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Macbook Hard Drive Failure Epidemic

Not buying Applecare for a laptop is extremely bad judgment imo.

I have not known one person with a HD failure on an Apple less than
3-4 years old.
 
papayafish said:
I asked the IT people at my high school about their experiences with Macbooks and they said 10/12 have had the exact same failure. Looking at the Apple forums, I've found many people with similar problems...it's funny how the topic on the apple.com forum with the same name as this is locked...no, it's actually really frustrating to me.
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Since you are going to high school, I would expect you to be reasonably educated and to be able to report something that you were told _with precision_. So what did your IT people tell you _exactly_? That out of 12 MacBooks that people bought 10 had exactly the same harddrive failure as yours, and only two are still working? Or that out of 12 MacBooks that failed 10 had the same failure as yours? Or that out of 12 MacBooks with harddrive failure 10 had the same failure? I hope you can see that would just make a little bit of difference, right?
 
skye12 said:
Not buying Applecare for a laptop is extremely bad judgment imo.
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I don't know; a replacement for my 60GB SATA internal harddisk would cost me £30.49 plus postage, and it's five minutes to put it in, so I could replace quite a few harddisks and still be financially ahead.
 
skye12 said:
Not buying Applecare for a laptop is extremely bad judgment imo.

I have not known one person with a HD failure on an Apple less than
3-4 years old.
Click to expand...

Not that I want to get into a pissing contest...but how exactly does AppleCare help them on their four year old laptops, then? It only lasts three years.
 
Multimedia said:
I can't believe in this day and age that any of you run your Macs without a UPS between them and the wall. They cost next to nothing and eliminate any chance of dirty power or surges ever getting near your Mac. :rolleyes: :eek:

Last week I bought Belkin 900VA 540 Watt UPS for $70 at Fry's. That's the kind of UPS that would keep a Mac Pro running for half an hour beyond total power failure.
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What? you caved and got a MP?, i thought you were waiting for Oakley+Seasburg or something like that. Lemme guess refurb MP?
 
JohnNotBeatle said:
I need an inexpensive portable printer that fits in my briefcase more.

Now, tape drives are another story.
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Funny you mention this. I just picked up a cannon ip90 and i do have to say its fantastic! Its technically for printing 4/6 photos but a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper fits just fine and prints fairly quickly in both b/w and color. The ink cartriges are very small but they are also very cheap and easily refillable with a home kit. I did get some free ones by complaining to cannon that the ones i got were defective in the package and they sent me a whole box full.

Also these powervault removable disk backups from dell, while not cheap, work extremely well for large sensitive backups and are rock solid reliable and they are fairly rugged. Restorations from "tape" have never been so easy.
 
skye12 said:
Not buying Applecare for a laptop is extremely bad judgment imo.

I have not known one person with a HD failure on an Apple less than
3-4 years old.
Click to expand...


If you are saying what I think you are saying, then now you know one. If not, then nevermind :p.
 
Another useless statistic

Out of all the Macbooks i've seen not one of them have had a harddrive failure. Therefore no macbook could ever have a harddrive failure :)
 
gnasher729 said:
Since you are going to high school, I would expect you to be reasonably educated and to be able to report something that you were told _with precision_. So what did your IT people tell you _exactly_? That out of 12 MacBooks that people bought 10 had exactly the same harddrive failure as yours, and only two are still working? Or that out of 12 MacBooks that failed 10 had the same failure as yours? Or that out of 12 MacBooks with harddrive failure 10 had the same failure? I hope you can see that would just make a little bit of difference, right?
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Since you're able to go online and type into a web browser, I would expect you to have a reasonable comprehension of the English language. How hard is it to understand that 10/12 Macbooks had the same HD failure that mine had? You've just stated the same fact thrice using different diction and as such, making no point whatsoever. Saying that out of 12, 10 had the same failure is the same as 10/12 failed in the same way. What point are you trying to make other than trying to insult others? None, you just look foolish.
 
