So in all it was a good experience to follow the very bad one. The worry of this happening again is still with me though and is probably going to be hard to shake. The Zip drive is a perfect thing for me right now for my storage needs. I hate to think that I have to live in fear every time I save something valuable ... I'd like this thing to last me a least 3 years before the next possible 'storage solution' I endeavor to try.....

Just got off the phone with IOmega customer support (1 800 MY STUFF - option 7). I talked with a very nice young lady named Heather. We had a short discussion about my COD Zip drive. After taking my Serial Number, she told me that my drive (about 2 years old and died about 8 months ago) was out of warranty and that it would be $79.95 plus my state sales tax to exchange it.

I told her I heard that Mr. Hellier had said they would take care of COD problem drives even if they were out of warranty. She said she had to check on it and put me on hold for about 3 minutes. When she came back, she said, "We can exchange that drive for you. You can mail us your old drive and we'll send you another one after we receive yours or if you give us a credit card number, we can send one out to you immediately with a mailer for you to return your broken one. Your card will NOT be charged unless we don't get the old drive back." I chose the credit card option... They're also sending 2 ZIP disks that I told her wouldn't completely format in my drive or any other.

Mine started clicking this weekend, and two disks suddenly became unreadable. The Zip Tools diagnostics said that the drive was OK, but the disks were of unknown format. I bought a new box of disks, and the first one I tried became unreadable as soon as I copied some files to it. That's when I realized that the drive was bad. It is almost 2 years old, so I figured all was lost.

Then I found your web site and read that Iomega would replace out-of-warranty drives. So I called yesterday (on 9/8/98) and they agreed to replace my drive and the 3 damaged disks. I should get them in 5-7 working days.

After that, I called customer service and, not surprisingly, the woman told me that my drive was out of warranty and that I was SOL. I told them that I had a sound file that said otherwise. She replied quickly: "that's something you got off the internet, right? Well, it was put there Illegally, without permission, so forget about it".

I said: "So in other words you're contradicting your company's executives by refusing to replace my COD drive?" She put me on hold and spoke to a supervisor, after which she finally agreed to replace my drive, "but just this once." So my new drive arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It works with TIP just fine, FWIW.

My company offers the internal ATAPI ZIP drives as an upgrade option on the systems we build and ironically, it was one we pulled from stock for internal use that was bad. It had damaged a disk, then another disk as I tried to see why it wasn't reading. I then took the 2 disks home and tried to "recover" them using a long format on my scsi Zip drive that had been working perfectly for 3 years.

The damaged disk promptly killed that drive too, I then used a personal disk in the scsi drive which of course got killed as well.

After opening and examining the disks...and then belatedly finding your COD site...the edges of each disk were completely shorn and looked much worse than your pictures. I was one of those rare cases that used a bad disk to kill a good drive :) I took apart the drive and sure enough the read heads had had a number of filaments hanging off of them. I promptly went out and bought a new drive (no choice, I'm committed to the media).

Well, after reading some of your testimonials I decided to see if Iomega would replace my out of warranty drive. I first contacted the warranty department and a very nice lady told me right off the bat that it would be replaced regardless of whether it was in or out of warranty but I needed to speak to Tech Support and get a case ID#. I was transferred to Tech Support and after about a 10 minute hold I got a very pleasant technician and all I had to say was "My drive developed the "Click of Death" and he issued me a case ID# for replacement. I was transferred back to the warranty dept. and got a different also very pleasant young lady that took the serial number of the drive, put me on hold, then returned to say that since the drive was out of warranty it would cost me $79.95 to replace it.

I then (for the first time) mentioned David Hellier's name and read the quote from the "ScreenSavers" phone in and asked her if she would like to hear the .wav file. She put me on hold for a few more minutes and returned to say that the drive would be replaced free of charge and would I like to use my credit card for immediate shipment then return the old drive or ship the old one in first under RMA. (I chose the former). She then put me on hold one last time then returned and asked me to spell David Hellier's name and provide his title again, then she issued me the RMA# and said the drive would be shipped immediately along with the 3 replacement disks that I had asked for.

I subsequently got hold of Iomega again via email to Mr. Hellier, and promptly receieved an email reply asking for my tel/fax numbers,address etc. and a call would follow shortly. I sent the information requested and three weeks later, not having had a reply, wrote to Hellier by snail mail - and lo and behold within a week received a phone call from Iomega.

They advised that my drive, plus two defective disks would be replaced. However, since I'm in Canada and they're in the States, they would have their Canadian agent contact me. Within 45 minutes of my call from Iomega their Canadian agent did contact me and as we speak my replacement drive is wending its way through that labyrinth known as Canada Post and presumably it will arrive hale and hearty and ready to go. I am required to return the defective drive at their expense and they assure me that that is all there is to it.

I thought that I should drop you a line to let you and readers of your website know of the hard time that Iomega is again giving people concerning the return of the Zip drive.

