Time Capsule died :(

Ouch. That's not good. Not good at all.

Of course, I've never had any luck with any of Apple's routers, so I'm not entirely surprised that the TC would treat someone like crap. I've fired off some emails to Steve requesting that they Fix Their F#$%ing Routers, but it hasn't done any good. (Steve no doubt mistook me for some peon user...)

Is the light on or is it completely dead?

And is anyone else worried about trusting their data, even if it's a backup, to the TC's?

They run crazy hot - Longevity doesn't strike me as an attribute of them. Sticking in slightly more expensive than the cheapest-of-the-cheap drives (found in the Mac 'Pro') and calling it 'Server Grade' isn't exactly a defense against heat death either...

I bet the Apple Store can salvage the HD for you - this sounds like a power supply problem. Maybe even just the cord (doubt it, but you can hope). The hard drive is probably ok if the whole thing is dark.

Makes you think twice about TC though. Still, your backup is dead, but not your source data, so you are ok. Just get a fresh backup asap!

So maybe overheated?

Lot's of discussion online about this

You have a rapidly growing throng of company. The number of posts just over the past few days has been increasing rapidly as us early-adopters are all getting to the 17 - 18 months life at the same time.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2129872&start=0&tstart=1

Time Capsule just stopped dead

Had to unattach my Time Capsule feed to my Verizon router. Now I am only using the Verizon router without the back up drive that I thought would last a lot longer than this. I feel a little better knowing that many others are experiencing the same problem with their TC. I had mine for about 17 months. And yes, it ran very hot.

So I will take it to the nearest Apple Store tomorrow. You say that the TC may start working again. If it does, should I take it back to the Apple Store anyway? Just what can I expect from the Apple Store? Is there an updated, more stable, longer lasting, cooler running TC model?

Mine also died

My 1TB TC(1st gen) died last Wednesday. Add it to the list. I also posted at Apple forums. There are 2 main threads with 20k views each.

Hmm... I hope mine doesn't go this route too...

I wonder if I should remove the rubber on the bottom to allow better cooling. Might as well since I've already upgraded the internal hard drive...

Mine died last week causing me a world of pain. It's the Power Supply. When I took it to the Apple store, the "Genius" insisted it was a failed HD. He was too busy to read the Apple discussion forums I tried to show him.

Nonetheless, if you have Applecare on one of your Macs, they will take care of it. I'm guessing that I will get a refurb as a replacement.

My confidence in this device is blown. A backup component needs to be most reliable part of a network. I am going to sell the replacement Time Capsule and figure out some other solution.

add me to the list as well... i posted a thread on this a while back and i posted on the apple boards too...

dont forget to leave feedback for apple too... make sure they are hearing you...

http://www.apple.com/feedback/timecapsule.html

APPLE I expected better quality!

Just woke up this morning to a completely dead 1tb Time Capsule. It was working perfect last night however the grime reaper visited some time between 11:30 pm and 6:45 am this morning. The time cap exhibits no signs of life at all when plugged in to AC.

This Time Capsule 1 Tb edition was purchased in April of 2008

Called Apple Support they were able to register it against my Mac Pro that has Apple care and because I located 75 miles from the nearest Apple Service Center of any type they are shipping me a replacement.

Of course I must return the dead one and Apple will place a hold for $277.98 on my credit card just in case I do not return the brick.

There are no files that I cannot live without on the Time Cap and I'm lucky enough to have a spare (very old) router that I have returned to temporary service until Apples replacement by "mail" process completes.

I do wonder what would have happened if I did not have a machine with Apple Care they could register the Time Cap against as well if there had been files on that I had to recover what would have happened?

So it seems as of this moment the path of least resistance to getting your Time Cap replaced is to be sure that you have one machine in your covey that has apple care so they can register the Time Cap with plus if you can live with out those files then do it. BTW I will degauss (big electro magnet) the Time Cap from the outside before I return it just for my own security. I will not open the device.

Best of luck to any of you that experience this same situation. I truly like Apple hardware and software. Apple is a well designed and thought out system. However if you ever have to deal with their designed for dummies service and support system please have your wallet ready and plenty of patience.

Apple Support is rather fickle. I never know what to expect. I must admit the magic words "Apple Care" make the difference. Stay away from their service bay at the Apple Store if you are not under warranty or do not have Apple Care at all costs. You will be treated as a leper.

If you ever have to deal with the "big headed", "self important" so called "experts" "by appointment only" aka the "Apple Genius" in the Apple Store it is an encounter that I will never have again. Its funny that the Genius's are located in the Apple store at the Genius bar. That's where they should be. They all seem to be drunk on their own importance and knowledge.

