Macbook Air Hard Drive Failed

rbarnesb · May 22, 2009

Ok heres the deal....

I just purchased a MBA of craigslist from some random guy. He was selling it because he needed rent money.. so he said. Anyway it was running fine until it randomly said it needed to be restarted so i did it. After the restart i got a blinking folder with a question mark. After some searching i figured out how to boot from an external hard drive. I went to the apple website to check the status of the warranty and to my surprise it was still covered under the limited warranty. Now after a careful inspection of the underside of the mac i noticed several scratches around the screws, one screw is missing, there is a bend in the case as if someone attempted to open the computer before and the screws on each side of the mac in the do not sit flush like all the others . Would any of what i found void the remaining warranty on my mac?

I attached some pix of my findings.

gr8tfly · May 22, 2009

It looks as if it were dropped. I can't picture how the bend would happen trying to remove the bottom.

I'm not sure where those scratches are (by the missing screw).

That screw sticking out is either wrong screw and wrong place or some improper replacement screw (non-apple).

The combination probably will set off the "not covered due to damage" alarm, but you won't know until you try.

Hope it's nothing too expensive - the MBA's a great machine (within its limitations).

Unprocessed1 · May 22, 2009

Honestly, how in the hell did you not inspect the bottom of the Air when you were making the transaction? I still Feel bad for you, but the HD won't be very expensive to replace, way cheaper than what Apple is going to demand to fix it.

With that said, make something good out of it and get an SSD to replace it!

rbarnesb · May 23, 2009

Macbook Air Hard Drive Failed

Unprocessed1 said:
Honestly, how in the hell did you not inspect the bottom of the Air when you were making the transaction? I still Feel bad for you, but the HD won't be very expensive to replace, way cheaper than what Apple is going to demand to fix it.

With that said, make something good out of it and get an SSD to replace it!

I did a full inspection of the Air. I just overlooked all of those minor flaws because i only paid 400 bucks for it.

rw3 · May 23, 2009

Find someone on eBay who is selling the lower case and get all the correct screws. Get it looking as good as possible and then go into Apple and state that a restart was requested and then it would no longer get into Leopard.

Bottom
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-922-8323-...8139QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVWQQsalenotsupported

Top w/ Keyboard
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Apple-MacBo...0775QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVWQQsalenotsupported

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-MacBook-A...9786QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVWQQsalenotsupported

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-MacBook-A...6740QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVWQQsalenotsupported

Screws @ iFixIt
http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Air-Screw-Set/IF188-020

macboy4 · May 23, 2009

rbarnesb said:
I did a full inspection of the Air. I just overlooked all of those minor flaws because i only paid 400 bucks for it.

My first thought was "What an idiot!" Anybody can tell that those are NOT the correct screws!

When I saw that you only paid $400, however, I thought, "not a bad deal at all." You can sink a couple hundred bucks into this thing and have a pretty good little machine.

If you take this into Apple they're going to laugh at you, and it would be justified.

n0de · May 23, 2009

$400 - I can certainly look past a less than thorough inspection for that.

I would , however, also assume that the machine is stolen (I'm not judging you - it's your karma, not mine

). Not that Apple has a stellar reputation for reclaiming stolen goods but I don't know that I would take it in for warranty work. On random occasions some Genius' have held equipment reported as stolen and even called the police.

For $400 you can afford to risk fixing it yourself.

iFixit has all of the parts (including the body parts) necessary and as long as you move slowly and carefully it is really not that difficult. While you are in there you should probably redo the thermal paste too.

rbarnesb · May 23, 2009

n0de said:
$400 - I can certainly look past a less than thorough inspection for that.

I would , however, also assume that the machine is stolen (I'm not judging you - it's your karma, not mine ). Not that Apple has a stellar reputation for reclaiming stolen goods but I don't know that I would take it in for warranty work. On random occasions some Genius' have held equipment reported as stolen and even called the police.

For $400 you can afford to risk fixing it yourself.

iFixit has all of the parts (including the body parts) necessary and as long as you move slowly and carefully it is really not that difficult. While you are in there you should probably redo the thermal paste too.

The mac is not stolen i have the original receipt. The model number on the mac and the receipt are the same.

rbarnesb · May 23, 2009

Macbook Air Hard Drive Failed

Ok after removing the bottom casing and removing the hard drive it pretty obvious the systems been tampered with... see for your self

McGilli · May 23, 2009

You can't just replace the bottom of the laptop - cuz it has the serial number printed on it....

So keep that in mind if you look for a replacement bottom with screws.

rw3 · May 23, 2009

I think the issue with his is the top case is bent, if you can get a new one, then that should help get the bottom portion back to spec.

rbarnesb · May 23, 2009

Macbook Air Hard Drive Failed

rw3 said:
I think the issue with his is the top case is bent, if you can get a new one, then that should help get the bottom portion back to spec.

The top case is not bent it is the bottom. The picture doesn't show it but there is a dent in the bottom case as if someone tried to peel it open.

gr8tfly · May 23, 2009

McGilli said:
You can't just replace the bottom of the laptop - cuz it has the serial number printed on it....

So keep that in mind if you look for a replacement bottom with screws.

The bottom case can be replaced, as long as the serial number is written on the inside surface in permanent ink. It needs to be written under the black area in the upper left corner (oriented with port hatch opening to the upper left). "Slashes through the zeros" style...

Looking at the rest of the damage (wow - looks like they used automotive tools...), there's not much chance of it being covered by warranty again anyway, so the above is more for the OPs own records.

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Macbook Air Hard Drive Failed

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