All 4 HD's i've bought either don't initialize or wont format

[ekwipt]

ahhhhh........ now that's over

I bought 1 x raptor 150Gb, 3 x Samsung 1Tb.

The raptor and one of the samsungs won't even initialize and the ther other two samsungs wont format.

And when i woke up this morning the other Samsung has reproted a fatal hardware error to disk utilities

What's the chances of the macpro stuffing the drives as I put them in or do you think they all could have been damaged during shipment (unlikely)... maybe the box was dropped by the courier?

Was formatting does everyone use?

Mac os extended (journalled) for boot drives and mac os extended for data drives

2008 Mac Pro so i'm using the GUID formatting table

Q2.

If i want to make a bootable copy of my system drive do I have to format it 1st as aMac os extended (journalled =) drive 1st before running carbon copy cloner?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Well of course there's a chance that they were damaged in transit.
And there's a chance, although vanishingly small, that something about the MacPro is damaging the drives.
And there's a chance that you were shipped defective product.
And there's a chance you are somehow not installing the cables correctly.

Where did you get them from (please don't say eBay..)

A reputable seller should have no problem taking DOA product back for exchange or refund.

 

[DoFoT9]

thats a shame man. i guess that it could be the MP. i dont know what else it could be...

transit might have caused it.

refund refuned refund!

 

[ekwipt]

There are no cables on a mac pro...

I'm going to ring tech support to see if it's a known issue

edit: It's at a service centre now, it went up to the next level of tech support and they couldn't work it out, will post back when i know more

 

[ekwipt]

Well it's a full replacement of th logic board and power supply. The guy at the apple service centre wanted to DOA but after talking with the applecare on the phone they told me it was 3 days over their DOA period. Which i feel sux. It's like buying anew car and having the dealership tell me "hey were doing you a big favour by installing you a new motor and running gear"

Also the macpro was probably the reason the HDs burnt out, luckily my local pc shop was more approachable than apple and were happy to replace the drives under warranty.

All in all I have to say that my Mac experience has not been a happy one.

Thanks for everyone helping me with my configuration of mac pro on these forums, but here's a little warning for anyone buying a macpro.

Buy everything that you plan on buying for the macpro before you receive it and test thoroughly, before 10 days are up.

 

[DoFoT9]

Well it's a full replacement of th logic board and power supply. The guy at the apple service centre wanted to DOA but after talking with the applecare on the phone they told me it was 3 days over their DOA period. Which i feel sux. It's like buying anew car and having the dealership tell me "hey were doing you a big favour by installing you a new motor and running gear"

Also the macpro was probably the reason the HDs burnt out, luckily my local pc shop was more approachable than apple and were happy to replace the drives under warranty.

All in all I have to say that my Mac experience has not been a happy one.

Thanks for everyone helping me with my configuration of mac pro on these forums, but here's a little warning for anyone buying a macpro.

Buy everything that you plan on buying for the macpro before you receive it and test thoroughly, before 10 days are up.

aaaahhh stop worrying. your just one of the unfortunate ones that haven't had a good experience because of a very uncommon failure.

dont worry you will be extremely appreciative soon with your power machine. im very jealous. if u dont like it u can give it to me!!!

 

[benpatient]

aaaahhh stop worrying. your just one of the unfortunate ones that haven't had a good experience because of a very uncommon failure.

dont worry you will be extremely appreciative soon with your power machine. im very jealous. if u dont like it u can give it to me!!!

except, of course, for the guy on these forums who just sent back his 4th 2008 mac pro due to hardware failures, and the other guy who is on his third one.

i must say that my 08 mac pro has had the most unexplained problems of any mac I've ever used. It's my first long-term experience with Leopard, too, though, so it might be more down to the OS than the machine in my case.

I have to resist the urge to throw something at the TV every time that Mac commercial where they make fun of PC for "upgrading" to XP from Vista comes on. Honestly, I think leopard/tiger is on par with vista/xp where the problems are concerned.

I have one PC and 2 macs at home, and a mac at work, and the only problem I had with Vista was that my secondary sound card doesn't have drivers, and one of my network ports stopped working.

I've had to wipe my mac pro at home twice to try and get time machine and spotlight to work at the same time. I've given up on time machine since then, and that made life easier, but now it's back to manual backups. I gave up when my initial backup of 200gb of data was 3gb done after 24 hours of "working." And my time machine backup drive is an internal SATA!

Sorry to hear about your issues. Apple isn't the company they used to be.

