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Wyckedjunkie

macrumors member
Original poster
I stripped a screw in my macbook and I took it to the Apple store to see what they could do about it. They tried to extract it, however they stripped it even worse. Anyone have any options?
 
I've heard of people placing a rubber band over the stripped screw and then pushing the screwdriver into that. It should give you some extra friction.

Otherwise you may have to use an easy-out or drill the screw out an re-tap the hole.
 
There are numerous things you can do:

The rubber band trick sounds like it could work. Another solution is superglue/zapagap/whatever'ing the screwdriver into the head, and then unscrewing that way. If your screw is backed out a bit, take a dremel and cut a slit in the head so you can use a small flathead to unscrew it. If all else fails, I've had luck with drilling the head off (using a larger bit than the shaft) and then removing the shaft with needlenose pliers. I'd try that only as a last ditch effort, though, and even then with these tiny screws I'm not sure if that's a viable option.
 
If you can find a drill and bit small enough you could try an "easy out".


How did you strip it? over-tightening, or wrong tool?
 
I recently had the same issue and used a needle nose plyer to get it out. You can also try putting a flat head screw driver under the actual screw and was able to unscrew it that way. Anytime you encounter an issue like this try to avoid taking it to Apple..
 
What if I stripped the screw on the superdrive thats inside that small hole? How can I take the screw out if I cant have access to pry it out with pliers, flat screw driver, glue or a dremel tool? 🙁
 
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