Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Error Node B, Week old iMac fail

J

jearnshaw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 8, 2012
3
0
Hello All, finally took the plunge and bought the 27" i7 iMac which arrived last Thursday... naturally quite happy. Installed bootcamp / windows as well as OSX and was playing games nicely. However after booting back into OSX the iMac froze completely.

...Long story short that freeze caused an initial Error Node B error in disk utility accessed via Internet Recovery on Lion, before then progressing to not let me access the hard drive at all, showing the SMART status as failing. It looks pretty screwed at this point and won't boot into anything, even the recover hard drive section that Lion provides. Done PRAM refreshing, Single user mode, the works and not had luck.

Fortunately i have Applecare and it is booked in for its genius appointment later. Do we know if Apple offer data recovery services at all and if it would incur a fee, and in light of it being a week old what are the odds of having it done complimentary? Dissapointed with my purchase so far...
 
sorry, it just wasn't that iMac's lucky day or yours. At least you'll get it fixed free with no hassels. Happens every once in a while. At least you only had it for a week. It'd be worse if you had it for a year and the HD broke. Also, now you'll know the importance of backups.
 
jearnshaw said:
Hello All, finally took the plunge and bought the 27" i7 iMac which arrived last Thursday... naturally quite happy. Installed bootcamp / windows as well as OSX and was playing games nicely. However after booting back into OSX the iMac froze completely.

...Long story short that freeze caused an initial Error Node B error in disk utility accessed via Internet Recovery on Lion, before then progressing to not let me access the hard drive at all, showing the SMART status as failing. It looks pretty screwed at this point and won't boot into anything, even the recover hard drive section that Lion provides. Done PRAM refreshing, Single user mode, the works and not had luck.

Fortunately i have Applecare and it is booked in for its genius appointment later. Do we know if Apple offer data recovery services at all and if it would incur a fee, and in light of it being a week old what are the odds of having it done complimentary? Dissapointed with my purchase so far...
Click to expand...

As long as you didn't do something ridiculous to the machine (like plugging it into a 220 outlet :D) you'll be fine. It sucks, but every once in a while you get a dud. Such is life.

Regarding data recovery: No. They won't do it. The best that you could hope for is that the disk is still mountable and you can target disk it off. Otherwise, you could try Data Rescue 3 or a third party service to attempt a full blown recovery.
 
I am in the UK for my power sockets and used a surge protector anyway so haven't done anything i shouldn't.

Several forums when glancing around at the issue seemed to mention that the UK genius' do offer this service but possibly with a fee hence asking, don't know if it would be the same case in America or elsewhere. Will just have to ask if they can replace the drive and hand me the old one or do a cost analysis and ask the other half if it is worth it to recover.

All my data is still on iDisk or the iTunes components stored on external HDD so i was protected... it was just after this happened my fiance told me she hadn't done any form of backup and neglected to tell me (*sigh). Unfortunately i migrated all my data and sold the old computer and this broke before i had chance to set up my time capsule so no backup...
 
jayhawk11 said:
As long as you didn't do something ridiculous to the machine (like plugging it into a 220 outlet :D) you'll be fine.
Click to expand...

Why would that be "something ridiculous"? That's what I and millions of Mac users do all the time. And every current Mac is fine with that. From the store page for the iMac:

Electrical requirements: Line voltage: 100-240V AC
Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz, single phase
 
Personally I would get an exchange for the same product if you bought it last Thursday you have 14 days return policy. I wouldn't want apple opening up a few days old machine, just seems like more things could happen in the future. Get it swapped out pal. Im from UK too and I'm taking back an iMac i bought last week, as i'm willing to wait for the update.

Ps anyone know if current iMac ram will work in ivy bridge model as i bought extra ram, but will be returning the unit i have at home tomorrow.
 
Update

Okay, went to the Apple store for my genius appointment where they verified the error and the subsequent SMART status failure on my drive. When asked about data recovery I was told that it was a service that was no longer provided and i would have to go to an external company to do so. Cost of this outweighed the benefit of keeping the data for my fiancee so she allowed me to just replace the hard drive. Since covered by applecare i opted for an in-store hard drive repair (instead of getting replacement from online store) and was told that it would take 5-7 days to repair... ended up being done within 3. Genius was very helpful and polite.

On a downside though i wanted to complain to apple about the 5 day failure on the hard drive and was directed to a feedback page on Apple's website which is completely woeful... nowhere is there a spot to make a valid complaint - even the page itself states apple may not respond. Ended up on the phone for a while and got nowhere so made a complaint at the local store in writing and told them to forward it as required and to keep me updated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back