Massive recall hits Western Digital

Western Digital has recalled around 400,000 hard disk drives due to a faulty chip. The pulled drives are from the vendor's WD Caviar 6.8GB per platter desktop series, with capacities ranging by from 6.4 to 20.5GB. According to Matt Massengill, Western Digital's co-COO, the chips could cause the hard drives to fail to power-up after six to 12 months of full-time use. Around one million of the chips were manufactured between 27 August and 24 September this year. A representative of the company would not disclose the name of the chip maker. He said most of the drives in the UK were in the channel and had not reached the end user. ®