Why are hard drives almost as expensive as the laptop itself (hard drive failing)?

Question

My HP Pavilion g6 is priced at $400 but the hard drive is worth $350, why is that?

My laptop's hard drive is seemingly failing, it makes this weird clicking noise, not a constant metronome-type clicking, but a consistent warble click. 2 months ago I kept getting hard disk failures, took it to Best Buy (still under warranty) they did a diagnostic and it was fine apparently. So I backed up everything to a USB stick and got rid of a ton of programs, computer seemed to work fine despite its clicking. A week ago I re-installed the following programs: Sketchup, utorrent, and 7zip, and soon enough I got the hard disk failure message again. I was able to use my laptop afterwards, deleted the programs, and now seem to have no error but still the clicking. A month ago my warranty expired, so now I'm screwed if something goes wrong.

When I use my laptop, I generally use it at home sans-battery, plugged in. I don't notice the clicking when using my laptop on battery. So if my hard drive does fail, should I get another hard drive or just buy a new computer altogether since the hard drive costs almost as much as the laptop itself.

sailorbeavis · Accepted Answer

They're charging you for removing the old hard drive, installing the new one, and reinstalling your factory version of Windows.  Most likely.

Best Buy's website has a 1 terabyte (1000 GB) Western Digital laptop drive available for $100 plus tax.  I haven't taken an HP laptop apart recently, but you should call HP as soon as possible.  Tell them nicely that the clicking noise was present BEFORE the warranty expired, but that Best Buy mis-diagnosed the laptop.  See if you can get them to replace the drive under warranty for free.  If not, replace the drive yourself or get a tech-inclined friend to do it.  Hint:  Good beer and/or Christmas cookies are an excellent bribe.

? · Answer

I don't know who's ripping you off with a $350 dollar hard drive. A standard 2.5" SATA drive of reasonable size (200-300 gb) can easily be had for under 100 bucks.

Allan · Answer

I paid only $149 for an OCZ Vertex4 SSD 256gb on "Black friday"

A Western Digital 500gb notebook hard drive is only about $69 about Newegg.com

Bestbuy is not only charging you MSRP for the drive but nailing you for installation labor as well.

garrytoo · Answer

your shopping at the wronf place they aren't that expensive unless your buying from hp. or trying to buy ssd.

Anonymous · Answer

Lol are you looking at SSD drives??? You want a HDD drive

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Why are hard drives almost as expensive as the laptop itself (hard drive failing)?

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