Seagate today damned as "inaccurate" a report that the company has begun taking dodgy 40GB and 80GB hard drives off Taiwanese distributors" shelves - a move alleged to be taking place by local channel sources. The report, published by DigiTimes yesterday, alleges that 12,000-15,000 defective drives, produced in mainland China, have been shipped to Taiwan with an unknown number shipping to other locations around the world.
However, a Seagate spokesman said there was no substance to the claims. The manufacturer isn"t recalling 40GB and 80GB hard drives - or any other for that matter. "It"s ridiculous to claim that all the four major hard drive vendors have been hit by the same problem," he said. In fact, only three of the four - Seagate, Maxtor and Hitachi Global Storage - were alleged to have been hit. The fourth, Western Digital, was said to be unaffected by the problem since it doesn"t manufacture drives on mainland China - its manufacturing facilities are located in Malaysia and Thailand.