Usage of rolling contact bearings in variety of rotor-dynamic applications has put forth a need to develop a detailed and easy to implement techniques for the assessment of damage related features in these bearings so that before mechanical failure, maintenance actions can be planned well in advance. In accordance to this, a method based on dimensional amplitude response analysis and scaling laws is presented in this paper for the diagnosis of defects in different components of rolling contact bearings in a dimensionally scaled rotor-bearing system. Rotor, bearing, operating and defect parameters involved are detailed for dimensional analysis using frequency domain vibration data. A defect parameter for modeling all the three dimensions of the defect as well as the different shapes like square, circular, rectangular is put forth which takes into account the volume as well as the surface area of the defect. Experimental data set is generated for the 'model' bearing (designated as SKF30205J2/Q) using Box-Behnken design of response surface methodology for solution of the theoretical model by factorial regression approach. Obtained metamodel is then used for the prediction of the objective variable, i.e., Vibration acceleration amplitude at the defect frequency component for other types of 'test' bearings (designated as SKF 30305C and SKF 22220 EK) using the developed scaling laws. Confirmation experiments showed that the computable relationship amongst objective variable and the dimensionless parameters can be forecast and correlated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]