Be careful when purchasing 24" iMac 500 GB

[iShizzle]

Apple hasn't confirmed this but it appears as though there's a widespread problem with the 24" iMac shipped with the optional 500 GB HD's.

I've had a huge problem with my 24" iMac and it turns out that its 500 GB is corrupt, and the incident is far from isolated. The technician told me that it could take weeks before they could retrieve a "healthy" model. He furthermore told me that he's contacted Apple several times but they have failed to send a replacement unit because there's such high demand for it.

The French site hardmac.com also reports that Apple has a problem with shipping "healthy" 500 GB HD replacements.

If you're planning on purchasing a 24" iMac with a 500 GB HD, consider the other HD options because you'll most likely encounter HD problems.

 

[WizardHunt]

Apple hasn't confirmed this but it appears as though there's a widespread problem with the 24" iMac shipped with the optional 500 GB HD's.


If you're planning on purchasing a 24" iMac with a 500 GB HD, consider the other HD options because you'll most likely encounter HD problems.

Do you know the brand they are using?

 

[jcoop]

Do you know the brand they are using?

I suspect that Apple got a shipment or two of bum 500 GB drives, and that this was the reason for the recent delay of 9-11 business days for those that bought custom-configured iMacs with 500 GB drives. Tthe shipping delay is back to the usual 1-3 days, so I suspect the problem has been solved.

For what it's worth, my new 20" iMac, which arrived on Friday, has a 500 GB Hitachi drive.

 

[kixsand]

I find this interesting. My BTO iMac has a 500gb drive and is about 3 months old. Just the other day I had a problem with the drive ...invalid node structure...and it was rendered unreadable by OSX and irrepararable by Disc Utility. After a bit of stress and a $100 investment in data recovery software I was able to erase and reinstall the OS.

I'm worried that my problems aren't over yet -- especially after reading this post. Do you have any more details on the problem?

I bought an external back up drive so I'm not too worried about my data...just my time in dealing with the problem.

darren

 

[tops4u]

Hi,

I have had similar Problem (iMAC 24" about 1.5 Months old).

Sometimes it seems that the Harddisk "disconnects" the OS just "freezes" and the spinning Beachball is present. The only solution was to switch of by pressing the power Switch > 5secs.

This happend to me about 5 Times in total in various situations. Once this caused a major corruption of the disc structure which could only be fixed by entering Single User mode and using fsck -pfy

I think I'll be calling Apple soon to log the case and see what we can do about it. Additionally I have two dead pixel (at least they are not bright), and the humming display dimming problem.

As I have switched from Win to Mac, I'm still happy with Apple (HW defects happen everywhere) and I like the way of working with the mac.

I hope that I can solve this problem with Apple then the machine would be perfect (see also here : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/317874/)

Regards

tops

 

[kixsand]

I'm having the exact same issues...freezes up way more often than it should. I kinda thought that it might be related to my use of the migration assistant in transitioning from my old G4. I've had one crash since I had to erase the HD and reinstall from scratch.

What does Apple say when you talk to them about it?

I'm wondering if I should call them back.

darren

 

[iShizzle]

My problem was that the "spinning beach ball" would occur. This would happen while I was using f.ex. Safari, and then it would spread to all of the other applications.

First I thought it was because I transferred my old data from my old iMac G4 with the "migration assistant" but after a complete zero-out erase and reinstall of OS X I can safely rule out that it wasn't a software-issue. Also, I performed an Apple Hardware test, a surface scan and a HD-test but they failed to find anything wrong with the drive.

I took it to an Apple-authorized repaircenter but I was told recently that it could be weeks before Apple could ship new drives. My iMac is still at the shop.

I haven't heard from Apple concerning this matter.

If you're experiencing similar problems I'll advice you to contact Apple. It's unlike Apple to produce a machine that doesn't work "out-of-the-box".