Apple Expands Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program for 2009-2011 iMacs

I guess I'll call in 3-5 days is a bit long to be without my iMac.

I had an appointment this morning at the Altamonte Springs, FL store. I went in and the girl told me right now I would have to leave it for 7-14 days!! I cancelled my appointment and told her I would call back in a couple of weeks. They probably have 1 guy replacing them.

Just got mine back from the Montgomery Mall store in Maryland. They said it would take 2-3 days. It took 7.

Hard drive back is another Seagate. Not so thrilled.

They did format it though with the same OS so I did not need to install that from the disks myself.

Scott6666 said:

Hard drive back is another Seagate. Not so thrilled.

Click to expand...

Seagate has been making hard drives for almost 30 years. This is the first Apple recall on a single Seagate model # out of over 65 Seagate HDD model #s still in circulation.

I think you're going to be ok.

My Hard Dive Replacement

Got my email last week, called my local Apple store, and dropped my 27" Mid 2010 iMac 1TB off on Friday afternoon. They informed me they had all the parts needed to perform the upgrade. I had been using an external hard drive and running Time Machine for back-up purposes all along, and made sure I invoked a back-up just before shutting down. Got a call on Monday morning saying that my machine was ready, picked it up and brought it home. Hooked the external drive up and started the machine. Picked the external drive as a restore option on boot-up, about 2 hours later my iMac was back EXACTLY the way I left it, so for ZERO issues or changes (files, pics, passwords, apps, applications, folders, links, bookmarks, etc..).

This is the first time I have ever done this (restore from Time Machine) and it was flawless. I am truly impressed with the system/process Apple put in place to handle these events.

Hope yours goes as well as mine.

Removed Seagate Drive

How can we make sure that any personal data on the Segate drive is completely removed. Do we have to do that or will Apple give us back the replaced Seagate drive so that we have possession of all our personal information?

lenfj said:

How can we make sure that any personal data on the Segate drive is completely removed. Do we have to do that or will Apple give us back the replaced Seagate drive so that we have possession of all our personal information?

Click to expand...

They keep the drive. You need to back up your data; then you can remove it securely from your current drive using Disk Utility.

Got mine back today, the new drive is insanely quiet compared to the old one.

Only problem, there's a bunch of finger prints on the inside of the glass now. It's going back in next week for cleaning!

I Had Great Service on the HD Replacement

I brought it in to local Apple Store on a Genius appointment on a Sunday. On Monday morning they called and told me to pick the iMac up. They even carried the iMac out the back door so I wouldn't have to lug it down the mall (Jordan Creek-West Des Moines, IA).

I have to say that I wasn't thrilled in having to do any of this. But, I'm very happy with the service received. I'm also happy I have external HD RAID1 and a network drive HD Time Machine backups of my iMac HD

BillyBobBongo said:

Got mine back today, the new drive is insanely quiet compared to the old one.

Only problem, there's a bunch of finger prints on the inside of the glass now. It's going back in next week for cleaning!

Click to expand...

It's easy to pop off the screen panel to clean it yourself. Watch here.

My Seagate drive started failing back in March. I immediately replaced the drive myself because I was working on a project at the time. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this problem or the replacement program. I'm glad I "accidentally" stumbled upon this thread a few days ago because I just spoke to Apple support, and they are now arranging a refund for me.

I think several people have asked already about this, but no definite answers as yet.

I have a 2010 27" iMac and is eligible for the HDD replacement program.
Can I ask them to install an SSD for me instead? I don't mind supplying the HDD.

Has anyone done this or something similar?

Many thanks

unable to select erase in disk utility

If this is simple or obvious, please bear with me.

I am to bring my 2009 iMac with recalled 1 TB Seagate drive into Apple tomorrow for replacement, and I cannot seem to get any of the suggestions to work for securely erasing data.

When I open disk util, I cannot select erase drive (see screen shots). It's grey-ed out and not selectable.

I do not have a physical CD to boot up from (I have saved the box and all the contents).

How do I wipe my drive before bringing it to Apple?

PS: I have a Time Machine backup and offsite CrashPlan backup so I feel comfortable that I have everything that I need to restore.

Thanks for the collective wisdom of the Forum.

ufgatorvet said:

If this is simple or obvious, please bear with me.

I am to bring my 2009 iMac with recalled 1 TB Seagate drive into Apple tomorrow for replacement, and I cannot seem to get any of the suggestions to work for securely erasing data.

When I open disk util, I cannot select erase drive (see screen shots). It's grey-ed out and not selectable.

I do not have a physical CD to boot up from (I have saved the box and all the contents).

How do I wipe my drive before bringing it to Apple?

PS: I have a Time Machine backup and offsite CrashPlan backup so I feel comfortable that I have everything that I need to restore.

Thanks for the collective wisdom of the Forum.

Click to expand...

You can't erased a drive YOU are booted from! This will happen in ANY computer! So boot from another drive to erase that drive.

ufgatorvet said:

If this is simple or obvious, please bear with me.

I am to bring my 2009 iMac with recalled 1 TB Seagate drive into Apple tomorrow for replacement, and I cannot seem to get any of the suggestions to work for securely erasing data.

When I open disk util, I cannot select erase drive (see screen shots). It's grey-ed out and not selectable.

I do not have a physical CD to boot up from (I have saved the box and all the contents).

How do I wipe my drive before bringing it to Apple?

PS: I have a Time Machine backup and offsite CrashPlan backup so I feel comfortable that I have everything that I need to restore.

Thanks for the collective wisdom of the Forum.

