply lucky that in 16 years of owning my own home computers that I have never had a hard drive failure. Funny thing is none of my friends have ever had a hard drive failure before either....... My girlfriend and I must be the unluckiest people in the world to both buy brand new Toshiba computers at the same time and to have the hard drive fails at the same time........... Not a strong believer of coincidence I strongly suspect that Toshiba have a problem with a component(s) that they are using, its not just our "bad luck". This is the first time I have even had to use the warranty on a computer that I have purchased.

On the plus side Toshiba offered to send a courier to collect the computer, of course no replacement or loan computer. I did arrange for them to collect the computer Monday as I was not going to be home yesterday and need to find the correct box and packing materials to return it (they gave me VERY specific instructions on how it must be packed). But then I had a dozen phone calls yesterday from the courier trying to contact me to arrange to pick it up either yesterday or now today. I just hope that they are equally keen to return it as quickly!!!!

Sorry I am VERY annoyed. I am in a position where I NEED a computer. My son is disabled uses various bits and pieces of medical equipment to survive, (eg ventilators, monitors etc) and I use the computer to communicate with the hospital. If I cant get access to a computer he gets to spend the time I wait for its repair in hospital. I realise that my personal situation is not Toshiba's concern however I paid more and bought the Toshiba because of its reputation for reliability as that was VERY important to me. It has proven to be the most unreliable computer I have ever owned. I will now have to dust off a cheap Dell that is 6 years old, still works just fine, and use that while my expensive Toshiba gets fixed. And thats what is annoying, even my first 2 gig and now 16 year old computer still works, no hard drive failure..........

Had my A660 5 mths.. Hard Drive Died and so did Optical Drive. And was also turning on by itself when power cord removed and running on only battery. Sent it for repair wasn`t happy told them must be other issues and to replace the Motherboard. Came back from repair and then it would shut down if power unplugged then plugged back in again. Sent back again another NEW Motherboard fitted. Spoke to tech and he said A660 had problems with 640GB hard drives ALOT have failed. Now to me this looks like a pattern and Toshiba should recall all Toshibas with 640GB hard drives. There is a huge problem. And A660 series seem to be lemons.. Come on Toshiba you are killing a Good Name. I only recommend Toshiba Laptops.. but after this. I won`t be.. Very Unhappy Toshiba customer. My old 7 yr old Toshiba Laptop still going strong and Made in Japan NOT China.. !!!!!

Hmmm.. sounds like a responce you would get from a Toshiba Employee.

Thanks for your comment.. But its not valid. This Laptop is 6 mths old thats 6 mths left on my Toshiba warrenty.

If 640GB hard drives are BAD.. Like a Toshiba repair technician says then a 12 mth warrenty is a joke as it is going to
die again.. probably after the 12 mth warrenty...Toshiba need to look at the statistics if 640GB hard drives do have a
problem they have a obligation to RECALL all laptops that are having issues not wait for 12 mths is up then they can
wipe there hands of any problems that arise.. They don`t care.. This will me my last Toshiba and I will NEVER recommend
one again.

Who cares about the build quality.. keyboard .. or LED backlight.. its NO GOOD TO YOU if it STOPS working is it ???

Don`t buy a A660 or any Toshiba product with a 640GB hard drive.. thats the answer..!!!

I am on my fourth Toshiba 640gig hard drive in 18 months of having this laptop.

I have lost around 600 gigabytes and ten thousand hours of work during this time.

At least Toshiba let me keep my failed drive this time to try and recover some data.

My problem now is;- How do I do that though at it has turned from NTFS to RAW and cannot be seen by the Bios.

I have it in an external USB 3 drive casing waiting waiting.

My last Toshiba laptop. Samsung next I think.