If there really is an expert in the Apple store then it is no wonder why they are behind 3 levels of secured combination locked doors. I have never found an Apple Genius that can logically debug a machine. From what I have seen they simply shotgun the parts till it works. If you have a machine that has a small ding or dent on the tender aluminum case then good luck convincing the first "Genius" (impersonator that you will deal with first) that the outside of the machine has nothing much to do with the inside of the machine. The cosmetic inspection process is an out of control customer losing situation that Apple Service executives need to squelch before the customers finally catch on and drive the retail stores out of business.

As conducted now this cosmetic inspection is a mind game that the so called tech or "Genius" has been well schooled in (either through formal training or as I suspect from OJT. It appears to me as a customer as a game they play among themselves to generate the big fish lies to brag about in the break room.) It has developed into a game of cat and mouse that most of the time the customer loses by implied allegations and the we're to good for you attitude.

APPLE wake up you will in the long run lose the game too just like Gateway, Circuit City, CompUSA and other retail failures. Try training your tech "Genus's" in debug and basic service and stop playing the mind games that insult technical experts like myself. You might be able to convince grandma that a scratch on the battery caused the logic board to go bad but not me. Let's remember you can't judge a Mac Book by its cover but it is easy to see through your "Genus".


MT Hall
Electrical Engineer

Mine died a few weeks ago. I replaced the internal power supply with an external one. An old Cisco router power supply brick. While I was at it, I cut a hole in the bottom to let the centrifugal fan suck in fresh air rather than just circulating the inside hot air. Also modified the fan so it is always on at medium speed (rather than the way Apple set it up which is always off except on imminent melt down). Now it runs cool and it is still quiet.

You can see a picture of the finished work in this link (last picture).
http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems/apple-time-capsule-repair

time capsule died

so my time capsule died but i have more than just back up files, i have a lot of files i need to have back. How can i do ? thks for support

braimbault said:

so my time capsule died but i have more than just back up files, i have a lot of files i need to have back. How can i do ? thks for support

Click to expand...

The only way that I know to retrieve the files is to physically open your Time Capsule, remove the hard drive, and place it in an external enclosure. Then connect it to your system and remove all of the data you need. But be warned that doing this will void your warranty and you will not have it replaced by Apple under AppleCare.

Time capsule death--and I don't want to join it!

My time capsule 500 gb (bought March 2008) stopped working Friday and I went to Apple Store Sunday and bought airport express. Seemed weird to abandon idea about automatic backup, but then I feel mislead and/or foolish about capsule idea. What was I thinking? Perpetual care?
At any rate, I looked at sites that explain how to fix the time capsule and some suggest the possibility of sudden cardiac death through electrocution.

Is there a fail-safe way to fix the capsule without risk of death? And where on earth would I get the parts?
Thanks!

Another dead TC

My 1TB TC (just under 18 months old, died completely last Monday (12th Oct). No light, no power, nothing. Took it to the Apple Store - they said they don't repair them - they just replace them. The cost of the replacement is just GBP10 less than a new one. By the time I take off my business discount, it is cheaper to buy a new one. I decided to by the 2TB version instead, but really wonder if I have thrown good money after bad.

I took the old one home and took it to pieces. Managed to sit the old hard drive in a SATA drive docking station. The drive itself is absolutely fine, so the problem is with the Time Capsule hardware itself.

What a waste of everyone's time and money! Come on Apple this really isn't good enough.

Never again buy a non-removable backup drive!

Like some others on this forum, after a little more than a year I noticed that my Time Capsule seemed to be running warm, but I received no alarms or warning until it failed completely, and wouldn't power up.

I MIGHT have been able to claim a warranty under my Apple Care, if I could find the receipts, but in that case they would require me to surrender my drive (and my Time Machine backups, which I would not like to have fall into someone else's hands). The other alternative was to take the TC apart and salvage the hard drive, in which case I would presumably have access to my data, but that would void the warranty.

Since there was no way of recovering the data or at least zapping the drive so that no one else could read it, I opted to disassemble the TC and salvage the drive. Once I did that, I copied the Time Machine backups to another drive, using an inexpensive USB to SATA converter. I was never able to re-integrate that copy with Time Machine, but it didn't really matter, as I still had the originals in good shape, with multiple other backups.

Once I had saved the data, I added that drive to one of my five Drobos, and I am using it (plus two other somewhat suspect drives) for a tertiary backup drive.

I bought into the Apple mystique and bought three Macs after some bad experiences with Vista soured me on Microsoft. But this kind of a failure, just past the unreasonably short 1 year US warranty period, will make me very wary to buy an Apple product the next time around.

And I will never, ever, again buy a non-removable hard drive for use in a data backup application. If I could have removed the hard drive and replaced the rest of the TC, I might have done so, but their terms and conditions prevented me from doing so, so screw them. Maybe someone should file a class action law suit on behalf of the innocent believers.

The problem is that, currently, there is no other solution for easily using Time Machine wirelessly to back up all your home computers. This is a big deal because there is no way my wife or kids will remember (or bother with) trying to back up their machines on a consistent schedule. Having TM do this wirelessly is BEYOND convenient for me

The best alternatives out there are AEBS with a usb HD (from everything I read, the wireless backing up is far more prone to failures than the TC), and the HP MSS (their forums are FILLED with TM backup issues and problems).

