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Warning - Epson repair policies are absurd!

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JAM214922

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I have a P-2000 40GB storage/viewer. The hard drive is going south (constant reset, menu doesn't come up, etc.). I contacted Epson USA about sending it in for repair and they basically stated that they did not want to deal with individuals - that I must send it in through a local "repair center".

Of course, the local "repair center" had no idea what a P-2000 was, much less have a clue as to how to replace a hard drive, so they were kind enough to get a flat-rate repair cost from Epson - - which was $311.00 USD plus shipping! - - to replace a laptop sized HD which could be had for about $70.00.

To discourage DIY repairs, Epson partitions their drive and includes the proprietary operating system on a small partition - not in firmware. That, of course means that one cannot just replace the drive - and, of course, Epson will not make the operating system available for download.

So, basically, I now have a sleek looking and expensive paperweight.

I would never buy another Epson product base on this experience. For temporary location backup, I plan to use an adapter for my 60GB iPod, or investigate the Jobo Giga Vu Pro.

Shame on you Epson!
 
The obvious thing to try is getting an image of someone else's device and trying that on your disk (if your problem is a software one) or on a replacement disk. I would have thought someone would have tried this stuff already?
 
Yes, its not uncommon to have one of the older P-2000s exhibit these problems. In fact, There's a video available on line which shows how to do it - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3637613075261606641

The problem, of course, is where to get "someone's" disk image of the drive. Unfortunately, I think my drive is too far gone to recover it, but I'll be picking it up from the aforementioned "repair center" and see if its possible to recover it. Of course, that means I'll have to buy an "enclosure" to clone the old drive, and so forth. I'm not sure I'd use that enclosure for anything else.

Do you know if there is an independent repair place that would do this job without charging a ridiculous amount of money as Epson does?
 
So you have a problem, but do not understand business. Well, that's your problem, not Epson's, as there is nothing wrong or unusual with their repair policy.

Not going to buy abother Epson product huh? Well Epson makes the best image storage device, then there's all the rest. Suit yourself.
JAM said:
JAM214922 said:
I would never buy another Epson product base on this experience.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
JAM said:
I have a P-2000 40GB storage/viewer. The hard drive is going south
(constant reset, menu doesn't come up, etc.). I contacted Epson USA
about sending it in for repair and they basically stated that they
did not want to deal with individuals - that I must send it in
through a local "repair center".

Of course, the local "repair center" had no idea what a P-2000 was,
much less have a clue as to how to replace a hard drive, so they
were kind enough to get a flat-rate repair cost from Epson - -
which was $311.00 USD plus shipping! - - to replace a laptop sized
HD which could be had for about $70.00.

To discourage DIY repairs, Epson partitions their drive and
includes the proprietary operating system on a small partition -
not in firmware. That, of course means that one cannot just replace
the drive - and, of course, Epson will not make the operating
system available for download.

So, basically, I now have a sleek looking and expensive paperweight.

I would never buy another Epson product base on this experience.
For temporary location backup, I plan to use an adapter for my 60GB
iPod, or investigate the Jobo Giga Vu Pro.

Shame on you Epson!
Click to expand...
Hmmm. not good. When I wrote to them about my brand new R2400 printer not feeding the roll paper correctly. Their reply was to purchase an R4800 because "it had a more robust roll feed assembly". I replied by telling them I suggest they refund my $900 for the R2400 and I'd think about it. If a printer has a roll peper feeder, it should work, no matter what the printer costs. I will not buy another Epson product because of this.
--
http://www.pbase.com/Troye413
 
No, but I've been in business long enough to understand their position, which is: they, like most large corporations do not want to deal from a corporate level with the public. That's why they have dealers. Get it?
Troye413 said:
You must work for their customer service.
Click to expand...
 
Charge a flat fee? Hey, do you know what their cost figures are?

And refurbished costs? Hey, do you know what their cost figures are?

Where are the P-2000's made? Oh, I see, they are mass produced so they can keep the cost per unit down down. Want to repair one? Hey, do you know what their cost figures are to repair an individual unit? or to refurbish one?

I think not. :-)

And what's wrong with corporate greed? Profits are what keep corporations solvent, and BTW, do you know what their cost figures are. :-)

I think not.

And embarrass myself? I'm just stataing the facts pal. :-)
JAM said:
Walt, don't be a jerk - you embarrass yourself.

When Epson wants to charge a flat rate repair price of $311 to
replace my HD, yet that offer - on their on site - a refurbished
one for $359.00

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?oid=56095892&ref=qag , not to mention that a brand new one is about $450.00, how is that good business policy?

Its just pure corporate greed.
Click to expand...
 
That's what I'm going to try to do.

My only concern is that I won't be able to read the old drive to clone the operating system to the new one. Maybe once out of the Epson in a separate case, one of my disk recovery tools, like Disk Warrior will be successful. If not, I'll just have to explore where I can obtain the operating system partition from someone who had the foresight to save it (which I obviously did not)

I just shake my head once I realized that Epson did not include a CD with the operation system when I bought the unit - - image buying a PC or MAC with no way to re-initialize the main HD in case of failure. What's worse is that they won't make it available even for sale.
 
