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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Apple has begun sending emails about a new hard drive recall, called the iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program:
Apple has determined that a very small number of Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems, may fail under certain conditions. These systems were sold between May 2011 and July 2011.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will replace affected hard drives free of charge.

Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program. If you have not been contacted, but think you have a 1TB Seagate hard drive, you can enter your serial number below to see if it's part of this program.
Apple encourages owners with affected computers to go to an Apple Retail Store, an Apple Authorized Service Provider or contact 800-APL-CARE.

The recall will continue for one year: "Apple will replace affected Seagate hard drives, free of charge, until July 23rd, 2012. Apple will continue to evaluate service data and will provide further extensions to this program as needed."

Article Link: Apple Recalls Some iMac Seagate 1TB Hard Drives
 

hamiltop

macrumors newbie
Jun 30, 2011
6
0
While you've cracked it open...

I wonder if I'll be able to convince whoever replaces the drive to install an SSD (in addition to a new HDD) while they are in there (I'll provide the SSD).

Anyone had any experience doing such a thing?
 

zerocustom1989

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2007
246
22
I wonder if I'll be able to convince whoever replaces the drive to install an SSD (in addition to a new HDD) while they are in there (I'll provide the SSD).

Anyone had any experience doing such a thing?

I was thinking the same thing. Was considered an apple specialist instead of the store for this.
 

Sneakz

macrumors 65816
Jul 17, 2008
1,217
332
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
My sister's iMac is affected. Oddly enough, her first iMac had a Caviar Black but was exchanged due to another cosmetic issue and this one has the 7200.12 HDDs that are affected.
 

Mumstalker

macrumors member
Nov 26, 2009
35
0
Dam im part of the program, but i haven't had any issues with my hard drive as of yet :confused:

Me too. Gave Apple care a call and they told me that i have to wait until my drive fails. Wich is weird, since i thought it was a recall.
 

Wilbah

macrumors member
Sep 6, 2007
52
8
Dam im part of the program, but i haven't had any issues with my hard drive as of yet :confused:

Get it fixed... if its anything like similar Seagate issues I've experienced- the drive will show no signs of problems- it will just stop working.

I had a Seagate drive that was part of a recall program I didn't know about (I didn't properly register the drive)- there was a firmware issue on the drives that caused them to just stop working- I lost ALOT of work a result. I'm much more careful backing up, and properly registering products.

I know these companies are pretty much the same, but I personally have had nothing but bad luck with Seagate drives, I've had some WD go bad as well, but not the extent as with Seagate.
 

hamiltop

macrumors newbie
Jun 30, 2011
6
0
Me too. Gave Apple care a call and they told me that i have to wait until my drive fails. Wich is weird, since i thought it was a recall.

From my email:
"Apple recommends replacing your affected hard drive as soon as possible. "
 

Nishi100

macrumors 6502a
Mar 27, 2010
867
0
Me too. Gave Apple care a call and they told me that i have to wait until my drive fails. Wich is weird, since i thought it was a recall.

Wait until you HD fails. What? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard: Ur, I'm sorry, but we have a problem with all Segate HD shipped with the newest iMac - it has a high change of failing; but you can only get it fixes after it has failed.
 

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
1,956
355
Troutdale, OR
I just got the recall notice as well. I'm glad I got it before I went to install Lion, at least I can hold off until I get the new drive.
 

gangof4

macrumors member
Jun 6, 2011
81
0
Texas
I got the same e-mail from Apple today. If we backup hourly with Time Machine, then we shouldn't lose data in a crash, right? What about our apps and config settings? Will we lose them when the drive is replaced (and if they just copy stuff, why do the genius's need our original installation disks?)

This is really inconvenient. My closest Apple store is 60 miles away and almost half of that distance is bumper-to-bumper traffic! I guess this means TWO trips as well (one to drop off and one to pick up.) We should get at least $100 towards App Store merchandise for the hassle (it's no fault of our own.)
 

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
This is why I can't bring myself to buy an iMac. MPs may be cumbersome and take up a lot of space but if this were to happen w/ a MP I just pop out the bad drive and send it to Apple for exchange and go on w/ my work using a backup drive.

I hope (wishful thinking) Apple goes back to designing machines to be more user serviceable like they use to do.
 

Jeaz

macrumors 6502a
Dec 12, 2009
677
1,147
Sweden
This is what happens when you switch from Western Digital to Seagate, if you ask me.

I've probably owned over 50 different hard drives over the years, three have failed and all were Seagate drives. Well, one was a Maxtor disk, but since they've been acquired by Seagate now it's all the same.
 

Laird Knox

macrumors 68000
Jun 18, 2010
1,956
1,343
Me too. Gave Apple care a call and they told me that i have to wait until my drive fails. Wich is weird, since i thought it was a recall.

It may be an issue of the orders not reaching everybody in the retail chain yet. Try again next week and you might get a different response.
 

Big Kahuna

macrumors newbie
Feb 26, 2010
27
0
Minnesoota
I've never had a problem with a Seagate drive, and I've owned a fair few.
stickman.gif
 

WhoDaKat

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2006
379
665
Dang... I don't have a bad hard drive.

I've got the WD, but I wish it was the Seagate. A couple of extra bucks to the Apple "specialist" and at least I could have replaced the HD with a 6G drive, or maybe a fancy new SSD...
 

SixeL

macrumors newbie
Jun 25, 2011
14
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I just ordered an iMac yesterday!! what!

how do i know if it is a seagate or wd harddrives?
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,555
1,666
Redondo Beach, California
My 27" iMac is one of them being recalled. I'd be happy to pay the difference in price to upgrade to a larger drive or add a second drive or whatever. I'll have to ask around and see if one of the Apple certified service centers can do this for me.

Apple really needs to offer something to compensate for the hassle. Just offering to replace the 1.0TB drive with a new 1.5TB drive would cost them all of what $10 maybe?
 

Yamcha

macrumors 68000
Mar 6, 2008
1,825
158
Good for Apple, but Seagate has been sucking lately, I recently bought a 1TB Seagate drive aswell just a few months back, and it has failed on many occasions, and performs pretty badly.. It's ok for storage but horrible for an OS..

Western Digital FTW.
 
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