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Cost of iMac HD repair?

N

nhexima

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 3, 2007
73
0
I took my aluminum iMac to an Apple Store today and had it diagnosed for a few hours - apparently the hard drive is physically fried and needs to be replaced. Sadly I'm a mere two months past warranty and didn't get Applecare - it seems like it was a lightning strike/surge that caused this.

How much as Apple or third parties charged typically for this kind of replacement? It's a 320GB standard SATA drive, I believe, my iMac is from late '07/early '08.

I'm going to call around local places today, but I'm wondering what the going rates are. Would be very helpful to know if I'm getting ripped off and what Apple charges. I did ask the tech, but he immediately referred me to an off-site third party place 30 minutes away, offering a "special discount", and the whole thing was a little sketchy. He did claim the cost of sending it to Apple for repair would be $375.
 
Jack Flash said:
Why not do it yourself?
Click to expand...

If you own a MacBook or a new MacBook Pro, do it yourself (or find someone who can hold a screwdriver without passing out in fear). With an iMac, let's say if you ask on MacRumors how much it should cost, you shouldn't try it yourself :)
 
Try calling around and finding a 3rd party apple authorized repair shop. In OKC, it would be promacs or the mac man in moore. They're usually cheaper than the apple store in doing repairs. I found the guys in the 3rd party shops have been doing this work for years or decades, so they've got a solid knowledge base.

Did the genius diagnose the rest of your system? If your rig took a lightning strike big enough to fry your hard drive, is the rest of the system working?

Sorry to hear about your bad news.
 
clyde2801 said:
Did the genius diagnose the rest of your system? If your rig took a lightning strike big enough to fry your hard drive, is the rest of the system working?
Click to expand...

I had a surge protector on (an old one) so I think it might have damaged a sensor or two, but it didn't kill the system, just made the hard drive start dying slowly, prevent boot up and other maladies. We were able to reimage the drive completely over netboot, but the after a fresh Mac OS X installation the system still wouldn't boot up completely. The rest of the system seems fine.

I called a separate store today, trying to get a quote, but they refused to give me one without bringing the machine in. I may want to call Apple directly but I'm afraid I'm going to get charged since I don't have Applecare anymore.
 
nhexima said:
I had a surge protector on (an old one) so I think it might have damaged a sensor or two, but it didn't kill the system, just made the hard drive start dying slowly, prevent boot up and other maladies. We were able to reimage the drive completely over netboot, but the after a fresh Mac OS X installation the system still wouldn't boot up completely. The rest of the system seems fine.

I called a separate store today, trying to get a quote, but they refused to give me one without bringing the machine in. I may want to call Apple directly but I'm afraid I'm going to get charged since I don't have Applecare anymore.
Click to expand...
If you're in Atlanta I will install the drive for free.

Seriously DIY! It's not difficult, just intimidating taking the front glass off.
 
miles01110 said:
This seems unnecessarily high. Swapping out a hard drive in an iMac is a half hour job if a tech does it carefully, and considering a decently sized new drive can be had for under ~$150, I have a hard time believing the labor is worth another $200+.
Click to expand...

I recently had my harddrive replaced under applecare. It was on the older white iMacs but apple were charging ~£110 for a 250GB 3.5" 7200rpm drive and then a further £74 for fitting. :eek:
 
Thanks - that seems to be in line with what I was quoted. I also just found this thread on Apple's forums that shows similar prices. It feels a little too high, though it includes the cost of the drive and shipping it back and forth, I believe. I would do it myself, but I'm very very paranoid about breaking the glass. I'll keep looking locally, thanks to all who replied in this thread.
 
I just called a local authorized repair center. $75 for the labor if you buy their drive. $125 if you buy your own drive. I would definitely keep looking.

Where are you located?
 
That's better than the (so far, only) quote I've received - $150 for labor (reasonable) + $150 for the drive (ridiculous). At least this place said they were fine with me bringing in my own drive, which I definitely will, considering it'll only cost $50-80 to order a better, bigger drive online. It's possible prices are higher where I live, north of NYC. I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of shops. At least I'm pretty assured that these prices will be a huge savings from the official route.
 
A small update for anyone interested - two other places I called wanted to charge upwards of $300 for the cost of the repair and the drive. Maybe they were just trying to match Apple's fees, but still way too much!
 
Before I brought it in, I did the OS X disc hardware check and it went okay. We were able to boot from a laptop and even image the machine, so I think the rest of the hardware should be fine... I hope. I'm wondering if I should bother to replace the power cable, which doesn't seem too easy to find.
 
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