Well. Care to tell us what other stand alone image storage device makes a CD you refer to available?
JAM said:
I just shake my head once I realized that Epson did not include a
CD with the operation system when I bought the unit - - image
buying a PC or MAC with no way to re-initialize the main HD in case
of failure. What's worse is that they won't make it available even
for sale.
Click to expand...
 
Walt Jennings said:
Well. Care to tell us what other stand alone image storage device
makes a CD you refer to available?
Click to expand...
Yes, Walt:

the JOBO Giga Vu Evolution - -

http://www.jobo.com/jobo_service/digital/files/giga_vu_pro_e/whitepaper.pdf

Here's the quote from last paragraph on page 2 .

"Next to the processor, there is 128 MB of RAM. This is largely sufficient to decode, view and zoom digital pictures from any DSLR camera on the market including the Canon1DsII and the Nikon D2X. The complete application code and all device settings are stored in internal FLASH memory. As a consequence,

there are no system files on the hard disk drive. Again, this is not the cheapest solution, but it offers some advantages for the user. If the disk breaks, it can easily be replaced without having to download or install software. But most important, the disk can be repaired or re-formatted from within the GigaVu’s application."

Any more confrontational questions?
 
Walt, I'm assuming that the original poster has had his Epson P-2000 for quite a while and it is out of warranty. The cost of repair does seem steep.

The Jobo Evolution is a very recent device, it's out in Europe but in the US it remains largely vaporware. Some of the first Evolutions also had file corruption problems that apparently are now fixed with a firmware update.

If one has a working Epson P-2000, how would one go about cloning the hard drive so one could burn a DVD for possible future reference for formatting a replacement drive? This would be on a Mac.
 
OldCodger73 said:
Walt, I'm assuming that the original poster has had his Epson
P-2000 for quite a while and it is out of warranty. The cost of
repair does seem steep.

The Jobo Evolution is a very recent device, it's out in Europe but
in the US it remains largely vaporware. Some of the first
Evolutions also had file corruption problems that apparently are
now fixed with a firmware update.

If one has a working Epson P-2000, how would one go about cloning
the hard drive so one could burn a DVD for possible future
reference for formatting a replacement drive? This would be on a
Mac.
Click to expand...
Old Codger - you nailed it. I bought the P-2000 right after it came out in 2004. And yes, Epson's quoted price of $311 is 86% of the cost of a refurbished one (from epson) or about 70% (or higher) of the price of a new one - depending on where you buy it.

The JOBO evolution isn't vaporware exactly:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=428401&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

but it is quite a bit more expensive - for a 120 Gb device with all its advanced features.

I've disassembled my P-2000 and have the HDD in an outboard enclosure. Unfortunately, the Hitachi HDD is dead dead dead (just sits and clicks - doesn't spin up) so there's not much chance that I'm going to be able to clone the OS onto a new HD.

I'd sure like to find someone who had the foresight to clone and save the OS! I'd much rather pay them for their trouble to mail me a CD-ROM than further contribute to Epson
 
To my knowlege Epson is the only popular PSD that keeps it's OS on the same disk as the data is stored... I've said this in other threads related to this subject matter... but even the evil MicroSoft allows the user the ablity to rebuild their OS in the event of a disk failure without asking the user to pay a huge fee to do this for you... I truely feel this is Epson's biggest downfall on this product, and it's the main reason I would not seriously consider buying this product.

For me, the only remaining questions is/are... Is Epson going to continue this behavior on their P-5000 product... If they do, I would not buy that product either...

In other postings... it sounds as if you've already paid Epson to fix your P-2000... If that is true, I highly recomend you find the instructions and/or figure out the proceedure to make a 'clone' of your new HD... that way if this should ever happen to you in the future, you could probably fix it yourself... Or if you should decide to sell it, perhaps you could pass the 'clone' image off to the buyer...
JAM said:
OldCodger73 said:
Walt, I'm assuming that the original poster has had his Epson
P-2000 for quite a while and it is out of warranty. The cost of
repair does seem steep.

The Jobo Evolution is a very recent device, it's out in Europe but
in the US it remains largely vaporware. Some of the first
Evolutions also had file corruption problems that apparently are
now fixed with a firmware update.

If one has a working Epson P-2000, how would one go about cloning
the hard drive so one could burn a DVD for possible future
reference for formatting a replacement drive? This would be on a
Mac.
Click to expand...
Old Codger - you nailed it. I bought the P-2000 right after it came
out in 2004. And yes, Epson's quoted price of $311 is 86% of the
cost of a refurbished one (from epson) or about 70% (or higher) of
the price of a new one - depending on where you buy it.

The JOBO evolution isn't vaporware exactly:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=428401&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

but it is quite a bit more expensive - for a 120 Gb device with all
its advanced features.

I've disassembled my P-2000 and have the HDD in an outboard
enclosure. Unfortunately, the Hitachi HDD is dead dead dead (just
sits and clicks - doesn't spin up) so there's not much chance that
I'm going to be able to clone the OS onto a new HD.

I'd sure like to find someone who had the foresight to clone and
save the OS! I'd much rather pay them for their trouble to mail me
a CD-ROM than further contribute to Epson
Click to expand...
 
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