I talked to a "Terry" in customer service, today, 12Dec98. I got the old song and dance that the drive was too old to be passed under warranty. When I mentioned that I knew about Dave Hellier's promise about replacing drives, she argued that he never "promised" to replace drives... that he just said that they would talk care of it. Taking care of it seems to include a "fee" to replace the drive. She further whined about how much money it costs the company to refurb these drives. Poor babies!!! I guess they forget how much money WE paid for these drives that got them that money in the first place.

I let her know that I listed to the 14 minute clip from the show. She informed me that other customers had even played that clip to her.. like it had no meaning at all!!!

At this point, I let her know in no uncertain terms that I would be emailing both you and Mr. Hellier. This didn't seem to phase her.

However, after she began to see that I was getting rather frustrated with her dancing around, out of the "kindness" of her little heart, she agreed to replace the drive, but "only on a one-time basis". Personally I hate companies that talk down to their customers. This one-time thing is just a rude inane thing to say. If I had 50 drives, I would expect them to be replace too! Non of this one-time crap!!!

After my drive began clicking, I started to do some research, both at Iomega’s web site and on the web in general. I found that Iomega really didn’t mention the problem at all, then I found your site. After listening to the RealAudio recording of D. Hellier, I called Iomega’s warranty division for a replacement, after all D. Hellier did say that weather the drive was under warranty or not, they would replace it. After waiting on hold for 45 minutes, a customer service rep answered the phone and told me that I needed to contact technical support to verify that it was the drive and not a configuration problem. Another 20 minutes later, I was talking to a tech support representative who told me that, yes it was my drive and that he would transfer me back to the customer service representative.

The customer service representative took my s/n, and being on of the first drives, she informed me what I already knew, my drive was no longer under warranty. According to her, Iomega’s policy is to extend the drive’s warranty to two years if it’s exhibiting signs of "click-death." Being that my drive was three years old, she told me that she very sorry, but she could do nothing. I then asked if she knew who D. Hellier was. She responded with the correct information and then I asked to speak with him. She was curious why I would want to talk to him and I informed her of your site and the information contained, then in.

She quickly put me on hold to speak with her supervisor. After what seemed like even more waiting and patience bending, she returned to inform me that without a faxed copy of your web page, she would be unable to do anything and even with a copy, she could not guarantee that my drive would be replaced. Now I am not sure about you, but I’m an Information Systems Management major at Ferris State University and also hold a CNA, which I feel qualifies me to determine if my drive is defective or not. Another part that I don't quite understand is why the Iomega rep. insisted that I fax a copy of your web page, after all in today’s connected society, it seems like at least one or two computers at good old Iomega should connect to the Internet. Shouldn’t they? Anyway, back to my story.

So I did as she asked, I printed and then faxed a copy of the page that contained D. Hellier’s statement. It was about two days later when I receive the fax from the customer service rep. that had been helping me. She informed me that my return and been authorized and I could go ahead and send it in. It seems to me that if a corporate manager, such as D. Hellier, says something on the web, there should be some kind of chain-of-command, so that the person answering the phone knows what promises the managers are making and how to facilitate them. But, maybe something like e-mail at Iomega is something to knew and radical. And, who knows, maybe after I graduate, I could go to work for Iomega to implement an advanced communication system!

When I called I was told they had changed their menu choices. I listened and Tech Support had a selection for "Product returns and RMA's" which I chose. After waiting for approx. 20 minutes a woman answered. I told my story and she indicated that since I had my PP ZIP drive for 2 1/2 years it was out of warranty and they could repair it but there would be a charge. I said I understood that if the problem was Click of Death that it would be replaced or repaired, whether in or out of warranty, without charge as per David Hellier, General Manager of Iomega. She said they had changed the way they handle this type of problem...... I then went on about ZD-TV and Hellier's appearance via telephone on that show. She stalled a little and then said she'd transfer me to someone in Technical Support.

I talked to "Jason" who asked me the routine questions, Operating System, computer type, etc. then asked if I would insert a disk and let him hear the "clicks." I did that, he heard the two "clicks" and said, "Is that all, just those two clicks?" I answered - "Yes, and I've tried this on five disks that had data on them and one new one. I get a message 'Cannot find sector requested' and when I try to format them I get the message 'Unable to format Drive H:' "

He went on "Hold" for awhile then came back and indicated he thought I should have an RMA and he would transfer me back to the department I had originally talked to and they would assign me an RMA number.

After about 10 minutes a woman answered, told me they were going to replace my ZIP drive and asked if I wanted my disks replaced also. I asked if there would be a charge and she said "No." They would replace the drive and all 6 disks and then gave me the address to send it to and the RMA number.

Well, that saved me over $200, but without this site and the instructions given on your COD pages, I would have had to SPEND $200 to replace the drive and disks.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You offer a great service to many, many people like me who on their own would be no match for Iomega.