As I understand Canadian and U.S. consumer protection laws, since we both bought the drives when Mad Dog was viable, and both of us are still within Mad Dog’s warranty period, we are in the same position. It is between us and Mad Dog (i.e. - its bankruptcy receiver) to settle.
In my experience, the only way it would make sense to deal with Mad Dog is if someone else has agreed to honour their warranty – unlikely, unless someone is going to continue the product line.
But there are still three avenues worth exploring:
(1) did you buy from a retailer that honours the warranty in-store? Locally, I recently learned that Best Buy Canada does just that.
(2) did you buy an extended warranty?
(3) do you use a credit card to pay for it that automatically includes an extended warranty?
All of these solution assume that you actually have a problem with the drive, not just want your money back because the company is bankrupt. And, solution (3) forces you to wait until your normal warranty would have expired, before you can collect on the extended warranty. Solution (2) probably does, too, though I’ve seen a lot of extended warranties that also “beef up” the existing warranty into a replacement with a new product, rather than a refurbished one or repair of the existing unit.
All that said, your retailer may be willing to “eat the loss” of accepting the product back, as a goodwill measure to keep you as a customer. But that is “above and beyond the call of duty”.