Click to expand...

There's a handy utility CD named "Hiren's Boot CD". You can boot Linux from the CD, and erase from there.

1. Download http://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip, extract the .ISO file, and burn a CD or DVD.
2. Disconnect all external drives
3. Boot from the CD, and select "Linux Rescue environment" from the first menu
4. Hit return to take the default for the second menu
5. Open a terminal window by clicking on the icon that looks like a terminal in the lower left corner
6. Type the command
   
   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M​

When the "dd" command completes the entire drive will have been overwritten with zeroes.

The command wipe /dev/sda will do a 4 pass erase on the drive, if you're more paranoid. It will also take 4 times longer.

The Boot CD has many other utilities, such as a partition editor and a S.M.A.R.T. GUI.

Time Machine issue after disk replacement. HELP!!

After the hd replacement, fresh 10.6.3 install, import with Migration Assistant, update to 10.6.8, Time Machine does not "see" old backups! It wants to start from scratch, instead of the "changed stuff addition" method. Any help?

Where's the cut-off...

An earlier post by someone saying their drive was eligible:

Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Model: ST31000528AS
Revision: AP25
Serial Number: 9VP8XXXX

Mine, which Apple says is not eligible:

Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Model: ST31000528AS
Revision: AP25
Serial Number: 9VP9XXXX

In the interest of full disclosure... I'm usually the guy who buys the last bad unit, not the first good one. My drive isn't loud, but... if it were easier to get to I would have already replaced it.

It's also so very Dell-like of you to insist your customers wait till it dies to bring it in for some love. Thanks, Apple.

ufgatorvet said:

If this is simple or obvious, please bear with me.

I am to bring my 2009 iMac with recalled 1 TB Seagate drive into Apple tomorrow for replacement, and I cannot seem to get any of the suggestions to work for securely erasing data.

When I open disk util, I cannot select erase drive (see screen shots). It's grey-ed out and not selectable.

I do not have a physical CD to boot up from (I have saved the box and all the contents).

How do I wipe my drive before bringing it to Apple?

PS: I have a Time Machine backup and offsite CrashPlan backup so I feel comfortable that I have everything that I need to restore.

Thanks for the collective wisdom of the Forum.

Click to expand...

Buy a 16 GB flash drive (8 GB will just about do), install MacOS X on it, boot from the Flash drive.

Apple Store replaced my HDD with a lemon?

I got an email stating I was allowed a HDD replacement too and took it in. They replaced a 5400 RPM 500GB with a 7200RPM 1 TB and ever since I turned it on back home the cpu fan according to istat pro is running around 5700 doing nothing other than one safari page open. I dont know whats going on.

Apple Store near me replaced my year and a half old iMac because when they replaced the the HDD per this program they screwed something up. I had a base $1199 2011 iMac. I asked if I could get a MBP and they handed me a brand new 2012 15inch macbook pro with data migration! Im so stoked.

I just noticed I got an email saying my hard drive is eligible for the Seagate hard drive replacement, and I never bothered to check but it turns out I have a Western Digital Hard Drive?

I'm going to go in anyway since they said I was eligible, just to get a new hard drive but I just thought that was interesting.

So my iMac is eligible for this program but I haven't seen any issues with my iMac.

The drive isn't terribly loud, though I do hear when things are loaded from it, but I don't hear any constant sounds.

A week without my iMac is gonna suck but I guess I don't have much of a choice.

Reservation set for 6PM tomorrow. Here's hoping it doesn't take terribly long.

neoelectronaut said:

Reservation set for 6PM tomorrow. Here's hoping it doesn't take terribly long.

Click to expand...

Don't mean to panic you, but mine took over a month to get right. Finally got it back today...although it's still not perfect.

I took it back in to have to cleaned (finger prints on the inside of the glass) and during the process they manage to scratch the LCD screen, chip the glass and damage the bezel.

The iMac was taken back in for service where they replaced everything and cleaned it up. I went to pick it up, and the second they turned it on, spotter 8 dead pixels over the new LCD.

The iMac was taken back in for service and they replaced the LCD. I went to pick it up, and the second they turned it on, spotted 4 dead pixels on the new LCD.

The iMac was taken back in for service and they replaced the LCD. I went to pick it up and, they second they turned it on, spotted 2 dead pixels on the LCD. At this point (today) it was more than a month since I'd had my iMac and was committed to getting it back today. Apple offered to fix it during the course of the afternoon so this evening when I went to pick it back up was shocked to find that it still had dead pixels, minor damage to the glass in one corner and an abundance of fluff under the screen. After speaking with a manager that flat out told me he couldn't see any of these problems they took the iMac away for cleaning whilst I waited. The iMac was brought out once again, the abundance of fluff was still ever present, the dead pixels were still dead, but mysteriously the damaged glass that apparently wasn't damaged had been replaced.

The iMac was taken away for cleaning and when returned to me it was somewhat cleaner, but still had two dead pixels, and I was told that this was the last time they would do this. I'll now have to take this up with someone else.

You might want to rephrase your sentence. I hope it doesn't go terribly wrong.

Well I took it in and the guy said it was going to be 14 days and recommended I wait for things to lighten up a bit.

Since the computer isn't giving me any issues I probably will wait it out.

Maybe I'll just wait 'til right before the program cutoff date to bring it in.

So it's almost February, and I still haven't brought my iMac in.

The hard drive doesn't show any sign of failing. Should I still bother bringing it in?

I did when mine wasn't broken. They replaced it and broke it but then replaced it with a brand new computer, a more expensive one too, for free.