I ordered a “new” hard drive from Amazon for my old laptop.

When I installed it in the laptop and booted up, I expected to see a prompt to insert bootable media. Instead I got the Windows improper shutdown screen with options to boot into Safe Mode, etc. — in Chinese!

(Sorry, I didn’t think to take a picture of the screen before I wiped the hard drive clean.)

At least I have a new target for the next visit to the range.

To be clear, this was not obviously a repurposed hard drive. It was sealed in an antistatic bag inside what appeared to be the original box. Appeared to be, but probably wasn’t.

So do not buy this hard drive from Amazon, the “WD Black 750GB Performance Mobile Hard Disk Drive – 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 9.5 MM 2.5 Inch – WD7500BPKX“. In fact I would caution you to not buy any hard drives from Amazon, no matter how cheap.

You get what you pay for.

Caveat emptor.

Let the buyer beware.

There’s a sucker born every minute.

Disclosure: I receive affiliate payments from Amazon when people follow Amazon links I share and then order something. In this case, I advise you to NOT follow the Amazon links above.