Hard Drive Replacement at Apple Store?

[stark4]

i think my hard drive is dead because i cant boot up my macbook pro anymore and i got the folder with question mark flushing. I also try with the CD that came with the Macbook Pro but my Hard drive is not listed to fix it. So it might be dead. I have an apple care and I also set up the appointment with apple store.

But my question is if they have to replace the hard drive are they going to keep my old hard drive? I have some sensitive data on my hard drive like (Social Security Number, Credit reports, word documents and passwords). Even if the hard drive is dead someone might still be able to recover it. Should i just buy a new hard drive out of pocket and keep the non working hard drive and maybe destroy it by myself? or am i just too paranoid..?

Thanks

 

[rkaufmann87]

Apple is sensitive to your issue, you're like most people and keep some critical data on your computer. You can be sure the disk and the data on it will be responsibly destroyed. You can request the disk back however I doubt you will get it. The drive is covered by the manufacterer's warranty and Apple will need it for a claim. I doubt they physically return them to the manufacturer, I suspect the serial number is collected at a depot and reported to the manufacturer. Once this occurs this would trigger a credit to Apple and it's up to Apple to recycle the drive.

In short don't worry about it, Apple like all computer manufacturers is responsible about getting rid or storage media. Remember they have much more to lose then you do.

 

[techguy40]

I hope you have a backup clone HD that is bootable.

This way when Apple replaces the HD, you can boot from the backup clone HD and use superduper to clone it to the new internal HD on your Mac.

 

[rikscha]

when I had my HDD replaced by apple, I was allowed to keep my hard drive. the good thing about it? I put the HDD in an external enclosure and could recover it somehow (wouldnt work in my imac anymore)

I dont know if that is the normal case but I was very happy about it.

 

[dusk007]

If you cannot read the data from drive nor Apple with any kind of quick software fix because it really is dead. Then you can be pretty sure nobody else is going to.
Recovery of such harddrives is possible but really expensive. You'd really have to have some very valuable information on there and somebody needs to know about it for them even trying.
Kind of like the CIA wants to look into it because they think you leaked the cables to wikileaks. That is hundreds of the dollars minimum nobody tries without serious reason.

 

[croooow]

...You can be sure the disk and the data on it will be responsibly destroyed...In short don't worry about it...

Yeah, don't worry about it. Those hipsters who work at the Apple store are very responsible

I had a drive fail on me a while ago (using a Windows machine, but a hard drive is still a hard drive) and was able to recover every one of my files for free using TestDisk While exploring the files I saw a lot of files that were moved or deleted, so I could recover files that were "gone" even before the drive failed.

I suppose that my drive was not as dead as it could be but the OS would not see it (it was not a boot drive, just data) and would not even let me format it. TestDisk let me on there to recover data that was not backed up.

Reality check: The Apple store people deal with a lot of hard drives and other computer equipment and they do need to send the drive back to Apple for claim purposes. Like dusk007 said, unless someone has a real good reason to go after the data on your drive I would not think they would even bother. And once it gets to the real Apple (not just the retail store) they would not want to keep it around or let their customer's personal information get out there. That would be horrible for PR reasons and they are smarter than that.

 

[stark4]

Thanks for all the input.. How come rikscha was able to keep his old hard drive? What are the chance that they let me keep the Hard drive? I would like to put it in the enclosure also and recover as much data as possible. Thanks

 

[rkaufmann87]

Thanks for all the input.. How come rikscha was able to keep his old hard drive? What are the chance that they let me keep the Hard drive? I would like to put it in the enclosure also and recover as much data as possible. Thanks

You would need to ask rikscha to find out, however it doesn't hurt to ask. If declined ask them your original question.

 

[Deacon*]

Have you considered using a back up method (this will work in the future )

I use both time capsule (1TB) and I have a macbook HD in an external enclosure.

 

[Darien Red Sox]

When I took my sisters MacBook Pro into the apple to to have the hard drive replaced under Apple Care I was asked if I needed the drive for data recovery and they simply made the S/N on the dead drive and wrote on the box they were returning that I needed to keep the drive. They then told me about the free trial version of Data Rescue which lets you see what files you can recover before buying the software. In the end I was able to recover most of the data without needing any software.