If you get a working replacement, though, the Mac Pro is hella fast.

 

[gibbz]

I don't know about Apple not being the company it used to. What is the saying, if people have something negative happen with a business they on average will tell 10 people about their experience, whereas if someone has a positive experience, they are only likely to tell 1-2 people.

These forums aren't filled with threads titled "My Mac has no problems". Conversely, they are filled with "HELP!!!! Mac Pro won't work!!!". There is an infinite majority of people who have had great experiences with their Mac Pro (myself included) as compared to those with problems, hands down, no question.

 

[f1]

I skimmed through this thread really quickly, maybe i'm missing something, although this situation is strange as hell, i don't see how the Mac Pro itself damaged the hard drive

 

[oban14]

I skimmed through this thread really quickly, maybe i'm missing something, although this situation is strange as hell, i don't see how the Mac Pro itself damaged the hard drive

He put four brand new hard drives into a new Mac Pro. All four hard drives got fried. Apple has now agreed to replace his motherboard and power supply, and he's getting all the drives replaced.

So either it's a random coincidence that all four hard drives died on the same day, or they were ALL damaged during shipping (unlikely) or the Mac Pro fried them all.

I don't think it's that hard to follow, skimming or no.

 

[DoFoT9]

except, of course, for the guy on these forums who just sent back his 4th 2008 mac pro due to hardware failures, and the other guy who is on his third one.
...

well to those people that have sent back their 4th/3rd machine, thats very unfortunate. its not like this happens every single time. so apple got a bad batch of motherboards?? or a bad batch of hard drives? its not their fault the company they bought them from should have tested them properly (i spose apple probably should have tested them too).

i COMPLETELY disagree with you on the fact that leopard is on par with vista's problems in relation to tiger/xp. i am even offended (). i have never experienced the problems you have had, i havent even had a kernel panic yet. ive had other programs freeze it, but not any mac built programs. from my experience NOTHING is as bad as vista on this planet. i installed it on parallels, just as it finished installing i went to hit "start" and i got BSOD. couldnt believe it. so i deleted it.

and no, apple isnt the company they used to be. intel helped make them worse.

I don't know about Apple not being the company it used to. What is the saying, if people have something negative happen with a business they on average will tell 10 people about their experience, whereas if someone has a positive experience, they are only likely to tell 1-2 people.

These forums aren't filled with threads titled "My Mac has no problems". Conversely, they are filled with "HELP!!!! Mac Pro won't work!!!". There is an infinite majority of people who have had great experiences with their Mac Pro (myself included) as compared to those with problems, hands down, no question.

thats a good point. i bet the 30,000++ people who are happy with their MP's havent posted on here. its just 'gotten' a bad name because of the amount of people that have had a bad experience

 

[ekwipt]

He put four brand new hard drives into a new Mac Pro. All four hard drives got fried. Apple has now agreed to replace his motherboard and power supply, and he's getting all the drives replaced.

So either it's a random coincidence that all four hard drives died on the same day, or they were ALL damaged during shipping (unlikely) or the Mac Pro fried them all.

I don't think it's that hard to follow, skimming or no.

Exactly, I'm just lucky the guy who i bought the hard drives was cool about it all.

 

[ekwipt]

Well got my macpro back, it was indeed a faulty logic board. The tech at the service center said it was more than likely (read it was the mac pros fault) that all four hard drives failed.

So a little warning for all new macpro 2008 users... **** happens.

What do you guys think about apples reluctance to even talk about compensation for the hard drives, what if the pc supplier of the drives didn't swap the drives as it was the fault of the macpro. i'd be down $1000 dollars...

I know what if, hey at least you got everything back and it's all working now.

As a consumer i expect more after paying this much for a system, last night while trying to format the drives, i was hoping nothing would fail or stuff up.

I shouldn't have to hope, it should "JUST WORK"

 

[CWallace]

What do you guys think about apples reluctance to even talk about compensation for the hard drives, what if the pc supplier of the drives didn't swap the drives as it was the fault of the macpro. i'd be down $1000 dollars...

Well the original HDD Apple shipped with the machine obviously worked, so Apple might very well feel that it was adding those four non-Apple drives that caused the logic board to fail which then fried your HDDs. Since they couldn't prove it, they were obligated to repair the system from a contractual (warranty).

If you had bought the drives from Apple (as a BTO), they'd all be covered under both the basic warranty as well as AppleCare (if purchased). However, third-party add-ons are (usually) explicitly excluded.