papayafish said:
Since you're able to go online and type into a web browser, I would expect you to have a reasonable comprehension of the English language. How hard is it to understand that 10/12 Macbooks had the same HD failure that mine had? You've just stated the same fact thrice using different diction and as such, making no point whatsoever. Saying that out of 12, 10 had the same failure is the same as 10/12 failed in the same way. What point are you trying to make other than trying to insult others? None, you just look foolish.
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Ok this kid doesnt understand a whole lot. Just consider this case closed.
 
anothermacaddic said:
Ok this kid doesnt understand a whole lot. Just consider this case closed.
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Jeez, you're so defensive. What have you said to support this foregone conclusion? Switching the position of the main subject in a sentence doesn't change his point. Plus, you're clearly ignorant of what this issue is by offering no suggestion on what could be a cause of this.

Plus, see here, http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4782134 if you think I'm just making things up. Look around more on Google and you'll see many people with my same issue. I know it's not just me blowing hot air.

So defensive because maybe the hardware is flawed in some way. Get a grip. And yes, I get somewhat angry when people make assumptions like you.
 
I'm sending my HD to the manufactuer for a free warranty replacement this week. It's a Hitachi drive that replaced the original fialed Seagate. Hopefully the replacement drive won't fail as well, although if it does, I don't know what I'll do from that point.

At least I'm not like the guy who had five drives fail...talk about bad luck.
 
When you starting flaming everybody in your juvenile way people lost all interest in you and your bulls*** thread.

Nice work following yourself up like that. It will keep this thread alive for another 30 minutes.
 
papayafish said:
Since you're able to go online and type into a web browser, I would expect you to have a reasonable comprehension of the English language. How hard is it to understand that 10/12 Macbooks had the same HD failure that mine had? You've just stated the same fact thrice using different diction and as such, making no point whatsoever. Saying that out of 12, 10 had the same failure is the same as 10/12 failed in the same way. What point are you trying to make other than trying to insult others? None, you just look foolish.
Click to expand...

In the future, I'll t r y t o t y p e m u c h s l o w e r s o t h a t e v e r y b o d y u n d e r s t a n d s i t.

For your information: I stated three absolutely one hundred percent different interpretations. I'd like to see you in any statistics course. Not the slightest chance.
 
Ok your hard drive is messed up deal with it. Its not your fault, apples fault, nor anyone else's.

Now if that is a nice seagate you have there then i comes with a 5 year warranty that bypasses apples warranty anyway, send it back to the manufacturer, its the same thing apple is going to do just expect to pay postage witch last i checked was more than one drive is worth.

And try to ignore grammar nazi's and the new statistical analysis nazi's that are creeping in, they proberly think american english is correct spelling too.
 
Actually apple rebranded seagate drives are covered by Apple's warranty and not by seagates. Just try returning one directly, they'll send you right on to apple.
 
My two pennies worth

Just thought I'd add to what has been already posted about these Seagate drives. I work for a data recovery company in the UK and we have seen loads of these seagate drives, mostly from Macbooks and Macbook Pros. There does appear to be a defective batch of drives in circulation and it is just very unlucky that apple used them in their machines. They are not alone as the drives are also in thinkpads and other PC laptops. No amount of testing by apple would have shown up the fault with these drives as they only seem to fail after 6 months to a year. Only Seagate themselves could have tested the drives to such a level. We posted an article on our blog about the problem and also have a photograph of the inside of one of these drives after it has failed.

The problem with the Hitachi drives is different entirely. These drives appear to have bad media (platters). This means that we can usually recover data but it can take a while. We have only received a handful of these Hitachis compared to tens of the Seagates.

The only way to avoid a problem like this is by having a rock solid backup system. Hopefully Leopard with Time Machine will get more people backing up more regularly.

Sorry for blabbing on but I though someone might be interested.

http://www.dq-int.co.uk/blog/2007/07/19/seagate-momentus-drive-failures/
 
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gnasher729 said:
I don't know; a replacement for my 60GB SATA internal harddisk would cost me £30.49 plus postage, and it's five minutes to put it in, so I could replace quite a few harddisks and still be financially ahead.
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That is true, but there is other failures than the harddisk. My Macbook is on its third motherboard. I think that have repaid my Applecare quite well.

