MBP hard drive bust after two months

[dpo]

I bought a April 2010 MBP 13" 2.4 from Amazon.co.uk back in June.

The hard drive is definitely whacked. I have reformatted and reinstalled both from the install DVDs and an external HDD backup. Each time it was fine for a couple of days and then started playing up. Both Disk Utility and Disk Warrior have reported irrecoverable problems with the drive. (Can't help feeling that it was due to installing Macdrive on my Win7 partition, but I have no forensic evidence for this).

I did not buy any special Applecare cover or anything like that.

I certainly feel capable of changing the HDD myself (indeed I bought the bottom-end MBP with the intention of upgrading it myself to save on costs), but I wasn't expecting the default drive to blow out this soon.

Can anyone advise what will happen in this case if I send it back to Amazon or Apple, how long the process will take, will they just change the drive or change the machine, etc. Thanks.

 

[Hellhammer]

All Macs come with 1-year warranty. Just call Apple or visit the nearest Apple Store or authorized reseller and they will change the hard drive. If you can bring the MBP to them instead of shipping it, it shouldn't take more than a day or two depending on how busy they are. If you're lucky, they have the parts in stock and aren't busy and it will take like 20 mins to do.

 

[Covart]

I bought a April 2010 MBP 13" 2.4 from Amazon.co.uk back in June.

The hard drive is definitely whacked. I have reformatted and reinstalled both from the install DVDs and an external HDD backup. Each time it was fine for a couple of days and then started playing up. Both Disk Utility and Disk Warrior have reported irrecoverable problems with the drive. (Can't help feeling that it was due to installing Macdrive on my Win7 partition, but I have no forensic evidence for this).

I did not buy any special Applecare cover or anything like that.

I certainly feel capable of changing the HDD myself (indeed I bought the bottom-end MBP with the intention of upgrading it myself to save on costs), but I wasn't expecting the default drive to blow out this soon.

Can anyone advise what will happen in this case if I send it back to Amazon or Apple, how long the process will take, will they just change the drive or change the machine, etc. Thanks.

Doubt Amazon will deal with this, but please look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1434

You should have a service repair center near you??? Or call Apple and talk with one of their representatives to send it in for HDD fix or replacement. You are under 90 days still since time of purchase after all.

Also, you have registered your MBP online, correct?

 

[dpo]

Doubt Amazon will deal with this, but please look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1434

You should have a service repair center near you??? Or call Apple and talk with one of their representatives to send it in for HDD fix or replacement. You are under 90 days still since time of purchase after all.

Also, you have registered your MBP online, correct?

I haven't registered it online but will try to do so if you advise this.

I just contacted Amazon to see what they say.

The nearest service centre is an hour and a half's drive.

I am slightly reluctant to return it or leave it for servicing simply because, even in its broken state, the hard drive contained sensitive information. Obviously I can run a disk zeroing operation but how successful that is going to be here is debatable.

I think my original question was badly phrased: what I meant was, I was always planning to upgrade the hard drive myself anyway. So I could just swap it out. But could the fact that the first drive broke so soon indicate other, lateral problems with the machine? Should I just regard the whole thing as a bad apple, pun intended?

 

[Hellhammer]

what I meant was, I was always planning to upgrade the hard drive myself anyway. So I could just swap it out. But could the fact that the first drive broke so soon indicate other, lateral problems with the machine? Should I just regard the whole thing as a bad apple, pun intended?

Hard drives have fairly high failure rate, it's nothing extraordinary. It's unlikely that there is something wrong with the computer, it sounds like it's just the drive

 

[Covart]

I haven't registered it online but will try to do so if you advise this.

I just contacted Amazon to see what they say.

The nearest service centre is an hour and a half's drive.

I am slightly reluctant to return it or leave it for servicing simply because, even in its broken state, the hard drive contained sensitive information. Obviously I can run a disk zeroing operation but how successful that is going to be here is debatable.

I think my original question was badly phrased: what I meant was, I was always planning to upgrade the hard drive myself anyway. So I could just swap it out. But could the fact that the first drive broke so soon indicate other, lateral problems with the machine? Should I just regard the whole thing as a bad apple, pun intended?

You should always register your new Mac with Apple IMO.

As for the hard drive, in Disk Utility you can do a darn fine job wiping it clean. There is a 7 pass (same as what Dept of Defense does) and 35 pass options. Takes forever and a day to do this, but no one would be able to pull data after this.

But if you just want to put another drive in, there are plenty quality good ones out there for $50-$75 ranging from 320 to 500GB. Sounds like you just got a bad drive with the computer.

 

[ccashman92]

I bought a April 2010 MBP 13" 2.4 from Amazon.co.uk back in June.

The hard drive is definitely whacked. I have reformatted and reinstalled both from the install DVDs and an external HDD backup. Each time it was fine for a couple of days and then started playing up. Both Disk Utility and Disk Warrior have reported irrecoverable problems with the drive. (Can't help feeling that it was due to installing Macdrive on my Win7 partition, but I have no forensic evidence for this).

I did not buy any special Applecare cover or anything like that.

I certainly feel capable of changing the HDD myself (indeed I bought the bottom-end MBP with the intention of upgrading it myself to save on costs), but I wasn't expecting the default drive to blow out this soon.

Can anyone advise what will happen in this case if I send it back to Amazon or Apple, how long the process will take, will they just change the drive or change the machine, etc. Thanks.

Take it to Apple. You shouldn't have to come here and make a thread. If you are in warranty, take it to Apple. They will take care of it for free.

 

[dpo]

Take it to Apple. You shouldn't have to come here and make a thread. If you are in warranty, take it to Apple. They will take care of it for free.

I would certainly prefer to do this, but at the mo it means leaving my MBP (my only machine really) at a service centre for 5 days + time waiting for a replacement part. Not really an option.