Hard drive serious failure in just over year old imac HELP,,

S

Shocked2012

macrumors newbie
Bought my imac 27" in late December 2010. Ran disk utility for a routine check this weekend and the panel on the left showed 1tb in red and the message said should contact a technicia as my hard drive had a serious problem. The technician came today and said there is an electrical issue with my hard drive meaning the electricity does not reach the the hard drive correctly so need a new drive. He told us that this is quite normal in imac but not untilvafter 4 or 5 years. Has anyone heard of this issue and in particular after just little over a year of purchase.?*
 
Shocked2012 said:
Bought my imac 27" in late December 2010. Ran disk utility for a routine check this weekend and the panel on the left showed 1tb in red and the message said should contact a technicia as my hard drive had a serious problem. The technician came today and said there is an electrical issue with my hard drive meaning the electricity does not reach the the hard drive correctly so need a new drive. He told us that this is quite normal in imac but not untilvafter 4 or 5 years. Has anyone heard of this issue and in particular after just little over a year of purchase.?*
Click to expand...

Apple issued a recall on 1TB drives in iMacs. Enter your serial number on this page. If you are in the recall, they will replace it free of charge.

[URL="http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/"]Apple - Support - iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program[/URL]
 
The OP said he bought his Mac in 2010. The Apple Seagate replacement only applies to 2011 iMacs, fyi
 
Shocked2012 said:
Bought my imac 27" in late December 2010. Ran disk utility for a routine check this weekend and the panel on the left showed 1tb in red and the message said should contact a technicia as my hard drive had a serious problem. The technician came today and said there is an electrical issue with my hard drive meaning the electricity does not reach the the hard drive correctly so need a new drive. He told us that this is quite normal in imac but not untilvafter 4 or 5 years. Has anyone heard of this issue and in particular after just little over a year of purchase.?*
Click to expand...

1. I hope you have a backup of your hard drive. If not, _run_ to the nearest store, buy an external USB hard drive of sufficient size, attach it to your Mac, and use Time Machine to get a backup.

2. Any hard drive _will_ fail eventually. 16 months is a bit early. For advice who will pay for the hard drive replacement you should first post _where_ you are because it depends on the country.
 
I know it was for the '11 models. Doesn't hurt to check, since he has the 1TB drive. Do an immediate Time Machine backup, and call Apple at +1-800-SOS-APPL (+1-800-767-2775) and ask to speak with a supervisor or a senior advisor. I spoke with a supervisor named Ty the other day, he's very friendly. If you want his number and extension, I can give it to you.
 
Mine started going bad after two years. HDD's are subject to failure and often, very random at times.

I can't wait till SSD's become cheaper and start living up to their name of "reliability"
 
The apple SSD drive failed this weekend on my '11 imac. Got it in June and it didn't even last one year. Pretty poor reliability, all my other HDDs have lasted at least 4 years.
Should get it back by Wednesday from the apple store.
 
Melkorr said:
The apple SSD drive failed this weekend on my '11 imac. Got it in June and it didn't even last one year. Pretty poor reliability, all my other HDDs have lasted at least 4 years.
Should get it back by Wednesday from the apple store.
Click to expand...

That is what people call "bad luck". A fraction of hard drive will fail in the first year, you were just unlucky that your drive belonged to that fraction. I have an SSD which works great for over 2 years and I have had HDDs which died after two weeks.
 
Rebuttal

So here's where it becomes not bad luck.

Bought 27" Imac in Sept 2010 (i3, 1TB Seagate). Hard drive fails in March 2011. Still under warranty and so I take it to Apple store for a replacement. They replace the hard drive for free. I lose all my data, but that's my fault not theirs , since I didn't back it up.

Flash forward to now (as I'm typing). Two days of persistent hard drive volume errors, repaired with Disk Utility using the OS disk. Issue is still persisting and likely to get worse. The current symptom is that the Mac will freeze instead of sleeping and become unresponsive when reactivated. I'm forced to restart, manually, each time.

Of course I didn't buy AppleCare because what are the odds a replacement hard drive would fail as well, right? Luckily, I backed up all of my data this time, so it's more expensive and annoying than devastating (like the last failure).

Speculate all you want with the actual defect numbers but this is a design flaw pure and simple. Two hard drives fail in exactly the same way, in the same machine, extrapolate those odds. Stop letting Apple off the hook.
 
jaheidi05 said:
Of course I didn't buy AppleCare because what are the odds a replacement hard drive would fail as well, right? Luckily, I backed up all of my data this time, so it's more expensive and annoying than devastating (like the last failure).

Speculate all you want with the actual defect numbers but this is a design flaw pure and simple. Two hard drives fail in exactly the same way, in the same machine, extrapolate those odds. Stop letting Apple off the hook.
Click to expand...

If it was a design flaw then this would happen to every user, or most users. But if you think there is something wrong with your iMac making it it destroyer of disk drives, then the logical step would be to buy AppleCare after the first fault.
 
The IMacs run very hot, which does not help hard drive life. The issue though is not the failure, but the expense and inconvenience of replacement. It's design over practicality.
 
I have the impression that HDD's fail more nowadays than they used to. In all my previous PC's the HDD never failed and I owned these for 6-7 years each. But maybe I just have been very lucky :)
 
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