Hard Drive showing signs of failure

[rlav]

I have a white macbook, which still has around 6 months of applecare.

Twice in the last few months I have had my hard drive start making a clicking noise and then the computer will not do anything. I force shut it down and then try to restart, this fails, and sometimes show the flashing folder and "?" icon. After waiting about 30 minutes the computer will boot as normal. I have a good back up of everything, but I would prefer not to have to deal with replacing the hard drive during the upcoming semester.

If anyone has experience with this do you know if Apple will replace the hard drive even though the S.M.A.R.T status is verified and the computer appears to function normally at the current time.

 

[axu539]

Clear signs of an impending hard drive failure. I would be safe and take it to the Apple store for a replacement. Possibly make a bootable backup with carbon copy cloner so that your restore is a little bit easier once the drive is replaced.

 

[akhbhaat]

On one hand, Applecare should cover it.

On the other hand, hard drives are just about the cheapest major component you can replace, and it may well be worth it to buy an upgraded aftermarket HDD on your own dime and change it out yourself. A nice 7200 RPM laptop drive shouldn't run more than $50. That's probably what I would do.

 

[rlav]

On one hand, Applecare should cover it.

On the other hand, hard drives are just about the cheapest major component you can replace, and it may well be worth it to buy an upgraded aftermarket HDD on your own dime and change it out yourself. A nice 7200 RPM laptop drive shouldn't run more than $50. That's probably what I would do.

I thought about that, but this is a 2.5 year old machine so I was hoping to not put any money into it especially seeing that I am not even using half of the current drive and I have no complaints on the speed of the current drive.

I did the Carbon Clone tonight and have an appointment at the Apple store tomorrow, and if they can do it overnight I was going to let them fix it. If not, I will probably look further into replacing it myself because I can't afford to have them ship it out for a week with classes going on until the middle of may.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[rlav]

Well I took it into the apple store and after waiting a while because of the post-holiday rush they ran a few tests on the hd, and said it was showing several signs of impending failure and that they would replace it under applecare.

The guy then said it was 3-5 days because of the holiday backlog, and I explained that I was taking classes and could not afford to be without my computer. He went to look up other local repair centers in the area and when doing so came across a HD that already had Leopard on it and that he could drop it in for me within the hour.

Sure enough 10 minutes later I get a call on my phone telling me I can pick it up. I get home and place my disk image on the new HD, and everything is as good as new.

The bottom line is problem is fixed and the customer service at the Annapolis store was very good despite the store being incredibly busy.