Apple Recalls Some iMac Seagate 1TB Hard Drives

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Seagate drives fail too much. This has been a known issue for many years now. Avoid them like a plague!

glad mine isn't affected. Would hate to reinstall everything again.

Marx55 said:

Seagate drives fail too much. This has been a known issue for many years now. Avoid them like a plague!

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Indeed. The 120 GB Seagate hard drive that shipped with white MacBooks had a known issue of hard drive failure where the platter would be scratched and the data would be totally unrecoverable. I personally experienced it and, thanks to my purchasing AppleCare, I was given a replacement drive of a different brand.

Marx55 is correct about Seagate: "Avoid them like a plague!"

jasonxneo said:

Dam im part of the program, but i haven't had any issues with my hard drive as of yet

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I actually took mine to the Apple Store some time ago because of some oscillating/pulsating noise in the HD area - however, at the time we ended up concluding that this was more like a case of sound reverberation in the room + normal fan humming...

Now, since my HD is covered by this recall, I am gonna replace it again, and perhaps ask for an SSD addition...ironic

deefer68 said:

Is there anywhere I can check my serial number to see if my iMac is affected?

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Yes and I recommend checking before going to Apple.

Here is the link: http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

I just checked mine, it's a 27" iMac purchased in July and I got this message:

Our records show that this iMac has a Seagate hard drive, but it's not affected. No further action on your part is needed at this time.

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Well that makes me feel better, but there is no real comfort, Hard Drives do fail - a lot! All you can really do is backup your Mac and get your Mac covered by Apple Care!

gangof4 said:

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?

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Wrong.

HFS+ does not guarantee data integrity:
"HFS+ does not concern itself with data integrity. The underlying hardware is trusted implicitly. If a few bits or bytes get flipped one way or the other by the hardware, HFS+ won't notice. This applies to both metadata and the file data itself."

From:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/12#hfs-problems

gangof4 said:

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?)

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The Mac OS X (or OS X) installation assistant allows you to restore your user specific settings from a Time Machine backup.

gangof4 said:

This is really inconvenient.

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No, it is not. If you lose all your important data on a Seagate drive, and you have no backups, that would be "inconvenient".

gangof4 said:

My closest Apple store is 60 miles away

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Then search for a AASP.

JunoMac said:

If you use Time Machine, everything is backed up.
...
But relative to this issue, or any hard drive issue in general, Time Machine serves as a second copy.

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A Time Machine backup will not protect you against hardware defects, because it does not guarantee data integrity. It copies also damaged files to a backup volume.

Would i be allowed to get a refund if my iMac is affected? (brought in May)

King Flamez1 said:

iMacs look so beautiful, can't wait to get one for Uni

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What an incongruous post for a thread about failing hard drives.

MCIowaRulz said:

I'm getting my updated iMac next month and i'm going to get the 2TB drive. Who primarily makes that? I know it used to be WD but is it now back to Seagate?

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Have you checked... whether it will have Lion pre-installed?

Figures. I have had nothing but trouble with Seagate drives. I have 2 hard drives right now who went dead - within 6 days of each other. It's almost like they are all set to expire right after the warranty expires. Times up. Gotta go! Yet, every Hitachi that I have had lasts 5 times longer. Glad to see Apple doing to right thing before it blows up in their faces. Maybe than get replace them with a better drive.

Update: Spoke with Apple Care. They told me to try Apple Stores and see if they will do an exchange. Called two and they would not perform an exchange. Opened a dispute with my card company. Not willing to risk dust under the screen.

It's a shame, I got hooked via Hackintosh and then bought this iMac. Looks like I might be going back. I do love my iPad and have purchased three others for family members as well...

Was this >< close to buying an Air today as well.

To everyone with the problem, don't forget to securely wipe your drive before having it replaced.

miografico said:

To those throwing their favor towards Western Digital as opposed to Seagate:

They all suck!

Western Digital
Seagate
Toshiba
Maxtor
Hitachi

The more drives you have to deal with on a daily/weekly/yearly basis the sooner you realize that they are all crap.

Do yourself a favor and pop on a site like New Egg and try to find a drive with a 5 star rating - good luck.

It's shocking to think that in my little basement museum I have an old SPARC workstation, IBM PS/2 (286), an old AT&T 386 and a Packard Bell 486 DX/2 all with functioning ancient hard drives. All the new/newer equipment I own or my company owns are ticking time-bombs for HD's in my mind. It is always a crapshoot no matter what brand of drive we pick. When we buy drives we always buy two because we plan for the first one failing within the first three months or being DOA.

