wat exactly comes in the retail boxes?... im lookin to get an OEM western digital HD... but im wondering if ill miss out on nething by buyin the OEM...

thx

Practically Nothing.

A Large colourful box and a CDROM which holds all the Utilities which are free to download from the manufacturers Website.

thats it :) Go for OEM and download the utilities!

OEMs are not genuine but made by other companies using their parts, henst Original Equipment Manufactured, with retail you get better product support, for instance Microsoft or IBM might not be too interested if you had one of their products that was OEM because they didnt make/release it, I read a statement from microsoft once (forgot where) saying " For OEM products please refer to your retailer.

Originally posted by C0UGAR UK
OEMs are not genuine but made by other companies using their parts, henst Original Equipment Manufactured, with retail you get better product support, for instance Microsoft or IBM might not be too interested if you had one of their products that was OEM because they didnt make/release it, I read a statement from microsoft once (forgot where) saying " For OEM products please refer to your retailer.

The reason they refer you to your OEM is that they don't make nearly as much cash as if you bought it off of the shelf in a retail box.

OEMs get a huge price break due to volume and the fact they will assume tech. support.

All the hard drives and other equiptment are manufactured by the same people... OEM as previously stated was orginally introduced for system builders who don't need the pretty boxes etc...

It is comonly thought that because an item is OEM you only get 30 day warrenty but that isn't strickly true...

The reseller only has to give you a 30 day warrently but it is possible to give 1 year or more as broken stuff can be returned to the distributor or manufacturer...

I deal with this every single day.... Buy OEM and save the $$$'s its the same thing without the pretty packaging.