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Macbook hard drive issues...

A

AlunJ

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 14, 2008
12
0
Hi guys, bought a refurbed whitebook towards the end of last year. I was happy with it until february of this year when it stopped booting to mac osx, to which the apple store confirmed was a failure of the hard drive, which they replaced. Not more than a week later, same symptoms, apple store replaced hard drive again. Now to top it off a week after having it back again, I am having the same problems and it again refuses to boot into osx. This time I had the sense to install bootcamp and windows vista, which funnily enough boots up fine, and using mac drive I can read the mac hfs partition, and have also checked the smart status of the drive which reports its status as good.
I'm getting a little annoyed now as I didn't shell out good money to use windows on my macbook which is surely understandable, and its costing me money going back and forth to bristol - my local apple store. Would it be reasonable of me to ask for an entire replacement computer as surely there is something more wrong than a faulty hard drive?
 
I believe that Apple's policy is when they've worked on the same issue 3 times or more, they usually will replace your unit. You can definitely give them a call and ask them straight up about what you should do, but I think you have a good chance of getting a replacement... unless there's just something that YOU're doing wrong with the machine.
 
I was going to say the same thing as VSMacOne. Three times servicing the same thing constitutes a lemon, and they'll replace the whole unit. When you talk to them, mention this. Be calm but firm.
 
I'm quite technically minded even if I haven't had a mac long, i've been a long suffering PC user for years and know pretty much what to do in every situation there.... so I don't imagine I'm doing much wrong (I hope)

I've booked into the genius bar for saturday afternoon so will be popping on the train to drop by after work, hopefully they will replace the unit, as I can't keep going on like this.

thanks for the advice both
 
AlunJ said:
Would it be reasonable of me to ask for an entire replacement computer as surely there is something more wrong than a faulty hard drive?
Click to expand...

Even though you bought a refurbished model, you are still entitled to the same 1 year factory warranty as a new model. With this story including documentation and your broken MB, I would make yet another trip to Bristol and ask to speak to a manager. Let him know that you're unhappy and be firm but don't act rude or loud. My guess is you have a great possibility of walking out with a new machine. If this doesn't work, contact Apple Customer Service with your story that now includes the added last visit with the store manager. You just might have a machine shipped to you and a return box for the broken one. The key is, Apple doesn't have any unhappy customers and they don't want to start with you.

Good luck to you -GDF
 
The hard drive died on my mom's white macbook a few times as well. Here is a question for you: When you close the lid to put the machine to sleep, do you leave it at rest until the status light starts throbbing or do you immediately move or toss it into your bag?

The period between shutting the lid and the throbbing light is the most vulnerable time for your HD. This is when the memory is being written to your HD so it is still moving. You wouldn't toss your computer around if it were running, but you probably don't realize that it still IS running.

My mom didn't realize this for a while and lost 2 drives. Now she is more careful.
 
I always shut it down fully if i'm honest same as I have always done my pc/windoze laptop.

Well will follow everyones advice and hopefully walk away with a new one, will let you know how it goes.
 
Just a little update on the situation, finally got round to getting down to the apple store. The genius managed to get into osx, but wasn't happy that the problem was fixed, especially as replacing the hard drive seems to be a short term fix. They took it in for further testing, thinking that the logic board or ram might be causing problems. Anyhow, received a call earlier today saying he had found bad sectors on the hard drive so that was faulty as well, that I had two options 1.) They could replace the logic board, memory and hard drive, 2.) They would give me a new machine.

Asked for a new machine, and as my exact model doesn't retail any more he told me it would have to be the newer aluminium model (which I was more than happy to accept - I don't use firewire so not going to bother me in that aspect)

So soon to be sorted :) :apple:
 
true to their word yesterday I picked up a unibody 2.4Ghz macbook, very happy with that, just goes to show apple are a fantastic company to deal with even if it has taken so long to get sorted once and for all.
 
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