Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased this 3 TB Seagate drive in October. Used it as a data backup for photographs, keeping the drive on my desk (not moving it) so in good conditions for such equipment. (I carry smaller drives in my backpack while traveling with my camera and laptop. After ten weeks the drive stopped working. Under warranty, Seagate will replace the drive, but they want me to pay them to try to recover the data. Personally I don't think this is acceptable. I find the lack of reliability and Seagate's unwillingness to warrant the function of the drive -- data storage -- unacceptable. People who read this review can also read Seagate's offer reaching out to me. Let me provide an update on the resolution of this matter. I wrote my review while on hold for the third time with Seagate -- in my initial call to them I spent about 45 minutes on hold. At the time I wrote the review, Seagate's position -- as expressed by first line CSR and second line manager was that they would replace my drive but not take responsibility for data recovery. I eventually got to a next level manager who agreed that Seagate would cover the data recovery and passed me to Tech Support (who were much more pleasant than Customer Service) who listened to my assessment (which proved correct) that the problem was in the power system, not the memory and there was no reason to write off the data or charge to recover it. Two subsequent calls to Technical Support (long wait on hold but pleasant interactions) got to the root of the problem, got my data back and since the drive is flakey -- Seagate is replacing it. So, what to conclude. I've done enough Call Center design to know that most people would accept (begrudgingly) the first line or second line refusal from Seagate to fix my problem. Since I was willing to sit on hold for 45 mintues and argue with Seagate at length they did agree to fix my problem. Since I took the time to write a one star review on Amazon I got another offer to fix the problem from Seagate. SO SEAGATE WILL ADDRESS YOUR PROBLEM BUT NOT IF YOU ASK POLITELY! That's my conclusion Seagate is free to file another answer saying they disagree. But they recorded my calls "for training purposes" and as far as I am concerned, once the first escalation led to Seagate saying "no" to me again I knew the only way to get service was to tough it out with them. I find this is almost always the case with customer service today, not just at Seagate, you have to be prepared to invest time and stand your ground to get anything. What a sorry state customer service is in in America. And no I don't feel like thanking Seagate for addressing my problem, they made me spend far too much time on it.