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You forgot Samsung, which are pretty good drives. WD and Samsung are the best. Your contention that all of them are 'crap' is hyperbole. But I generally agree that HDDs are not made as well today as they used to be. So maybe we could say that WD and Samsung are the 'cream of the crap'.

And to make things worse Seagate recently bought out Samsung's HDD division, and Western Digital recently bought Hitatchi's HDD division. (Hitatchi had itself bought IBM's HDD business unit back in 2003)

http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/07/western-digital-buys-hitachi-global-storage-technologies/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383812,00.asp

Since Toshiba isn't really a major HDD player (at least for desktops), we are down to essentially just three hard drive companys supplying the world's computers.

Phew, mines sorted! Really glad I don't have to go through the rigmarole of sending my computer back. Taking a 27" computer 10 miles away to an Apple Store in the middle of a UK city (where we don't like vehicles) would have not been good... unless they stuck a 2tb drive in instead. :3

So is Apple known for getting dust under the screen?

I'm on my third iMac after returning the first two for yellow screens. I was displeased with the quality of the iMacs then and I'm more displeased now.
Are refunds an option? Is there any form of compensation? Doing this with a desktop is much more inconvenient than say a laptop. I say inconvenient because I dont lug 30 lb objects to and from crowded apple stores and their parking lots everyday.

Lagmonster said:

Was this >< close to buying an Air today as well.

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Same here.
i dodged this bullet with the Seagate disc (WD hdd) but I have the ongoing problem of a flickering 24" ACD connected to my iMac.

Had also planned to buy a MBA but I now assume these new MBA's will have the same problem with a 24" ACD hooked up to a ThunderBolt port.
Really disappointed about the build quality of recent Mac's (4 years and younger).

I called Apple Care and I was told they don't replace the hard drive until it fails. He said, "The recall itself isn't enough to warrant a replacement." Those were his exact words.

Well, this sounds like bs to me. I can still return my iMac so gonna see what they say at the store.

I'm PO'd myself! They should exchange for new one.

gnagy said:

I called Apple Care and I was told they don't replace the hard drive until it fails. He said, "The recall itself isn't enough to warrant a replacement." Those were his exact words.

Well, this sounds like bs to me. I can still return my iMac so gonna see what they say at the store.

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They said they would gladly replace the drive in mine, but I don't want them monkeying around inside of it.

gnagy said:

I called Apple Care and I was told they don't replace the hard drive until it fails. He said, "The recall itself isn't enough to warrant a replacement." Those were his exact words.

Well, this sounds like bs to me. I can still return my iMac so gonna see what they say at the store.

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Well if that is really true, that SCREAMS of a class action lawsuit.

I mean c'mon, "Yes, your hard drive is recalled, but we only replace it after you lose all your data." How the hell does that make sense? Hopefully, you just got a poor representative on the phone. I'd call back again honestly.

I sure hope that is not true, because that would be just an insane policy.

I had a friend that had an HP PC and there was a recall on certain drives but only certain model #s and his was not listed, but he was having some issues.

So I researched the problems, and I told him, "Call HP, tell them you're having similar issues to the ones reported even though your model number doesn't match but is a very similar model and brand." The PC was not under warranty but, with a little coaxing, HP STILL replaced the hard drive. And then I was able to recover most if not all of his data on the new HD.

Now that's what I call service above and beyond.

It seems as if billion dollar cash rich Apple is more increasingly waiting for the class action lawsuit before appropriately taking care of problems. I don't remember it being that way in the old days as much.

Seagate used to be quality, now they're the worst of all HDD manufacturers it seems. I like hitachi drives in laptops (quiet, durable, relatively fast), WD for storage. The MyBook Element drives are cheap, quiet, go to sleep reliably (saving power) and perform rather well despite the lower-than-7200 rpm spindle speed.

gnagy said:

I called Apple Care and I was told they don't replace the hard drive until it fails. He said, "The recall itself isn't enough to warrant a replacement." Those were his exact words.

Well, this sounds like bs to me. I can still return my iMac so gonna see what they say at the store.

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I think the Applecare people are just misinformed. The email I got clearly states "Apple recommends replacing your affected hard drive as soon as possible."

I love the WD Black drives. I have a 1TB 3.5" in my desktop and a 500GB 2.5" in my MacBook. Next best thing to SSD.

The 2.5" on my MacBook's SATA1 can get about 130MB/sec at times and sustains around 126MB. Very respectable for a 2.5" magnetic HD. Got it on sale about a month ago for $58.

If this becomes a scandal, will it be called Seagategate?