I just have to hope my TC lasts long enough for Apple to fix the problem, or for HP to get their crap together and get TM working good on the MSS.

time capsule dead

I have the same problem: I purchased ,my time capsule 1 TB on April 3, 2008. Yesterday morning (October 23, 2009), after a normal internet session, all of a sudden it was dead. Quite hot at first. It did not respond to resetting, there was no light.
How is this possible? Shouldn't a back-up device AT LEAST outlive my computer? (Mac G5).
I am utterly disappointed and don't know what to do.
The device was way to expensive to break down so soon ...
The Apple service desk sends me back to the shop now, since my costomers rights seem to justify a claim for any purchase that breaks down within two years. I'll keep you posted on the result ...
Macflautist

shoals said:

Just woke up this morning to a completely dead 1tb Time Capsule. It was working perfect last night however the grime reaper visited some time between 11:30 pm and 6:45 am this morning. The time cap exhibits no signs of life at all when plugged in to AC.

This Time Capsule 1 Tb edition was purchased in April of 2008

Called Apple Support they were able to register it against my Mac Pro that has Apple care and because I located 75 miles from the nearest Apple Service Center of any type they are shipping me a replacement.

Of course I must return the dead one and Apple will place a hold for $277.98 on my credit card just in case I do not return the brick.

There are no files that I cannot live without on the Time Cap and I'm lucky enough to have a spare (very old) router that I have returned to temporary service until Apples replacement by "mail" process completes.

I do wonder what would have happened if I did not have a machine with Apple Care they could register the Time Cap against as well if there had been files on that I had to recover what would have happened?

So it seems as of this moment the path of least resistance to getting your Time Cap replaced is to be sure that you have one machine in your covey that has apple care so they can register the Time Cap with plus if you can live with out those files then do it. BTW I will degauss (big electro magnet) the Time Cap from the outside before I return it just for my own security. I will not open the device.

Best of luck to any of you that experience this same situation. I truly like Apple hardware and software. Apple is a well designed and thought out system. However if you ever have to deal with their designed for dummies service and support system please have your wallet ready and plenty of patience.

Apple Support is rather fickle. I never know what to expect. I must admit the magic words "Apple Care" make the difference. Stay away from their service bay at the Apple Store if you are not under warranty or do not have Apple Care at all costs. You will be treated as a leper.

If you ever have to deal with the "big headed", "self important" so called "experts" "by appointment only" aka the "Apple Genius" in the Apple Store it is an encounter that I will never have again. Its funny that the Genius's are located in the Apple store at the Genius bar. That's where they should be. They all seem to be drunk on their own importance and knowledge.

If there really is an expert in the Apple store then it is no wonder why they are behind 3 levels of secured combination locked doors. I have never found an Apple Genius that can logically debug a machine. From what I have seen they simply shotgun the parts till it works. If you have a machine that has a small ding or dent on the tender aluminum case then good luck convincing the first "Genius" (impersonator that you will deal with first) that the outside of the machine has nothing much to do with the inside of the machine. The cosmetic inspection process is an out of control customer losing situation that Apple Service executives need to squelch before the customers finally catch on and drive the retail stores out of business.

As conducted now this cosmetic inspection is a mind game that the so called tech or "Genius" has been well schooled in (either through formal training or as I suspect from OJT. It appears to me as a customer as a game they play among themselves to generate the big fish lies to brag about in the break room.) It has developed into a game of cat and mouse that most of the time the customer loses by implied allegations and the we're to good for you attitude.

APPLE wake up you will in the long run lose the game too just like Gateway, Circuit City, CompUSA and other retail failures. Try training your tech "Genus's" in debug and basic service and stop playing the mind games that insult technical experts like myself. You might be able to convince grandma that a scratch on the battery caused the logic board to go bad but not me. Let's remember you can't judge a Mac Book by its cover but it is easy to see through your "Genus".


MT Hall
Electrical Engineer

Click to expand...

hmmm this is getting weird... i too bought a 500gb time capsule in April 2008 (6th to be exact) and on the evening of the 22nd of October (this thursday) i came home from work to find it DEAD!

im very disappointed as now i need to buy another and noone has the new revised version in stock! so not only has it only lasted 5 minutes i cannot replace it.

i dont know if i should buy another airport extreme and just use a usb hdd for my imac (i dont bother backing up my MBA) or spend the £££ on another timecapusule.

this has gone beyond a coincidence now me thinks. dodgy batch?

I just wanted to add a little hope to the thread. My (3/28/08) TC died this week. I called Apple support today and after explaining what happened, and having the rep run my through to normal trouble shooting routine (reset, etc.) he put me on hold for 5 minutes.

When he came back on he transferred me to a specialist who promptly told me they would send me out a new TC this week.