Looking for experiences getting HDD replaced under AppleCare

[rweed]

Hi,
I have a late 2012 iMac with 3TB Seagate non-Fusion which is finally dying. My Seagate 3TB Time Machine drive only lasted 18 months. These 3TB drives are garbage. My iMac is not covered by the 3TB recall, but I am still covered under AppleCare.

I called Apple support tonight and the best they would do was schedule an appointment at the local store for tomorrow.

What I'm looking for is, what criteria does Apple use for replacing a drive? If "Disk Utility says it's okay" is the criteria, I'm screwed. Using smartmontools, I dumped the drive's SMART data and there are over 7000 reallocated sectors and over 4500 errors in the log. A bunch of the short/long tests have also failed.

Does Apple look at the SMART data? Does anyone know how they diagnose a drive?

Regards, Rick

 

[Gav2k]

They use a more detailed version of the Apple hardware test that's already installed on your machine which goes through the machines error logs etc and runs a set of tests on key components.

 

[rweed]

They use a more detailed version of the Apple hardware test that's already installed on your machine which goes through the machines error logs etc and runs a set of tests on key components.

Booted off a DVD/external drive?

 

[Gav2k]

Done over wifi

 

[rweed]

Took it in today. Fired up HDD diagnostics and boom, it failed immediately. They had a replacement in stock, too, which was cool. So, I should get it back in a few days.

 

[Gav2k]

Took it in today. Fired up HDD diagnostics and boom, it failed immediately. They had a replacement in stock, too, which was cool. So, I should get it back in a few days.

That's great.