I think the best thing about Applecare is that you do not have to worry. Everytime my motherboard died, I just call Apple and they said "Oh you have Applecare" and then no questions, they just fixed it.
 
Now if that is a nice seagate you have there then i comes with a 5 year warranty that bypasses apples warranty anyway, send it back to the manufacturer,
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i bought a macbook first gen that had a hard drive failure. it had a seagate drive made in 2006 and so i visited the seagate website and put in the model and serial number. but the result said that it was not warrantied. hmmm, i wonder if the 5 year warranty applies and if so, how does one get it.

i put in a hitachi harddrive from another macbook and now it's seems to slowly be exhibiting some difficulty accessing the hard drive. hmm...? why is it the sleek macbooks/ibooks/pros have problems but the sleek pc laptops don't seem to as much?

perhaps with this lovely black macbook which is so silent, i will need to buy a new seagate that actually have a 5 year warranty and keep my data off the hard drive onto an external hard drive or flash drive.
 
There does appear to be a defective batch of drives in circulation and it is just very unlucky that apple used them in their machines. They are not alone as the drives are also in thinkpads and other PC laptops. No amount of testing by apple would have shown up the fault with these drives as they only seem to fail after 6 months to a year. Only Seagate themselves could have tested the drives to such a level. We posted an article on our blog about the problem and also have a photograph of the inside of one of these drives after it has failed.
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the seagate momentus that i removed from the failed macbook was of the first listed model: ST98823AS. is there any way to get seagate to warranty it?
 
oneearth said:
the seagate momentus that i removed from the failed macbook was of the first listed model: ST98823AS. is there any way to get seagate to warranty it?
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No, because the HDs that we get are OEMs, so Seagate doesn't cover it. Hey, right now, I'm on my 3rd hard drive from Apple. You know how much it pisses me off when I have to go to the Apple Store and get a replacement. If my HD fails the next time (which would be the 3rd repair/4th Hard Drive), I'm demanding a new computer.
 
My hard drive failed a month after my applecare was up. I didn't know that I had to renew my applecare before the one year was up so I put it low on my priority list. After my hard drive failed I just bought a new one because I needed a working laptop right away but now it hits me that my hard drive should not have died only after a month after a year of production. I am greatly upset with the quality that they put into these macbooks. I have had quite a few problems with mine(in order of occurrence): battery failure, staining top cover, hard drive failure, cracking top cover, now flickering screen.
 
Leopard and harddrive failures ???

Hi, I'm new to the forum and I would like to share my experience with my toy macbook (white core duo 2 ghz 2gb 60 gb hdd)

I have used the whitebook flawlessly for about a year and I was jus beginning to think steve jobs was indeed right about his claims.

Ok then jobs came up with the so called revolutionary leopard. and
I had to upgrade from tiger and I did so. one week after my upgrade (pirated copy of leopard due to my lac of funds at the time) I saw the folder with a q mark at the boot screen. I took the whitebook to apple and the happily changed the hdd as they did not have 60 gigs anymore so they gave me a 80 gig version. I has happy the tech guy was happy and my whitebook was happy with tiger.

but I could not stop my self and the devil pushed me to insert the burn.sparceimage dvd bask in to the drive so I had the wonderful leopard back again.

3 days later my drive just stopped responding and my apple care was past deadline so just bought a 160 gig sata II samsung and replaced the drive, the same story again when I have the tiger the drive is happy when I have the pirated leopard the hdd dies again.

I know there will be people preaching me to buy a legal version I did so from ebay for 70 bucks, but I still have a dead drive in my book.

I wonder if this happened from a virus like thing implemented to the pirated leopard or do you guys think my book just has a bad habit of frying the hdd.

I appreciate any ideas on the matter. thank you


Santa Rosa said:
Either sounds like you are really unlucky or you're a bit rough with your Mac. My flatmates Macbook has never missed a beat and he uses it everywhere, all day, everyday.

The thinkpad isnt a nice thought is it!!!

Hope your luck changes!!! :)
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My MacBook has a Fujitsu HD and I've never used one. When it dies I'm getting a Seagate HD as that's all I really have used lately.
 
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