Dealer says I cooked my YH-J70. Is he right?

[bwprius]

I wrote this:

Unfortunately, the hard disk has stopped working all of a sudden yesterday. I was listening to an MP3 file, did something else for some minutes and when I turned the player on again it only showed the message "Please format your HDD" and then turned off. I have not been successful at trying to connect the player to my PC, given that the player constantly turns off automatically. I have also tried every possible way of turning the device on like keeping buttons pushed etc., without success. The device carried some 13 GB and had worked correctly until yesterday.

Please note that, given the short battery duration of this kind of Samsung players, I decided to use the device exclusively at my office with the wall charger, hence I have not carried it around with me, for which I can exclude the possibility of the device having suffered any damage whatsoever. As I see the time lapse between working well and starting to have errors was a question of minutes.

The dealer replied this:

"What you're experiencing in your Samsung is a power failure... the symptoms you have described, most expecially "I have not been successful at trying to connect the player to my PC, given that the player constantly turns off automatically". This is direct evidence of a power failure, and there's no possibility the drive could be the
cause of what you are experiencing.

I realize that you are using your charger plugged into the wall, but the voltage still flows through the battery voltage channel whether you're going portable or hardwired to the wall. If your battery has exceeded its useful life, and/or has surpassed the 70% battery memory threshhold, there's no way your MP3 player will powerup.
Furthermore, if you have not had the MP3 player on a surge
protector, it could already be damaged beyond further use without replacing the logic board, as the voltage regulator within is more than likely "cooked"."

The battery is new and I never left the player plugged in over night or so.

Is the dealer right? Anyone experienced the same problem?

Thanks.

bwprius

[CrowdAds]

[XJ3F3Y]

Haven't experienced anything like this myself and they may be right. However even if a battery in an MP3 is broken it should still be able to power on if it is connected to a power source like a wall charger or computer. A component on the circuit board may well have gone though. Sorry but you'll have to wait for someone wit a bit more knowledge to come along.

[EnzoTen]

Originally Posted by bwprius

This is direct evidence of a power failure, and there's no possibility the drive could be the cause of what you are experiencing.

It could be a power failure, but you cannot conclude that it definitely is. It sounds more like a hard drive issue to me. This symptom you are describing i have witnessed before several times in two different Creative players, older players. (Touch and Micro) and each of these times it was a hard drive failure and it would not turn on. What also leads me to believe that it may be a hard drive issue is the fact that it said "please format the hard drive".

What bothers me about this is the fact that the dealer is adamant about blaming it on you and the power source by using the words: "there's no possibility the drive could be the cause". There is a very good possibility it is the drive- this was a very common issue with HDD based players from around those years they were manufactured. From my experience i would say its more likely the HDD, but i cannot say with 100% certainty. Sounds to me like the dealer is trying to weasle out of replacing your player. -but that all depends too on what the warranty is and how long ago you purchased it.